Montgomery County park agrees to open trails to bikes

IMBA Trail News
Volume 12, Number 3
August 1999

Little Bennett Regional Park in Clarksburg, Maryland, opened half its trail system to mountain bikes on a one-year trial basis beginning August 1. Little Bennett is the largest park in Montgomery County, the state's most populous county, just west of Washington, DC. Cyclists now have access to roughly 10 miles of single- and double-track trails that can be linked together for a number of different loops.

Park Manager Art Nelligan took the action after meeting with bike advocates from IMBA and its local affiliate club, MORE (Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts). The advocates brought an extra bike so the park manager could try out the trails for himself. Together the group rode all the trails that now will be opened.

Seeing his trails from atop a bike eased the manager's doubts about their suitability for bikes. The additional presence of IMBA Trail Care gurus Mike and Jan Riter seemed to bolster Nelligan's confidence. The Crew supplied well-received suggestions for improving various trail sections and answers to many technical questions.

IMBA Maryland Representative Dave Scull, who organized the meeting, called the action "a victory for patient advocacy on both the administrative and political fronts." MORE Advocacy Director Karen Garnett expressed satisfaction that "bikers' hard work and good citizenship on the trails is earning increasing confidence among park managers. We are delighted to be joining the community of trail users in this park. We look forward to making Little Bennett another example of a successful shared use trail system."

Little Bennett is a regional park overseen by the Montgomery National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. In 1995, the Commission delegated decisions about opening trails to bikes to individual park managers. Two large regional parks, Black Hill and Cabin John were promptly opened on a one-year trial basis. After a successful initial year, those two parks decided to continue their policy of shared use with bikes. But there has been little progress on opening other county parks. The decision to open Little Bennett is a significant step toward opening all Montgomery County parks to bikes.