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Jamaica SNAFU / Fish and Wildlife / Forest Service plans
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LLmt-@webtv.net
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Aug 14, 2004 09:45 PDT
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Greetings all,
I read with interest John Atkinson's column in Vermont Sports
Today this month,"A New Day Dawning". John points out that after
years, some progress is finally being made with the state Department of
Forests, Parks and Recreation to allow bike access to trails on FPR
lands. This is great, if long overdue, as John notes.
Well, two steps forward, one step back.
Subject to confirmation (a letter from the town clerk is supposed to be
in the mail) the selectboard in the town of Jamaica has apparently
voted to close all of the town's class 4 roads to ALL MECHANIZED
traffic, which, you guessed it , means mountain bikes as well as
motorcycles, ATVs, etc (Does this include cross country skiers with
step-in bindings, snowshoes with hinge / pivot bindings?) i should think
this would cause some serious conflicts for abutting landowners who
access remote land holdings for whatever purpose, hunting, logging,
whatever.
This is all based on a conversation i had with a local rider who'd
heard about the selectboard vote, and was confirmed by a short call to
the Jamaica town clerk's office. I'll know more / better when the
letter they are sending me arrives.... i'll post the language of the
new regulation then.
Also on an "unconfirmed" status note, look for a new access problem
developing with the Fish and Wildlife department, over "illegal" trail
use on a particular piece of DFW land here in southern VT.
Suppose all these people read the NY Times? Sorry to rain on the
parade, as it were, but we're not out of the woods yet....
One last note is that we're in the middle of the comment period for
the draft management plan alternatives for the new National Forest plan.
Numbers will count here, bigtime, so the more comments the Forest
Service receives supporting bike access the more likely we'll be to get
access. I'm still trying to make sense of all 5 alternatives, which
are confusing. Initially i think Alt. C is best, but this alternative,
which allows for more remote backcountry recreation (trail access?)
also greatly increases the "wilderness study" area west of Glastenbury
Mountain. I'm not sure this is a trade-off we should make, but i (we)
need to study this in greater detail to make an informed decision. A
meeting with the Forest Service to clarify the alternatives and their
implications for bike access may be a good idea. So a question for
VMBA board, is VMBA preparing to make comments on the plan as an
organization?
Happy pedaling (wherever you can)
Rob Macgregor
VT NEMBA
Londonderry
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