By KEVIN BERGER, Local Journalism Initiative
In order to address the concerns raised by residents around off-highway vehicles, the City of Martensville will investigate establishing designated trails for ATVs, offering local ATV operator courses, and potentially introducing licensing for ATVs similar to a system currently employed in the District of Lakeland No. 521.
That was the upshot of a presentation made by Martensville Fire Chief Dean Brooman to City of Martensville councillors at their January 20 committee of the whole meeting, where he received council’s blessing to start working on solutions to the issues identified in the 2025 public consultation on ATVs.
In July and August 2025, the City of Martensville initiated a public consultation in response to complaints over reckless ATV use in city limits.
This consultation took the form of an online survey and questionnaire, as well as three in-person events and engagement with North Ridge Developments and the local RCMP.
The online survey generated 1,352 valid responses alone, and more input was received through the in-person consultation.
Roughly 81 per cent of respondents stated they were not in favour of a total ATV ban, but they did identify issues around conflicts with other road users (bikers, cars, walkers), safety risks to other residents, noise, damage to streets and land, ATVs trespassing on private land, excessive dust and rider safety.
Brooman proposed to council that they initially tackle the top three concerns to start things off — conflicts with other road users, safety risks to other residents and noise.
His first recommendation was to split Martensville up into four quadrants and create designated routes for ATV-users from each quadrant that are in compliance with the All-Terrain Vehicles Act and Martensville’s own ATV bylaw.
“That would limit their interaction with walkers, bikers and cars,” he said.
The routes would be developed in consultation with city staff and RCMP, and they could also conduct another survey with the public, Brooman suggested, noting council could also have input.
Next, the city could tackle the safety issue by conducting an education campaign on the provincial All-Terrain Vehicles Act and an updated version of the Martensville ATV bylaw.
They could also partner up with the Saskatchewan Safety Council and Saskatchewan All-Terrain Vehicle Association to offer ATV operator courses on a regular and consistent basis.
Finally, Brooman recommended establishing a licencing system for all ATVs in Martensville similar to what was implemented in the District of Lakeland.
Users would have to purchase plates through the city and have them properly mounted on their ATVs, ensuring that if there were issues with individual riders, they could be reported to bylaw enforcement or the RCMP.
Brooman suggested the licenses could be offered at multiple locations or at different times so people could register their ATVs outside of the usual 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. zone.
He suggested a portion of the fee could go towards the costs of the system while the remainder could be used for trail maintenance.
He also recommended introducing a designated speed limit for ATVs within city limits and updating the noise bylaw to reflect restrictions on ATV noise.
Brooman said that if council agreed with his proposed direction, he would move forward on these recommendations with a goal of implementing at least some measures by this spring.
“I basically want to make sure we’re on the right track and council feels this is a good direction,” he said.
This graph, which was pulled from the report on the City of Martensville’s consultation on local ATV use, shows the concerns raised by respondents in descending order.