Re: Park a victim of its own popularity in the Aug. 18 Saanich News. As a longtime volunteer in Mount Douglas Park, I would like to present a different perspective on the deterioration of the park’s trails.
In my opinion, the increased visits to the park is a secondary – not the primary – cause of the degradation of the trails. To me, the biggest problem with the park is its overall management. Designated a “natural area” park by the district, the management approach could be charitably categorized as one of “benign neglect.”
The Parks Department believes such parks should receive “light touch” management and that’s exactly what it receives.
Let’s do a comparison of “active” and “passive” management styles. There are two major “recreational facilities” in Gordon Head. The first is the Gorden Head rec centre and the second is Mt. Doug Park. They are both well used, popular and valued assets to the community.
Now, look at the differences. The rec centre is “actively” managed, with an onsite manager, dedicated staff and an appropriate budget. This combination permits short- and long-term planning, ongoing monitoring of usage, program development, protection of assets, etc. An annual maintenance plan ensures an ongoing upgrading of the facility. The centre also deals with a growing user base, but that increase is managed within the overall operational/management plan and process.
Now, let’s compare to the other important Gordon Head recreational facility: Mt. Doug Park. The park has no onsite manager, no dedicated staff and no specific budget (except for, I believe, weekly cleaning of the toilets). And no annual maintenance plan to address larger, ongoing wear and tear. As a result, there is no means to address either the regular, or the growing, usage of the park.
Consider if the rec centre was run on the same basis as that of the park: no manager, no dedicated staff, no budget, no annual maintenance plan.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine what would happen to the rec centre: abuse of property and equipment, excessive wear and tear of equipment and overall degradation of the facility. And increased visits would only worsen the systemic problems that already existed within the centre. That’s exactly what’s happening at Mt. Doug Park.
The increasing visits are simply adding to the systemic problems that have existed in the park for a very long time. And we know that because trail degradation has been a long-term, ongoing concern, predating the increased visits of the last few years.
In my opinion, the problems with Mt. Doug Park are directly attributable to the “benign neglect” management approach. Unfortunately, misidentifying the problem as relating solely to increased visits will simply lead to incorrect solutions.
Unless and until the current operations/management approach problem is rectified, nothing is going to change within the park, and the current degradation is only going to worsen over time.
Dave Poje
Saanich