Borderland Mountain Bike Association President, David Wilson has written an open letter encouraging that more money be spent on trails, trail improvements, trail heads and signage. He's right that there are great mountain bike trails throughout the Franklins which are also great for hikers. The City of El Paso owes a debt of gratitude to BMBA for creating most of these trails. Now they have actually funded the creation of trail head parking for Redd Road - an unprecedented action.
For more information about mountain biking and bike trails in this region, go to GeoBetty.com.
Here is Dave's letter:
It has come to my attention that the funds set aside for the acquisition of open space might be used to improve green spaces around the city. Last year there was a pretty heated debate about using these funds to build trail heads and trail head parking at some of the newly acquired open space and it was finally determined that they could not be used for those purposes.....ONLY for the acquisition of new lands to be preserved as open space. To hear that board members are considering the use of this funding to improve green spaces seems to be pretty contradictory to what was determined sometime last year.
I don't think you'll find many people who would have a problem using this money to improve green space, but it would only be fair to use this money to improve our open spaces as well. The Convention and Visitors Bureau is spending a large amount of city money to promote our city as a mountain biking destination. Mountain biking will be featured on the cover of the spring Visitors' Guide, Texas Monthly magazine, and Southwest Magazine (the one in every seat of every Southwest plane). At present, our city is not ready to play host to mountain bikers who are unfamiliar with our trails and their access points. At present, we have NO mountain bike trail heads and NO mountain bike trail head signage except in the Tom May's unit of the State Park. We have some great trails, but few of them are signed. Without a gps unit that has a track file for the trail being ridden or a guide, it's sheer luck if a visitor has a good mountain biking experience.
I encourage the City (Council, the PSB, the Open Space Advisory Board, the Parks and Recreation Department, and the State Park) to work together in completing the mountain biking infrastructure needed to truly make El Paso a mountain biking destination as well as mitigating user conflicts and impacts that are currently happening at common access points. The BMBA is committed to finishing the trail head parking lot on Redd Rd, but after this project, our coffers will be empty. The Redd Road location needs extensive signage on trails found on city land and State Park land. The park has begun the process for signage on their portion. The BMBA will continue to advise the bureaucracies free of charge.
Please don't divert Open Space Acquisition funds for green space unless you are willing to do the same for current open space.
David Wilson, President of Borderland Mountain Bike Association
Interesting. I agree that money set aside for open space should not be diverted to "green" spaces and parks.
ReplyDeleteThe improvement of existing open space trails and the creation of simple, cost effective trailheads/parking is crucial. This would be great as a way to attract and keep mountain bike and hiking tourism.
As a landscape architect, I would add that such trailheads might even include some durable, simple, low-cost amenities, like shade ramadas, seat walls, and all tied in with passive water harvesting for some desert native trees and plants.
That is what is done in areas of Phoenix, and to a lesser degree in Las Cruces and Abq...but at least Abq has designated trailhead parking.
Seems some of us should look at this. I have a colleague in El Paso who is an avid mountain biker, and I bet he would be interested, too.