[Neil E.]

Thought you might like to hear the outcome of this study. Time and again these groups go ahead and just ignore the results.

Here are some comments (in quotes) by Ken Hoeverman of the OFTR:
OFTR = Ontario Federation of Trail Riders
ORM = Off Road Motorcycle

Haliburton County Rail Trail Community Engagement Strategy

Results and Recommendations presented to the Economic Development Committee

March 14, 2012

Kate Hall presented the results and recommendations of the Rail Trail Task Group today based on the most recent public on-line survey.

Slide #3 states there is support for creative solutions to Shared Use.

Question #5 of the survey asked? Would you support re-routing non-motorized use to alternate routes or new routes on crown land?
Question #6 of the survey asked? Would you support re-routing motorized use to alternate routes or new routes on crown land?

Ken answered Yes to both questions.

The report reads people want concrete solutions to resolve conflicts of use such as: Re-Routing motorized uses onto crown land.

Somehow support of this notion became a demand to re-route motorized uses.

Slide #3 also states high support for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing to be permitted?

Well of course we all support them, Shared use is Shared Use and no need to qualify what user group thought this is a good idea.

Slide #4 states there was 83% support for ORMs on the trail.

Rather than accept the numbers, Kate thought it was important to mention that motorized users dominated the number of responses at 89%.

Numbers count and thanks a lot for taking the time to complete the survey. Even with an overwhelming majority of the responses supporting ORMs on the trail, Slide #5 recommends to not permit additional uses. Does that make sense?

The rest of the slides and recommendations are all predictable and are most are already mentioned in the Rail Trail Master Plan from January 2004 in Section 10.

Section 10.1 recommends access for ORMs and Section 10.5 set the condition - get organized, form a club and buy insurance. We did that and were approved for use in April 2009 (Read the Article) after a Public Consultation.

At the last public meeting, it was noted that only 25.6% of the participants had read the Rail Trail Master Plan adopted by County Council in 2005.

It seems the Task Group has either come to the same conclusions via this expensive process or decided to read the results from the first expensive process.