Closed-Minded

IMBA Trail News
Volume 16, Number 4
Autumn 2003

New from the government that brought you the $600 toilet seat: the unwarranted, wasteful $30,000 trail review process. We're talking about a 16-month analysis of Arizona's Cactus Forest Trail - a National Park singletrack in Tucson that had been open to mountain bikers for a full decade without incident or resource damage. In April 2002, the trail was closed and an elaborate review began - triggered by an inquiry from watchdog group who said proper procedures weren't followed when the trail first opened to bikes in 1991.

The good news? The National Park Service (NPS) has completed their review, followed all the cumbersome steps required by the Code of Federal Regulations and posted a special regulation in the Federal Register. On September 19, the trail officially reopened to mountain bikers.

The bad news? The review process consumed stacks of taxpayer money and hours of NPS staff time. The onerous regulation that required it, 36 CFR 4.30, remains in force.

Truth be told, we don't precisely know how much the review cost, but we know it was expensive. Consider:

• The staff of Saguaro National Park closed the trail on April 15, 2002, posted No Bike signs, and began internal scoping on a formal Environmental Assessment.
• An interdisciplinary team comprising Saguaro National Park staff and NPS planning professionals met in Tucson in July 2002 to evaluate the trail and consider the ramifications of reopening it.
• External scoping was conducted through an August 2002 public letter that was mailed to interested and affected parties.
• A press release about the closure and environmental review was composed and mailed to Arizona newspapers.
• D.C.-based NPS senior and legal staff provided regular guidance.
• An Environmental Assessment was completed by the Denver staff in October 2002, then released for nationwide public review and comment.
• The proposed rule was published in the Federal Register on March 7, 2003, and was open for public comment for 60 days.
• The proposed rule reopening the trail was again reviewed and approved by the NPS legal department, the Director of the National Park Service, and the office of the Secretary of the Interior. The final rule was posted.

Don't blame current NPS leadership in D.C., Denver or Tucson for this. They didn't want to do it. After all, a full decade ago the agency conducted an environmental review, held public meetings, then monitored the trail for a year looking for signs of resource damage (but found none). The NPS was hamstrung by 36 CFR 4.30 - a regulation that inherently views all off-pavement bicycling as a threat to national park resources and visitors. Meanwhile, horse use in national parks remains relatively unregulated and the impacts of hiking are assumed, without supporting science, to be minimal.

This Park Service mountain bike regulation is ill-founded, outdated and needs to change. National Park superintendents, their science and recreation staffs, and their volunteer local support groups should be trusted to make smart choices about appropriate muscle-powered trail use.

IMBA doesn't think mountain bikers need access to all National Park trails. But we do believe that dirt roads, doubletrack and appropriate trails can provide the bicycling experience that many National Park visitors want.

There's one more compelling element of this story: IMBA spent close to $20,000 in legal fees to speed the Cactus Forest Trail reopening and avert other National Park trail closures. While we were successful, this money - and perhaps your tax money spent by the Park Service - could have been better spent. Don't you agree?

- Tim Blumenthal