Phone contact is good because the recipient is obliged to listen to you and it takes as much of their time as yours. You can spend an hour writing an email which they spend 10 secs responding to. With a phone call you'll know in a couple minutes if they are not interested.

1000 mountain bikers taking up 10 minutes each equals 4.4 full time work weeks of time. They also personally hear the views of 1000 different people who use council facilities. Any issue causing this degree of concern from people who normally don't bother coucillors is important enough for council to address.