One-Way Trails
Why, When and Where?

Land Manager's Mountain Bike Management Toolkit

An excerpt from "Trail Solutions: IMBA's Guide to Building Sweet Singletrack"

Sometimes shared-use trails can be designated as one-way routes, so that users must travel them in only one direction. There are both benefits and disadvantages to one-way trails.

Pros:

A one-way trail can...

• Alleviate congestion on a crowded trail.
• Provide a more predictable experience (no on-coming trail users).
• Reduce the number of passes between users.

Cons:

A one-way trail can...

• Lead to uneven wear on the trail tread.
• Limit the experience, as visitors often like to travel in both directions.
• Be difficult to monitor/enforce.
• Create animosity among users.
• Require consistent signage so first-time visitors know what to do and don't invoke the wrath of other users.

Here are three examples of one-way trails:

1. A one-way, mountain bike-only trail. If the park in question is primarily visited by mountain bikers, you might designate one trail as a one-way, mountain bike-only trail. The one-way trail allows for tight singletrack with short sightlines and blind corners, without the risk of collisions.
2. A shared-use trail where mountain bikes travel in one direction and all other users travel in the opposite direction. This scenario requires clear sightlines in order to be effective, but it allows you to channel slower visitors in one direction and faster users in the other to help reduce conflict. You don't want mountain bikers riding at warp speed, but you do want visitors to see and safely anticipate encounters with one another.
3. A shared-use trail on which the direction of travel and/or access restrictions change on alternating days. This approach seems to work well in
high-volume areas with short sightlines and on trails where speed is a problem and design changes can't be made. However, it definitely adds a management wrinkle. It can be difficult to get pedestrians to buy into the idea that they can only use a specific trail on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, while convincing mountain bikers that they can only ride the trail on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. If you can get your community to support this idea, and you do an excellent job of posting signs that clearly spell out the policy, this might be a good solution for you.