This is an issue that I’ve been working on for a long time. As a doc, I love to see people become more active. We spend most of our time sitting – at work, at home, in cars. The last thing we need to do is use our health promotion dollars to promote yet another way to sit – on ATV’s and snowmobiles. But that is exactly what Nova Scotia has done over the last 15 years or more.
This post is an edited version of a letter I sent to CBC radio. I hope more people think about and discuss this issue, and put pressure on our government to stop being stupid with our hard-earned tax dollars.
As a side note, are you aware that NS is now “on the outs” with the Trans Canada Trail society for taking money that was supposed to be for hiking and walking trails and using it for ATV’s and snowmobiles? Tons of people contributed to the TCT over the years after getting brochures showing happy families hiking and cycling through the woods, only to find their money went to ATV groups. Not cool!
For anyone who has ever tried to run or cycle on an ATV trail and not been able to because of the ruts, or has almost been killed when cross-country skiing by a snowmobile coming faster than someone would drive on the 401, or has breathed in the fumes of a group of 10 ATV’s as they idle, it’s pretty obvious to see that motorized trails are not easy to “share” for non-motorized users. And for someone like me who’s looked after dozens of people seriously injured from riding ATV’s, snowmobiles, and dirt bikes, the fun-to-danger balance is obviously questionable.
And getting down to one of the main reasons I think that encouraging ATVing and snowmobiling doesn’t count as “health promotion”: driving a motorized vehicle just ain’t exercise.
(Aside: I’ve met fit people who drive minivans, but they didn’t get fit from driving a minivan. Similarly, I’ve met some fit ATVers but they didn’t get fit from that activity, despite some claims to the contrary):
http://www.atvbc.ca/stories/new-atv-study-show-health-welfare-benefits-atv-use
Perhaps not surprisingly, the funding for this study was provided by an association of ATV manufacturers.
I was an assistant reviewer in a paper that debunked this:
www.acadiau.ca/~bissix/Disputing_the_Claims.pdf
Our paper made much less news than Burr’s, as we didn’t have the promotion power of a multi-billion dollar industry behind us!)
And finally I’ll get to my letter to CBC:
I was listening to your discussion a few weeks back with Lynn Baechler regarding the vision for a trail that would follow the shores of the Bras D’Or lakes.
You two had discussed the necessity of including ATV groups, stating that they do the bulk of the work on many trails and therefore need to be included.
There are a few issues that seem to be misunderstood over and over with the discussion of trail building here in NS.
First, ATV groups have done the bulk of the work because they have gotten all of the funding. Not because cyclists or hikers or horse riders are somehow lazy people, or unwilling to do the work. When was the last time that a cycling or hiking group got a grant for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to do work on trails? This financial discrepancy is somewhat self-perpetuating, since motorized groups use some of their grant money to hire paid staff. This then gives them the capacity to watch for and pursue further grant opportunities.
The ongoing push to support ATVing and snowmobiling is very odd. I have nothing against them. My nephews are avid motorized vehicle riders and they are great people. That said, ATVing and snowmobiling have no exercise benefit, and a high risk of injury. (One of my nephews has a permanent limp from a very serious dirt bike accident). So supporting them with government money is odd. We are unique here in NS in our support of motorized trails (not “shared” – motorized is motorized) over non-motorized. In NS, government support of ATV’s and snowmobiles has been so extreme that they have even used money earmarked for “Health Promotion” to promote off-road motorized interests. Not coincidentally, much of this foolishness started and/or accelerated when Barry Barnett was our minister for Health Promotion and Protection back in the Rodney MacDonald years. Barry was an avid ATVer who became the head of ATVANS (The ATV Association of NS) immediately after being voted out of office.
The party line here in Nova Scotia has continued to be “shared use”. Simply put, motorized interests state that they are willing to share trails with non-motorized interests, if only those hoity-toity cyclists and hikers could learn to share as well as they could.
But let’s look at reality. ATV’s and snowmobiles are now very high-performance. How many parents want their kids biking on a trail with vehicles capable of reaching well over 100km/hr? And ATV’s have the unfortunate side effect of digging ruts in the trails which renders them very difficult to use for hikers or cyclists. The noise and pollution of motorized vehicles make the experience much less enjoyable for those who are looking for a quiet day out in the country hearing the birds and smelling the trees. So “shared use” actually means “motorized” for all intents and purposes.
About 5% of Nova Scotians own an ATV or snowmobile. Well over 50% own a bike, and over 80% like to walk or hike. So for me it’s not hard to see where we should focus our efforts and tax dollars. It needs to be remembered that the money it costs to buy, license, maintain, and fuel these motorized vehicles means that they are toys of the financially advantaged. As a matter of social equity we should be focusing money on walking and cycling.
This is a plea that in the future, when discussing trail development, rather than describing ATVers and snowmobilers as white knights, without whom we would not have any trails, we should realize that Nova Scotia is the only province with such a unique and illogical financial focus on motorized users.
Musings of a medical heretic 
We have talked about this lots, but just as an update: I was walking along the rail trial in Waterville a week or so ago, and stepped aside (as one has to do at least twice per half hour during business hours on a weekday on this trail – I can’t imagine what it must be like on a weekend) for a motorized vehicle. I noticed the driver stopped a hundred metres up the trail – to SMOKE A CIGARETTE! The trails in New Minas where I used to hike, x-c ski, and mtb, are long stillwaters now: dug out by ATVs. The boggy forest is just not firm enough to support constant use by heavy vehicles.Interesting to note that those trails were originally created by farmers logging with horses, and lasted a century or more as passable paths.