11 May 2016
Ten reasons why bikes should be allowed, not banned, in the City’s new Oxbow Preserve
- Bikes would provide a gentle way of traveling on the Oxbow Preserve trail where rider’s speeds would be scrubbed by the soft seasonally-inundated soil. You can hold values as a conservationist while supporting bike travel in the Preserve.
- ‘Share the Trails’ is a philosophy that avoids creating unnecessary conflicts between trail users.
- Birds and other wildlife have prime habitat all throughout the Preserve where they can forage in peace away from hikers and bikers.
- The City of Durango rejected the proposal of making the new “progressive” trails as biker-specific back when they were being designed and built. A bike ban sets the precedent for excluding bikes from other trails in the future.
- Bikers need to stop measuring success by how much they didn’t lose. We shall avoid being grateful victims.
- Bikes are being banned from the Preserve for political reasons, not environmental reasons that have been proven through findings of empirical research. If hikers and runners are allowed, so should bikers given their similar impact on the land in which they travel.
- Bikes should never be lumped into the same category of environmental impact as that of a dog, or dogs off leash.
- Public tax dollars could be better spent on things other than the enforcement and possible jailing of bikers who refuse to pay fines for riding in the Preserve.
- Banning bikes is akin to the banning of wheel barrows or strollers in wilderness areas. Hey, they’re both mechanized, but this is an archaic mindset that we’re up against.
- Durango should do everything in its powers to promote itself as a bike-friendly community, and that’s impossible when you promote a bike ban on public land.
Bike ban on city land? Revision to Oxbow Plan proposes first hiker-specific trail. http://wp.me/p2Darv-1Ww
