Pay to Play? Trail fees challenge accessibility.

Spring is in the air across Europe and more and more people are taking to the trails, giving the subject of trail maintenance a sense of urgency. Windfall from trees, erosion from snowmelt and fresh vegetation growth all conspire every spring to render the trails we cherish unpassable, dangerous, or even completely destroyed. How can we as mountain bike advocates ensure that the trails enjoyed by mountain bikers all over the continent avoid issues of soil displacement, overgrowth and other maintenance headaches?

At IMBA Europe we encourage mountain bikers to establish relationships with land managers to  ensure that trails are looked after and maintained. A strong relationship between a trail’s different stakeholders is key, especially in peri-urban areas where many interests share a limited natural resource, and in particularly environmentally sensitive areas. Mountain bikers and other recreational users are not always plentiful enough or sufficiently organised to take on the task of trail cleanup on their own, however, and some land managers are starting to seek alternative solutions that can subsidise the cost of professional service providers. The subject of trail fees has been proposed by some as a solution to their challenges.

A number of fee-driven schemes have been popping up across Europe, requiring mountain bikers to pay a modest sum for the right to use trail infrastructure. Even hikers are starting to feel the pressure in certain extraordinary circumstances. On the island of Madeira, hiking trails have recently become subject to fees, in an initiative inspired by examples in New Zealand, where a fee is levied on some trails to control usage by limiting access while also raising revenue for maintenance purposes. For particularly attractive, over-visited destinations, fees or trail access lotteries may be the most convenient  solution to overcrowding and intensive use. These examples are extreme, however, and not representative of the vast majority of trails ridden daily by mountain bikers across Europe, and fees should not be a default solution for land managers, who should prioritise equitable access over short-sighted revenue-raising gambits that stratify users.

Trails in nature serving the needs of the general population and used by mountain bikers, hikers and trail runners should be maintained by local, regional and national governments using public funds. The benefits to society of outdoor recreational infrastructure, from public health and wellbeing to tourism and  less tangible benefits like increased nature appreciation far outweigh the modest costs associated with maintenance. Particularly irksome for mountain bike advocates are cases where mountain bikers are singled out for fees not levied on other users such as hikers. All primarily human-powered recreational usage of natural areas should be regulated equally, giving different stakeholders the same opportunities to enjoy nature without a stratification of user-types, segregating some users into a fee-paying cohort. Fees limit the accessibility of mountain biking to the general public, creating yet another threshold and barrier to entry that we should seek to tear down to ensure that an even broader swath of the population can experience the benefits of mountain biking.

There are exceptions, of course. Facilities offering lift assistance or specially-built infrastructure on private land such as dirt jump parks with high maintenance costs naturally need a sustainable business model and can motivate charging users for access. And donation schemes, where riders are encouraged to provide a gift of a few euros to a local trail association to cover operational costs, can hardly be seen as problematic. At IMBA Europe we have launched a trails fee interest group, for those working with the topic. If you’d be interested in joining, please contact advocacy officer Hans Stoops.

IMBA Europe is proud to lead the way in spreading knowledge of best-practice trail planning, design and maintenance strategies which protect the natural environment we enjoy while providing progressive riding experiences for mountain bikers. Our expertise in this subject matter has engaged us in numerous trail-related projects which you’ll be hearing more about in the months to come. But one of our proudest initiatives is Take Care of Your Trails, celebrating its tenth year this spring. Do your part, together with other mountain bikers from your community, to maintain the trails that mean the most to you, or which are in most need of a little love and care, and register your activity on our platform.