Bikers should have access to some MMWD single-track
When seeing that our Marin Municipal Water District water bill pays for clean water, as well as gives MMWD funds to manage its land, it sounds like its worth it.
However, when MMWD claims to be protecting and managing this land, a lot of this has to do with policing mountain bikers. Patrolling the area for illegal activities such as biking costs a lot of time and money for MMWD for what’s a seemingly harmless activity, as the lack of any legal singletrack trails on its land causes many bikers to ride the trails anyway.
Not only is it paying rangers to patrol the watershed each day, it is also buying expensive technology in order to catch these bikers with less difficulty, including motion-sensor cameras and electric-assist bikes.
On March 18, an MMWD video conference meeting was held to discuss new spending in order to hire two new rangers to meet the current needs of the watershed with increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many other changes in enforcement on the watershed were also proposed, almost all of which had to do with mountain bikes.
Currently on the watershed, mountain bikers have access to zero miles of single-track trail, despite making up more than 30% of the MMWD user group. Some say that this is because of a greater environmental impact caused by mountain bikes, but multiple studies show that their impact is similar to hiking. It is significantly lower than equestrians, who currently have access to single-track trails despite being worse for the watershed and the safety of users.
This leads to the illegal use of many trails by bikes, as to ride any trails on MMWD land (not considering fire roads), one could only be doing so illegally.
In a slideshow presented at the meeting, Ranger Don Wick proposed enhanced enforcement options for mountain bikers.
These included “confiscating and impounding bikes for repeat offenders, restricting repeat offenders use of watershed, additional monitoring of problem areas with trail cameras,” along with a few other options. In the public comments following this presentation, 22 commenters opposed the new spending and enforcement options, with only two in support.
Many in the mountain-bike community believe that these changes would just be a temporary fix to a bigger problem, including Vernon Huffman, president of the Access4Bikes Foundation.
“Law enforcement alone is merely a bandaid for bigger problems, not a solution,” Huffman said.
He also agrees that designating trails for mountain bikes is a better way to handle the situation and has worked for other land managers.
“I believe that we can accomplish two positive outcomes by providing mountain bikers some trails to ride,” Huffman said.
“It will pull (bikers) away from these buiser areas, which is more safe for other user groups (while providing) mountain bikers with the experience they are seeking. … They don’t want to only have fire roads because they are dangerous and increase conflict with other users.”
With the increase in trail users on MMWD land during the pandemic, additional rangers may by all means be necessary, but with it looking like their use would likely be for policing bikers, these hires may not be a responsible use of funds.
“If more rangers are needed to protect the watershed, then (the mountain bike community’s) interest should be to protect the watershed,” Huffman added.
We aren’t saying that all of MMWD’s expenditures are bad, but this issue with mountain biking would be easily avoidable if they were to spend money on opening trails to bikers instead of enforcing their current trail system. As voting rate-paying citizens, Marin residents deserve to know about the land management policies that are funded by your water bill.
Not only is it paying rangers to patrol the watershed each day, it is also buying expensive technology in order to catch these bikers with less difficulty, including motionsensor cameras and electric-assist bikes.