Bureaucrat's Errors Mean closure for Manly Dam

there will be more and more illegal tracks popping up if this happens, shame to see the dam works so well.

For once I am speechless

When I first heard about this, I thought it was some kind of early April Fool's joke but unfortunately this is not the case.

While I'm sure this will cause a wee bit of angst between the powers-that-be and cyclists/walkers, hopefully whatever relationships exist as a result of trail advocacy will be noted and a speedy and favourable outcome will be achieved.

I fear that time and effort will be spent policing/managing the reaction to these closures rather than finding a solution i.e. other than simply deeming these sections illegal.

I can't believe it. Hopefully the meeting on Feb 23 will rectify this.

Also, maybe they won't impose penalties??

Can you attend the meetings if you are not a rate payer?

...recently, fixing the "illegal" singletrack. Reminds me of Yes Minister.

Sadly I think Adrian might be right. Talk about the best way to get bikers offside

Nice thought, however Elvas track has been closed for years, and the copper logs and 18th hole i believe is now illegal.

Did one the moment it got emailed to me...
There is no way that they can possibly contain the volume of riders going through these sections. Although I'm not condoning it but the rangers will face riders who cant contain their tempers and altercations will flair, not to mention the signs will be defaced (again - I aint condoning it but its human nature that it will happen).
Food for thought, Mr Lord Mayor Highlander Commodore Lordship...ship...

**Email**

Dear Michael,

Thank you for the diligence in notifying trail users and community of the area about the closure of specific Manly Dam trails.

Whilst it’s the agenda of “Safety first!” that is being addressed here. The closure area from which is being prohibited forms the backbone from what makes the Manly Dam trail, a mountain biking trail altogether.

The specified closure area contains no walking traffic (excluding the Allambie prohibited areas) for it be a safety issue to walkers and the only risk is to mountain bikers themselves.

It is admirable that Council is concerned for all safety altogether however it should be highlighted that Manly Dam is the busiest mountain biking trail in Australia.
The prohibition of the entry into these trails will no doubt be met with a high volume of complaints, which will cascade into altercations for enforcement personnel managing this prohibition on the ground against users of these trails.

This matter should be met with, by the same very stakeholders that are affected by this before instituting any such enforceable penalties.

For the safety of mountain bikers, “warnings of such safety hazards by entering these trails will be at their own risk”, should be erected until these parts of the trails are “technically approved”.

A closure of the busiest mountain biking trail in Australia for six months will be a huge detriment to this growing community of riders.

Suggest a tentative form of management plan be established until a firm Plan of Management is finalized.

Sincere regards,

Can sonmeone please post the name and mailing/email address for the best person to lobby on the council for this? Not to abuse them, but to lay out my objections to this action? If this person gets 100 letters of complaint and must take that to the meeting, we will be in a better position in terms of leverage. We should all act together on this.

WOW, I'm also speechless. I've only been in Sydney for about a year now but this is by far the closest and best muni track to ride. I love it and tray and get out there once a week. My heart just sunk after reading this. Hopefully all the signs they post will say bikes instead of cycles, then I can still technically ride my unicycle! Time to lose a wheel guys. lol

Seriously, I will help do whatever needs to be done to help with re-opening the track. I'll show up for meetings, a media press coverage of it, or whatever. Just keep me posted. I felt so much free'er coming here than the USA so let's change this and not become more like the US with all their silly laws.

Also, has anyone ever gotten a ticket for riding there? During wet conditions when they were closed? Or any other time? Maybe they'll just "warn" you? And do they patrol on foot, bike, atv? Cause any rider could easily outrun a ranger on foot, right?

However if we look for some hope - it is not a permanent closure and will be looked at on 23 Mar, by then with the flood of emails and public sentiment and negative feedback they receive etc. should have some impact on a final decision. Everyone that can, should make a strong comment on the positives this circuit provides and what the negatives would be if it was closed permanently

lets see what all the law abiding riders do now? a lot of people have been keeping off illegal trails for the simple fact that they 'might' get some nice legal trails opened up. now the dickheads are closing down tracks like these and opening up a HUGE can of worms! this is gonna turn those nice, law abiding riders into illegal trail building monsters and i cant say i blame anyone for kicking up a stink and protesting by 'going underground'.
" viva la revolution"

This is just astounding. Compare this to the ACT, where the gov't builds decent facilities and gets a World Championships event out of it.

What forms of protest do we have available? A mass "hike-a-bike" around the track?

A mass sit-in picnic complete with rugs in the middle of the singletrack?

Revert to being car thieves and graffiti hooligans?

The SMH might be interested in this story.

Newsdesk (02) 9282 2018

or [email protected]

apparently not something that they voted on?, got this reply:

Please be assured this is not a decision I have made!

It is one of the Mayor and Council Staff. Several Councillors have this afternoon expressed concern as to how this decision can be made and a Media Release issued stating it's a Council decision when the Council has not voted on it!

Regards

Vincent De Luca OAM

Keep polite and emailing them. If the people who made this decision have 1000 emails in their inbox Monday morning I don't see how they can't change the decision. Especially when it was not officially voted on but rather a quick decision by the mayor.

This is the longest response:

Dear Martin,

Thanks for your email. I understand your outrage and concern. I am the councillor who brought a Notice of Motion to council to reinstate mountain bike volunteer days, which were abandoned 1-2 years ago.

See item 12.7 of: http://www.warringah.nsw.gov.au/council_then/doc...

My NoM was deferred to a staff briefing. In the process of preparing that briefing to councillors, council staff discovered the technicality in the 1998 Plan of Management. The briefing’s topic changed direction from – should we reinstate volunteers? to: is mountain biking ‘legal’ at Manly Dam?

At the 9 February 2010 ordinary council meeting, my original NoM was to be resubmitted. I had spent the time in between preparing an amendment that I believe would be a compromise for all parties, which is not ideal but better than nothing, under the circumstances.

As you may have read in yesterday’s Manly Daily, that meeting was a disastrous waste of time, with what I can only describe as filibustering preventing the mountain bike item from being raised before our cut-off time of 10pm. An extraordinary meeting has been called for 23 February to cover all items left unresolved, which was about half of the night’s agenda.

No public speakers are allowed at the 23/2 meeting unless by resolution passed on the night.

The decision to close the circuit track as of today, came to councillors late this afternoon at the same time it went to the media and online. We did NOT vote on the track’s closure. It was my understanding no change would be made until we were presented with at least four options (outlined at the briefing) at a future meeting (originally 23/2 but now that councillors – excluding myself and 3 others – have voted for monthly meetings instead of fortnightly, I believe that will move to 23 March).

As you know, safety is being cited as the reason for the sudden and urgent closure.

Because it was my NoM, raised in good faith as an attempt to preserve and improve the volunteer working group structure, and has so alarmingly backfired, I will prepare a statement for the media to set the record straight, along the same lines as this email.

I apologise that this matter has been taken out of hand and out of context, resulting in this highly unexpected and upsetting outcome for local mountain bike riders. I look forward to being part of the process of coming up with a solution and not just further problems or excuses.

Regards,

Virginia Laugesen
Councillor for C Ward
9400 3299
0437 499 959

Polite and courteous must be the way to go. Avoid the temptation to grab the shovel, this will only hurt our public image and undermine the great work done by many in the name of trail advocacy

Organised mass rides to show our numbers.

Polite letters and emails to all pollies, not just Councillors, expressing your disappointment and concern about this decision.

As disappointing as it is, Liam is also correct, we can still ride the dam, just not the good bits. exit the firebreak and ride the road past the school up to the golf course. Proceed as normal past the bowling club. Ride either the road or the firetrail west of the road back up to the park gate at the northern end of the golf course sniggle. Follow the trail as usual to the turn into the 19th hole sniggle, turn left not right, back up the hill, out onto the road and then rejoin the trail proper just past the kids playground. All of this additional bicycle movement on the road will no doubt have an impact on traffic flow and people will start to ask where we have all come from. Just take care when doing this.

Interesting to note they claim this is for safety. I wonder how many bicycle / pedestrian accidents have occurred in the past 12 months resulting in injury to either party, then compare this to the number of bicycle / motor vehicle accidents?

The council seems to be moving along quite nicely with their plans to get rid of mountain bikes and close the trail around Manly.

I thought it would take longer.

I have never had much respect for ridiculous regulations and bull shit rules so good luck to any ranger I come across.

I'd also suggest adding to the personal email list:

Carmel Tebbutt, Minister for Health (NSW)
Verity Firth, Minister for Education & Training (NSW), Very pro bike and gun communicator
Kevin Greene, Minister for Sport and Recreation (NSW)
Mike Baird, State Member for Manly

Emails follow:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

We need to generate some positive action!

I'm having visions of a couple of hundred mountainbikers cycling very slowly along Wakehurst Parkway in the evening rush hour .....

I've never been a fan of 'critical mass' type events but in this case, the absurdity of making mountain bikers ride along a dangerous stretch of roadway to avoid hypothetical conflict with walkers is just too apparent. ( just ask Hawkeye which one is safer ....)

I'll be writing firm but polite emails for the rest of the night and look forward to taking part in whatever form of protest is planned. Rob and others have put so much effort into advocacy recently and will have the best feel for what appropriate action is. I'm happy to go with whatever they recommend. Whatever we do, it should be concerted, coordinated and as big as possible !

A possible upside could be that the local politicians will finally realise how many people are involved in mountain biking here.

Feels like we're at a tipping point and it's time to put our collective weight where it counts.

CB

We should request from the council, a set of temporary traffic lights at each end of the affected section along Wakehurst parkway, so the hundreds of riders each day may cross the road SAFELY.
Failing this, they might offer a couple of 'lollypop' people to stop the traffic at peak time Saturday and Sunday.
After all, it is SAFETY they are using as the reason for the closure.

Yes, and I'll be submitting my numerous emails.
Happy to participate in any mass protest, as long as it is constructive and not destructive to the cause.
Remember many people will not know the full story, and the media is our friend,. As difficult as it may be, minimising opportunity for bad press is important.

is there signs up now? when did this happen?
riding along the wakehurst pkwy a few nights ago on my road bike ( about 7.00pm) city bound, i came across two seperate mtb'ers coming at me on the wrong side of the road and i thought 'WTF?'. dont know if these guys had come across any signage or were just a bit confused but this will be happening a lot more if this ruling sticks! I had to pull out, over the solid white line, into the traffic zone which i didn't feel too comfortable about as it was pretty busy!
this decision is outrageous and i hope to god that there's no accidents between cyclists and cars as a result of mtb'ers being forced onto a busy main road to either cross it or ride down it on the wrong side just because some dumb arsed public servant decided to flex some muscle! they'll have blood on their hands if anything goes wrong!

Has anyone from the council considered the traffic impact to Wakehurst parkway? and for that matter the safety of so many riders trying to cross the road or worse, riding along the wrong side of the road?

I believe the RTA ruling from a few months ago about riding on the road is 2 riders side by side in groups of no more than 20 riders. I dont even want to imagine how motorists are going to act if we start riding that stretch of road on weekends?

Dear James,
Many thanks for your email outlining your thoughts and feelings on Warringah Council’s having to – most regrettably, believe me – close sections of the manly Dam mountain bike track. Essentially the reason for the closure is one of safety. The safety of the community – both bike riding and pedestrian – owes much to Cllr Laugesen, for it was through her diligence in furthering the utility of the mountain bike track that it came to our general notice that Council is potentially liable for any injuries that might be incurred as a result of the very narrow sections of bike track being shared by bikes and pedestrians. Thankfully no injuries have occurred to date, but now that we have been made aware of the situation it is our legal and moral duty in this litigious culture that we live in today, to most regrettably ban bike riding until the situation can be made safe. Council does plan to fast track the process.

Please know that most Councillors are aware that it is the very narrowness of the track that makes it so desirable for mountain bike riding – one of the few (I understand) single tracks in Sydney. This is something that should, I believe, be retained, but which must very unfortunately now go on hold temporarily, until ratified via a change to the Manly Dam Plan of Management, but there are two things to note:

First, when the Plan of Management does go on exhibition please put in a submission and do please specify your strong desire for a bike-only single track – if that is what you want.
Secondly, achieving this will require the construction of either a wholly separate track for pedestrians, or widening of the existing track to turn it into a shared track. Both options have huge costs attached and, unfortunately, the more costly the project the longer it generally must wait. Perhaps those who were generously prepared to volunteer your time to repair the narrow section of bike track might volunteer to help construct the remodelled circuit, or circuits.

I, myself, know first hand how popular the track is and I give my commitment to do all I can to find a solution to this that is as fast and cost-efficient and safe as possible. In the meantime please note that – and I can hear the cries of protest – you can still use the track if you dismount and walk the necessary distance before remounting again.

Please contact me if you have any suggestions, comments etc. But do please put in a submission when the Plan of Management goes on exhibition. This will be appear at the appropriate time in the Warringah Council section of a Saturday Manly Daily.

With regrets and regards,

Dr Helen Wilkins
Warringah Councillor
B Ward

No injuries have occurred to date. And we can still walk these sections of the track. Madness.