Frontenac County to Require ATV Riders to Pay for Trail Use

Jeff Green | Jan 22, 2025

The first meeting of Frontenac County Council for 2025 featured an in camera session to address union negotiations, that went as long as a very short public session to deal with all other matters. Aside from the monthly Chief Administrative Officers report by Kevin Farrell, the most impactful item on the agenda was a resolution, of sorts, of the debate over how to create a user pay policy for ATV riders on the county-owned K&P Trail.

The County has been trying to come up with a mechanism to collect fees from ATV riders who use the section of the K&P Trail that is open to motorised traffic year-round, to help cover maintenance costs.
Motorised sections require more grading and dust suppression, which increases maintenance costs, according to Richard Allen, Manager for Economic Development for Frontenac County. The annual cost to maintain the K&P Trail comes out of his departmental budget.

There are two ATV rider organisations with members who use the trail system in Frontenac County and throughout Eastern Ontario: the Frontenac ATV Club, which is based in Verona and is affiliated with the Ontario Federation of ATV clubs (OFATV), and the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance (EOTA), which is based in Tweed. Both clubs have or are currently involved in the maintenance of trails in Frontenac County in partnership with local municipalities.

Both EOTA and the OFATV issue trail passes to their members, for use on the trail networks that they manage. Much of the EOTA network is located to the west of Frontenac County, with the exception of the Tay Havelock Trail which runs to the east, adjacent to Hwy. 7, and much of the OATV trail network runs to the east and in the south of 7 part of Frontenac County, and east and west in North Frontenac.
For several years, Frontenac County officials have been attempting to foster an agreement between EOTA and the OFATV to accept each others trail passes, at least in Frontenac County, in order to facilitate a single trail pass that would be accepted along the K&P Trail from Verona to points north.
This has proven to be an elusive goal.

Last fall, Frontenac County gave up. Instead, the county negotiated an agreement with the Frontenac ATV Club, with which the county has an ongoing relationship that covers the trail section from Verona to Sharbot Lake. The agreement, which came to Council last week, includes a provision that Frontenac ATV Club pay $15,000 per year to the county in exchange for OATV Club passes to be accepted for ATV riders on the K&P Trail.

A second provision in the same proposal that came to Council, was for an identical agreement with EOTA. If the EOTA agrees to pay $15,000 each year to Frontenac County, its passes will also be acceptable for riders to use the K&P Trail.
If EOTA agrees, anyone with either pass will be able to ride their ATV or 4x4 UTV on the K&P Trail, and anyone who doesn’t will need to either get a one day pass, or join one of the clubs, which comes with a full year pass.

When the proposal came to Council last week, Warden Gerry Lichty said that he was impressed with the proposal, and the report, but had one question,
“I am impressed with this particular report. I think all the homework has been done. I understand the situation. My only question is, do we have a rough ETA on when we are going to have some negotiations with the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance? That’s kind of what’s hanging out there, I just want to know when.”

“After the recommendations have been passed, we will approach EOTA and we have that conversation,’ said Allen.

Councillor Nicki Gowdy asked why the two snowmobile clubs, “The Snow Road Snowmobile Club and the LA Ridgerunners, have not been approached. That way we could have $60,000 coming in instead of $30,000.”
Allen said that the legislatin governing snowmobile clubs in Ontario is different than it is for ATV’s, and also said that the two clubs provide grooming services on their respective sections of the trail with “no oversight or extra cost the county.”
The Verona ATV club, which currently has about 350 members, expects that it will sell more club memberships, which cost $150 per year and come with a trail pass, now that the passes will be required for Riders to use the K&P traill. It has committed to providing Frontenac County with an extra $32.50 each year for every new membership that they sell going forward.