User Fees: Bikers Must Pay To Get Equal Consideration

IMBA Trail News
Volume 11, Number 2
May-June 1998

I am writing in response to your well thought out article entitled, "Should We pay to Play." (ITN, May-June, 1997) Unfortunately, I must support the, "Yes we should pay" argument. Though I do agree that a blanket user fee may be an infringement on our freedom, and that a price tag cannot be put on our ability to travel on our own lands, I feel we need to pay for another reason.

I work for a state land management agency, the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources, in the trails and waterways division which has the charge of developing trails. I am increasingly frustrated every single day by the extreme bias we have in our division. This bias is towards the almighty dollar, MONEY! We support new projects that develop trails for those groups that have money. In our state the groups that have money are the off-highway vehicle and snowmobile groups. The users pay a registration fee and contribute dollars through the gas tax. A lot of money is generated through these two initiatives. They do not pay a "user fee" per se, but money is generated though registration and taxation. Other state trail users do not pay a user fee to use state trails, for many of the reasons that were mentioned in your "NO" argument.

The money generated by these groups is then distributed to them. Local snowmobile or OHV clubs receive the money and then use this money for maintenance and development of trail systems. About 60% of the gas tax and registration money is returned to the clubs, the other 40% or so is used to cover administrative costs incurred by the agency. There isn't a lot of organization in the OHV community, but we actively search out groups because we have received money which we must spend.

The problem is, that those other users, mountain bikers included, do not have any representation in the form of money, and thus very little standing when it comes to trail access or development. Our division is working hard to help the snowmobilers and OHV groups develop trails and OHV parks. While we still develop our state trails for other user groups, every recently developed state trail I can think of is a flat, often paved, multi-use trail built on an abandoned rail-grade. Not very exciting for the typical off road mountain bike enthusiast.

There are 18,000+ miles of snowmobile trails in this state. Wouldn't it be wonderful if mountain bikers had even half of the miles snowmobilers enjoy, and if our division could be considering building mountain bike parks on our state lands instead of OHV parks? Mountain bikers and other similar user groups must find a way to stand on equal footing with these other user groups, or many opportunities will be lost quickly. A nice mountain bike park will soon become your local OHV scramble area.

It is unfortunate, but in a capitalistic society, money talks. As it is now, mountain bikers are a token user group with absolutely no voice in policy or trail development... NONE! Mountain bikers are absolutely overlooked. I can vouch for that. I have seen it and heard it! I would suspect that many other states have the same situation.

If it were a perfect world, all user groups would be treated equally regardless of their monetary contribution. This isn't the case in reality. Bikers need to understand that they will not get equal consideration until they contribute in a similar fashion as these other groups.

Andy Holak
Brainerd, MN