Encouraging community involvement and best practices with the Maryland Trails Summit


[B' Spokes: Everyone loves off-road trails right? Well let's look at the best and worst of off-road facilities:

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Maryland's over stress on off-road encourages the worst of off-road facilities (bottom half) over and above more appropriate on-road facilities. And even with the best of paths (top half) most MD paths do not allow for comfortable biking from home to the trail (Per NHTSA survey 89% of bike trips begin at a residence and only 7% at a recreational site), nor do paths generally allow comfortable biking from the trail to work or grocery stories, such an idea is not even in the works. We need a more workable solution then what's being offered and more verity in the offering of bike facilities at not only the state level but the local level as well.

Public participation is the key to remedying this and the following letter was put forth on one of the advocacy lists, I encourage everyone to write their own letter in support of greater public participation. ]



IC wrote this letter to MdTrailsSummit@dnr.state.md.us

Hi,

I was just informed of the Maryland Trails Summit. Since moving to Maryland last December, and as I'm a keen cyclist who enjoys riding on multi-use trails, I've been eager to get involved in related issues, so something like this, which relates directly to cycling, seems like it would be something I'd like to get involved with. Unfortunately the Maryland Trails Summit seems to have been specifically designed to exclude people like me (i.e. a keen cyclist who has a limited budget, a job and a family) from the event.

Even if concerned people can afford the $50 admission fee (which seems especially steep in these harsh economic times), the event is scheduled for a Tuesday during school and working hours. I wonder, could it have been scheduled for a LESS convenient time? Maybe holding it on Thanksgiving Day would have kept more people away, but that's debatable. How is Maryland's Department of Natural Resources hoping to get useful feedback on its programs from concerned citizens when virtually the only people able to attend are likely to be well-off seniors or wealthy business tycoons with time on their hands?

Then there's the venue. Does it really need to take place next to one of the busiest airports in the country? If anyone wanted to cycle to the event, they would have to negotiate the numerous freeways that surround the venue. I mean, this is a summit devoted to trails. Sure, many people besides cyclists are interested in Maryland Trails, but surely most of these people live in Maryland and don't need to fly into BWI! As a cyclist, I would find it a scary prospect indeed to negotiate such a labyrinth of freeways and highways to get to the event on my bike, even if I lived within twenty miles of it.

Then there's the environmental cost of this event. It seems to me that the Department of Natural Resources should be discouraging the use of fossil fuels and encouraging more sustainable modes of transportation, yet the Department of Natural Resources seems to be going out of its way to get people to fly or drive to the Maryland Trails Summit. Honestly, with this lack of concern for the environment, what hope do Maryland residents have that the Department of Natural Resources is truly focused on safeguarding the state's natural resources.

It seems to me that this event is structured to appeal more to the travel industry than to the people the Department of Natural Resources are supposed to serve - i.e. the residents of Maryland. I'm eager to get involved when issues related to our natural resources come up, but with a limited budget and a kid in school, there's no way I can do this.

Please, when planning events like this in the future, have some thought for the people Maryland's Department of Natural Resources is supposed to serve! As for this event, I sincerely doubt anything useful can come from it, as it effectively prevents constructive input from the people who are most likely to use Maryland's network of trails.

by B' Spokes

Like most people I live a hectic life and who has the time for much exercise? Thanks to xtracycle now I do. By using my bike for daily activities I can get things done and get an hour plus work out in 15 minutes extra of my time, not a bad deal and beats taking the extra time going to the gym. In case you are still having trouble being motivated; the National Center of Disease Control says that inactivity is the #2 killer in the United States just behind smoking. ( http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/bb_nutrition/ ) Get out there and start living life! I can carry home a full shopping cart of groceries, car pool two kids or just get lost in the great outdoors camping for a week. Well I got go, another outing this weekend.
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One of the major flaws is the letter states that there is a labyrinth of freeways to negotiate to get to the summit, where in fact BWI is surrounded by a multi-use path that connects to a multi-use path heading south east, a signed bike route heading west towards a multi-use path in patapsco, and a signed bike-route heading north. It is extremely bike friendly venue that I often ride by. The author should look into the facts if they wish to have some credibility.
I think the point is if you drop any cyclists down in an area they're not familiar with and it's intimidating as heck in this State how to figure your way around. Just trying to get to the Micky D's that you can see from the BWI trail is intimidating, let alone going another mile up that road. I will reiterate my public comments that I have mentioned elsewhere: TOO MANY OF OUR TRAILS YOU CAN'T BIKE TO FROM A HALF A MILE AWAY. Sure there are bikeways to the NW, N, NE and SE but what about the other 4 directions? Trying to work around all the freeways in that area is convoluted at best, inhibits people from transportation cycling at worst. Trails for transportation have to have bikable connections into the communities they serve or we might as well require proof of car and bike carrier before we allow anyone to buy a bike in this state and call our trails for what they are... primarily for recreational use only. Until our Strategic Trail Plan includes Class II and Class III bikeways into surrounding communities it's a sham.
A person traveling from Laurel, MD (15 miles away) would have no available bike path, and would need to cross at least four separate highways: Patuxent Fwy (MD route 32), Paul Pitcher Memorial Hwy (MD route 100), Metropolitan Blvd (I-195) and the Baltimore Washington Parkway (MD route 295) in order to get to the event. Not only that, but the cyclist would have to travel mostly on Washington Blvd, a 50mph limit 4-lane highway. In fact, the route is so bike-unfriendly that Google maps refused to even plot a bicycle-friendly route for the journey! So I actually BROKE Google Maps trying to plot a route! That's how riddled with freeways and highways this area is.
Getting from Laurel to BWI isn't a problem and doesn't require gymnastics. A group of us have done rides from the Washington Monument in Baltimore to Washington Monument in DC. Some of the same roads (Brock Bridge, Dorsey Run, Race Rd, Coca Cola Blvd, Hitech Dr, Ridge Rd, etc.) will get you to BWI from Laurel as well without resorting to Washington Blvd (which, in my humble opinion is not all that bad, anyway, but I don't know what it looks like closer to Laurel.)
The problem is not that people like you and me know the bikeable routes the problem is how do we get that information out to the masses? State bike map??? Sorry the State has made up a rule that it will only include State roads (and trails) and not local roads, which is not a viable solution everywhere. Google maps??? Unless a county bike/ped coordinator sends Google a KML file about road conditions, it's not going to happen. Few counties have someone in this position to do this work. In conclusion the states current stress on a trail network is like building a highway system with no on and off ramps and no atrial roads. Yes there are exceptions but for the most part on-road bike accommodation/planning is very haphazard and on-road cycling conditions have actually gotten worse over all since 2003.