City approves bylaw allowing ATVs on city streets

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Miramichi’s new bylaw allowing off-road vehicles on sections of some municipal streets has already been tweaked at the provincial government’s request three months after it was originally passed.

City council unanimously approved the third and final reading of a new all-terrain vehicle bylaw that reduces the minimum fine for violations from $140 to $100 per infraction.

City manager Mike Noel said the new bylaw will have to be sent to the province once again for approval before it’s enacted.

“The province gave us feedback as per their process, which we have incorporated,” Mayor Adam Lordon said before calling the vote. “I would surely hope that they would accept it in this version and they would have sent it all at once if they had any additional feedback.

“It’s only fair to our process and to the citizens of our community who have been waiting a long time for this. Let’s hope it plays out the way logic would suggest.”

Several other communities around the province have adopted or considered similar bylaws in recent years, including Woodstock, Carleton North, Bathurst, Sussex, Tracadie, Shediac, Eastern Charlotte, and the former town of Sackville. Meanwhile, concerns have been raised about ATVs on public streets in Campbellton, the Miramichi River Valley rural community, and other municipalities. Riverview has rejected a bylaw allowing off-road vehicles on town streets.

Miramichi’s bylaw will grant ATVs access to sections of 11 city streets and recognize nine trail crossings that have long been used. Once enacted, it will allow ATVs to travel along Water Street from the old Chatham Generating Station site around the Rodd Miramichi River Hotel and onto Loggie Drive, toward the Chatham Shopping Centre and nearby gas stations.

The bylaw will also permit ATV use on French Fort Road in Nordin, between King George Highway and a trail at the Range Road intersection leading to McKinnon Road west of Williston Drive. In the former village of Douglastown, ATVs will be able to follow McKinnon from a trail east of Williston to Brook Street and from the Maggie Lane area east to Sara Lane, along with Sara and Wesley Street, and Bridget Street and Robin Crescent.

Other areas where ATV use would be permitted include sections of O’Keefe Road in Douglastown and Shaw Road, along with Sutton Road – from Papa Joe’s Gas Bar in Nelson to the Dunphy Road trail in Craigville.

In addition, the bylaw acknowledges long-established trail crossings on Sutton, Manse Street and Wellington Street in Loggieville, on Wellington in Taintville, on Wellington and McIntosh Street in Chatham, on Walsh Avenue in the Chatham Industrial Park, on Route 11 at General Manson Way near the old CFB Chatham, and at the Route 126 and Ray Barrieau Lane intersection in Nelson.

The bylaw will require drivers and passengers to wear helmets and mandate vehicles to carry equipment required under the province’s Off-Road Vehicle Act, operate single file in the same direction as traffic on the right-hand side of the street at a maximum speed of 40 km/h, and cross streets at 90-degree angles to the roadway. Riders must also use appropriate signals, obey traffic control devices, give other vehicles the right-of-way, and display valid trail permits and license plates.

The city may issue an administrative notice requiring penalties to be paid within 45 days of an infraction to avoid prosecution.

In a report presented to council, Noel said the initial bylaw’s third reading was passed Jan. 9. The bylaw was supposed to be enacted after being approved by the province. Council passed the first and second readings for the new bylaw March 19.

“On March 14, staff were contacted by the provincial Department of Justice and Public Safety and advised that the minimum fine for a violation of the bylaw would have to be reduced from $140 per occurrence to $100 per occurence,” Noel said in his report.

“On most occasions, modifications to a bylaw passed by council are addressed by an amendment. However, as the bylaw has yet to be enacted, it would appear logical to incorporate the amendment into a new bylaw for ease of convenience to the public.”