Council this week: OHV expansion

One of the earliest concerns among off-highway vehicle owners when the Town of Oxford opened Main street and Water Street for their use was the matter of getting their ATVs from their homes in town to either of those streets without violating the bylaw. It did seem an unreasonable stumbling block that if your machine was stored at your residence on, say, upper James St., then you would legally need to move it by truck or trailer from the residence to where its on-street use is permitted.

It’s a challenge other communities have faced as well: recently the Town of Pictou updated their OHV bylaw to open most town streets for access. At this week’s regular council meeting, Oxford Town Council followed suit, with first reading of an updated bylaw that will allow OHV access to all streets in town.

This does not mean OHVs are now permitted to use streets other than Main Street and Water Street: Next up will be a public hearing that allows residents to add their two cents before Council goes to a second reading and, it is expected, will ultimately approve the new measures. It is expected that Town Council will be called info for a special meeting in the summer to move this process along.

At a presentation to the Road Trails Act Committee on June 10th, outgoing ATV Association of Nova Scotia (ATVANS) Executive Director Barry Barnet weighed in on the possible expansion of OHV access to town streets. He noted that when the act was first proposed, the idea was to “legalize and regulate an existing behaviour.”

Oxford Chief Administrative Officer, Linda Cloney, says no complaints about ATV access to town streets have been filed with the town. Oxford councillors debated the update to the bylaw, with overall favourable comments. Councillor Carla Black asked for an amendment to the motion that would require Council to revisit the change after one year, at which point councillors would be required to again vote on whether to continue wider OHV access to town streets. The vote on the motion was not unanimous, with Councillor Olivia Canning casting the lone “nay” vote. In a conversation following the meeting, Canning clarified that her opposition to the motion was to the one-year review requirement, since it’s unlikely that there would be sufficient opposition to overturn the expanded regulations.

The Road Trails Designation bylaw, first passed in October, 2024, follows the province-wide opening to OHVs as permitted by the Road Trails Act (Bill No. 273) in 2023. Initially, the bylaw allowed for OHV access to a specific corridor along Main Street from the Irving gas station down to the Lower Main Market (now Big B’s Variety), and from Main Street to the south side trail head along Water Street.

In HelloOxford’s previous reporting on the matter, residents were informed of the regulations around OHV access to town streets, which include age restrictions, the proper use of helmets, vehicle registration and insurance, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew. ATVANS has also been conducting education efforts toward its members:

The original and soon-to-be updated bylaw address the legal activities of Off-Highway Vehicle operators on town streets. OHV users who drive on the streets after dark and before dawn / are not using proper safety equipment / operate vehicles that are not registered or insured are subject to fines and other charges for improper operation.

Enforcement, however, is a major challenge. Oxford’s Bylaw enforcement officer, Paul MacDonald, does not have the authority to ticket those who violate the regulations. That falls to the RCMP and the Department of Natural Resources to manage. The latter has a telephone number where OHV violations can be reported: 1-800-565-2224.