Who should pay for trail building and maintenance in Squamish? Should taxpayer money go toward the trails infrastructure, just like it does toward Brennan Park Recreation Centre? Or should the district charge event participants for the trails?
Last week Mind Over Mountain Adventure Racing (MOMAR)'s organizer announced he was moving the event to Burnaby. On Tuesday (Jan. 18) B.C. Bike Race organizers reminded District of Squamish council how much free tourism marketing events provide.
Trails maintenance is hot topic in Squamish and during the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (SORCA) annual general meeting Monday (Jan. 17), the club made a bold move toward asking day-tripping mountain bikers to contribute to the cause.
SORCA president David Gillie on Thursday (Jan. 20) said the organization plans to sell annual trail passes for non-locals with funds going directly towards trail building and maintenance.
The board also decided to put $15 of each SORCA member's fee in 2011 toward the trails system.
"This is a strategy to get non-locals, who come for the day to use the town's infrastructure and trails, contributing," Gillie said. "We'll be selling the passes at the bike shops, the grocery stores and kiosks at trailheads to try to get more of a financial input from them [day-trippers]."
The annual passes will be stickers that riders can put on their helmets and will cost between $20 and $25, according to Gillie. He said there's no way to enforce the pass; he's just hoping people will be willing to donate.
"We're just hoping that when people come and enjoy the trails we have they'll be keen to contribute," he said. "We'll be putting some kiosks up and explain what to people what we're doing and we're just hoping that people, instead of getting that extra beer after the ride, would just contribute to the trails they've just enjoyed."
The kiosks would be permanent structures set up at trailheads - Gillie suggested one at the end of Perth Drive, one in Diamondhead and one in Valleycliffe.
B.C. Bike Race (BCBR) organizers Tom Skinner and Dean Payne are glad that dialogue about trails is taking place in communities across B.C.
"We all agree trails are an asset that's valuable to our community and we can't just depend on volunteers for that. These trails need to be maintained and built to current standards," Skinner said. "The exciting thing is that we're recognizing that.
"Building trails is a craft that people should be and are getting paid for - that's the future of building trails right, and now the question is, 'Where is the money going to come from?'"
Skinner and Payne acknowledged money needs to come from somewhere, but suggested communities make it as easy as possible to host events.
They don't discount Squamish's contribution toward their event - for the past three years BCBR riders have named Squamish their favourite stop on the seven-day adventure.
"Squamish has been voted No. 1 by our participants for the last three years," said BCBR president Payne. "People love Squamish. The trails are unbelievable."
"People" in this case aren't just British Columbians -less than 50 per cent of BCBR participants are from Canada as the rest travel from Europe, Africa, New Zealand and elsewhere to take part in "The Ultimate Singletrack Experience."
Nonetheless, as MOMAR organizer Bryan Tasaka pointed out last week, the red tape that accompanies the stunning viewscapes and epic trails doesn't make Squamish the most enjoyable venue for race organizers.
"It was a lot of work to get all the permits from the private landholders and Crown land," said Tasaka in a statement. "Todd Pope at the District was extremely helpful in providing contact information for the private landholders, but that list in addition to the tenure holder list from the Province was upwards of 15-20 permits.
"This was easily the most permits/permission letters that we have ever had to get for a MOMAR - by comparison, Cumberland only requires three permits and Burnaby is two."
Skinner said that for an event like BCBR, where 500 racers ride trails in six communities, Squamish accounts for a lot of paperwork.
He said Squamish's is by far the most expensive and time-consuming leg of the race to organize. Whereas other communities are rolling out the red carpet to entice such events into their areas, Squamish is adding $5 event rider fee to the equation.
"Squamish may be the riders' favourite but some towns cost us zero and they really want us there," Skinner said. "We love being there and it's easier for us to be there. It doesn't mean we don't enjoy being in Squamish, it just happens to be more expensive."
Both agreed the dialogue surrounding the $5 user fee is a step in the right direction, but suggested there might be other, more productive ways to pay for trail maintenance and in fact, suggested SORCA's latest initiative.
If every community the BCBR visits charged a $5 user fee, it would be $20,000 more overall for the event.
"So it's about precedent," Payne said. "If this is going to be the standard in each town, it becomes a problem."
Skinner also pointed out that events are already paying for trails through the permit process.
"It's not like people are getting a free ride on the trails as it is now. There are already fees which are being paid to different Crown land groups, B.C. Parks groups, landowners, etc.," he said.
"So when you look at Bryan Tasaka and the MOMAR example, when you add up his permit fees, he was probably already paying $7 or $8 a head trail fee so it was just an add-on from the District of Squamish.
"I'm not saying that's wrong, but at the same time I could go through our event and sell our event for $5, then have an add-on for insurance, an add-on for medical coverage, an add-on for tents, an add-on for this trail and that trail, this landowner and that landowner - we have over 130 different permits for B.C. Bike Race we could list."
Payne said trails are a community amenity comparable to recreation centres and should be treated as such.
"There's a bigger discussion to be had about the $5 user fee," he said, adding that Whistler residents build and maintain their trails through taxpayer money.
"It's $1 million to build a soccer field and it's a similar asset. It's a recreational asset the community uses and so it's like building a new pool or a gym."
Payne said that for mountain towns in British Columbia, trails are a truly valuable asset - "it's why a lot of us live in mountain towns, so it's an asset that we all cherish."
Coun. Bryan Raiser, who raved about the $5 user fee last week, sees Payne's and Skinner's point of view. He said trails neglect is "one of his biggest annoyances."
"It's complete rubbish that we subsidize the fields but consider trails worthless come budget time," Raiser said, an avid fields and trails user. "It's basically because of lack of leadership for years and politicians are too scared to make this a priority - every year the trails budget is slashed."
Raiser said the battle between field and trail users has gone on for years. Trail users only grow more frustrated when they find out trails are maintained by volunteers but $350,000 per year gets spent on fields maintenance, he said.
Raiser said the $5 fee is in place because of the "historic lack of willingness to put money into trails by governments, despite the same governments advertising to the world for people to come here."?
He sees the fee as an interim solution until council decides to address the issue.
"In Squamish we don't charge people to use the spit or fields - in fact, we waive fields fees for events," Raiser said. "So yes, this $5 does seem ridiculous, but it's all the trails have after fighting for years for recognition that the trails are an integral part of our economy as well as recreation infrastructure. Until the district and province recognize that at budget time, we have to take what we can get."
During Tuesday's presentation Payne and Skinner weren't planning to ask council to waive the fee. They simply planned to inform council members about the race and remind them of the economic benefit Squamish derives from BCBR.
"We're a marketing feature for economic development in the tourism area, specifically mountain biking and adventure," Payne said. "That's how events such as ourselves see it and anything a community can do to make things easier on an outside event promoter is always a win."
Payne and Skinner said BCBR brings more than 800 people to Squamish for two days and BCBR alone spends more than $99,000 not including advertising and fuel costs. In addition, racers and supporters spend extra money on hotels, eating out, bike repairs, retail purchases and participation in tourist activities such as rafting and kayaking.
"Events are part of the equation to having a sustainable tourism destination," Payne said. "If communities value mountain biking as an activity that drives tourism, which we're all wanting a piece of tourism, trail maintenance is a part of that."
During their presentation to council, Payne gave a prime example - in the January 2011 edition of the popular mountain biking magazine Decline, assistant editor Drew Rohde wrote a 1,000-word article about B.C. Bike Race in Squamish. Payne and Skinner made this possible by accommodating Rohde on the tour for two years and asking that he highlight Day 6 in Squamish.
