Cypher
Likes Dirt
The attached table is a review of selected plans of management and other sources that deal with reporting on sport participation rates and/or management of mountain biking trails (I'll be adding to this table as I review more material). The “details” column is a commentary on if and how mountain biking demand was calculated and whether the organisation has a monitoring schedule planned. Sadly, it appears that in parks and trail management, evidenced based policy making is not the dominant paradigm.
Of the 24 reports examined 5 (or 20%) had completed some sort of trail use survey, but only 3 of these reports (or 12.5%) had done trail counts. Only 2 reports mention a monitoring program for trail condition or trail use.
Evidence based policy making is decision making based on methodical and rational data collection and analysis. It strength is avoiding making decisions based on ideological reasoning, anecdotal evidence or assumptions, all which may not reflect the actual conditions. For instance, surveys have shown that people feel that crime is increasing, when in actual fact crime in many categories has decreased. If we based our policies and plans of management on what we believe to be true (i.e. crime increasing) we risk wasting precious resources on strategies that have little impact and not fixing the things that would really help.
Evidence based policy making is not without its problems however. Collecting quality evidence that helps make quality decisions takes time, resources and skilled analysts. Park management organisations are notoriously poorly funded and under resourced, and I assume that for this reason that actual trail demand and actual trail condition reporting is not undertaken, nor a systematic approach to monitoring.
If our aim is to support sustainable trail management and development, and advocate MTB as a legitimate recreational activity, then we need to support these park managers by providing data they can use.
My plan is to provide that data for the Sydney area. You can find out more information here: https://sites.google.com/site/mtbcensus/
If you have any comments or would like to suggest various directions I should take, please contact me at mtb.census@gmail.com or comment here or PM me
Yes, I know it is a bit of a project, but I have some time - and I am not the best track builder
Of the 24 reports examined 5 (or 20%) had completed some sort of trail use survey, but only 3 of these reports (or 12.5%) had done trail counts. Only 2 reports mention a monitoring program for trail condition or trail use.
Evidence based policy making is decision making based on methodical and rational data collection and analysis. It strength is avoiding making decisions based on ideological reasoning, anecdotal evidence or assumptions, all which may not reflect the actual conditions. For instance, surveys have shown that people feel that crime is increasing, when in actual fact crime in many categories has decreased. If we based our policies and plans of management on what we believe to be true (i.e. crime increasing) we risk wasting precious resources on strategies that have little impact and not fixing the things that would really help.
Evidence based policy making is not without its problems however. Collecting quality evidence that helps make quality decisions takes time, resources and skilled analysts. Park management organisations are notoriously poorly funded and under resourced, and I assume that for this reason that actual trail demand and actual trail condition reporting is not undertaken, nor a systematic approach to monitoring.
If our aim is to support sustainable trail management and development, and advocate MTB as a legitimate recreational activity, then we need to support these park managers by providing data they can use.
My plan is to provide that data for the Sydney area. You can find out more information here: https://sites.google.com/site/mtbcensus/
If you have any comments or would like to suggest various directions I should take, please contact me at mtb.census@gmail.com or comment here or PM me
Yes, I know it is a bit of a project, but I have some time - and I am not the best track builder
