Congress Amends The Wilderness Act, Wheelchair Provisions Open Debate On Bicycling

Gary Sprung
December, 1991

In July of 1990, the U.S. Congress made a significant general statement about recreation in the National Wilderness Preservation System. In its "Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990," the lawmakers decided:

"Congress reaffirms that nothing in the Wilderness Act shall be construed as prohibiting the use of a wheelchair in a wilderness area by an individual whose disability requires use of a wheelchair..."

The act went on to say that federal land management agencies are not required to provide special facilities in wilderness for handicapped persons, except that they should, when possible, construct trails and bridges "to comply with the intent of this Act."

This contradictory language may mean that those primitive, one-log stream crossings will be gradually replaced by plank bridges, and that trails will be widened to accommodate a new form of transportation, the off-road wheelchair.

With the invention of the mountain bike in the late 1970s, the off-road wheelchair was sure to follow. In 1989, Up and Over Engineering of El Cerrito, California, introduced the Cobra, featuring four wheel disk brakes, knobby tires, two speed handrims, and a chrome-molybdenum steel frame.

This must be an excellent device which will open up wonderful opportunities for some mobility-impaired people. But does it belong in wilderness?

The Wilderness Act of 1964 includes a clear prohibition of "mechanical transport." Wheelchairs are obviously mechanical, so it appears that Congress has changed its mind.

One potential problem is the narrow width of single-track trails. Wheelchairs are double-track vehicles, wider than most trails. If wheelchair "drivers" use single-tracks, they may harm plants and soils adjacent to trails. This has already proven to be a significant problem on non-wilderness single-tracks, where 3- and 4-wheel motorized All Terrain Vehicles are allowed.

This new law has important meaning for mountain bicyclists. In 1984, the U.S. Forest Service declared that mountain bikes are mechanical transport and banned them from all National Forest Wilderness areas. The National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management soon followed suit. The Park Service even prohibited bikes on non-Wilderness single-track trails.

These administrative actions occurred in an administrative vacuum, without thorough discussion by the public and affected interest groups. For mountain bicyclists, the issue of wilderness access was the first of many land access and environmental issues facing the new sport. Though the decision was quick, and largely unknown to bicyclists at the time, the issue remains significant.

What did Congress mean in 1964 by "no mechanical transport"? One indication is the 1965 regulations adopted by the Forest Service to implement the new Wilderness Act. The agency defined mechanical as "powered by a non-living power source." A look at a 1964 Websters dictionary shows that "mechanical" meant, "of or like a machine", and a "machine" is either a motorized device, or a contraption consisting of fixed or moving parts. If the first definition of machine or the original Forest Service regulations are adopted in interpreting the "mechanical transport" clause, then bicycles should be allowed in wilderness. If the latter, very general definition applies, then shoes, saddles, backpacks, and skis should be prohibited from Wilderness areas. After all, doesn’t a shoe have "fixed and moving parts"? Are not today’s complex backcountry, alpine-touring skis quite mechanical?

Many bicyclists feel they are unfairly excluded from wilderness areas, that the reasons for the prohibition are not rational, but simply political. They suspect that the bicycle prohibition was spurred by environmental groups like Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society who traditionally represent hiking and equestrian oriented trail users. The new wheelchair law may renew that suspicion. Where were the environmentalists when the Congress was proposing to allow this new mechanical transport in wilderness areas? An organizer for a national Wilderness organization told me that many wilderness advocates in Washington, D.C. did not favor the amendment, but felt politically impotent on the issue. After all, who wants to appear to be "against" the handicapped?

The anti-Wilderness forces would surely have used the "anti-handicapped" labelling to discredit their environmentalist opponents. They often claim that wilderness is only for young and strong people. Statistics prove that’s just not true. Plenty of the over-60 group enjoy backpacking and horse riding into Wilderness. As for strength, environmentalists believe that not every piece of public land is suitable for infirm human beings. We should not convert all trails and jeep roads into paved highways just so some disadvantaged people can access those places. There are already hundreds of thousands of miles of roads in our National Forests, Parks and other public lands.

As a person who rides a mountain bike and also works for the preservation of wilderness lands in my locale, I have often stated that I would give up bicycle access to those lands in exchange for the protections afforded by Wilderness designation. Yet I feel strongly that a blanket prohibition of bicycles in ALL Wilderness goes beyond the intent of the Wilderness Act, and is inconsistent with other wilderness management principles. The Maroon Bells Wilderness near my home includes a maintained road, blocked to public use but open to the trucks of a miner who owns an inholding. We allow cattle in wilderness. It was a necessary political compromise, but nonetheless an obvious contradiction to the purpose of the Wilderness Act. We allow horses, though they cause significant trail erosion and eat the flowers. Why should we prohibit bicycles?

I draw the line at motors. Motorized vehicles should be prohibited from all Wilderness areas. Bicycles should be prohibited from some, maybe most, Wilderness areas.... places that are extremely pristine, or extremely popular. But so many designated Wilderness areas in America are neither pristine nor popular, and there are many places — such as that road in the Maroon Bells — where bicycles are an appropriate form of transportation, every bit as appropriate as those mechanical devices of winter, skis.

More important than my bicycle access to the Wilderness is the relevance of this issue to the philosophy and future of American Wilderness. The issue of mechanical transport raises questions about what we mean when we call a place Wilderness. Congress in 1964 wrote an excellent definition. The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 shows that the meaning of Wilderness is evolving and in dispute.

Wilderness needs all the friends it can get. To attract friends, or at least diffuse opposition, Congress and conservationists created a compromised National Wilderness Preservation System. Will mountain bicyclists and the handicapped be friends of Wilderness? Should we allow them access to Wilderness to gain their support? How should we draw these lines?

Finally, the new law raises a question of civil liberties. The law allows Wilderness wheelchair use "by an individual whose disability requires use of a wheelchair." I think that I will soon visit a Wilderness area with one of those Cobras. When I encounter a ranger on the trail, will he or she ask me to prove that I cannot walk?

This article originally appeared in "Trilogy" magazine.