Legislation would put motorheads in control of State Trails Council
Wisconsin State Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, wants to help the motorized recreation lobby take over the Governor’s State Trails Council.
Mursau has drafted a bill that would increase the nine-member advisory board to 11 by adding a representative for off-road 4×4 truck drivers and another for dirt bike riders. The council already includes two members who represent ATV’ers and snowmobilers, so the motorized block would be increased to four members.
The council also includes one member each for bicyclists, hikers, cross-country skiers, equestrians, water trails, the disabled and the Department of Transportation. That means the nonmotorized contingent numbers four, to which you might add Tom Huber, the DOT’s bicycling rep, or the newest member, Jim Joque, a snowshoer (and Silent Sports columnist) but formally a representative for the disabled, so he may need to act on behalf of those who require electric wheelchairs and ATVs to enjoy public trails.
The members representing nonmotorized interests have hardly acted as a militant bloc, however. While they get along better than a hiker and biker meeting in the woods might, they have to keep in mind a variety of potential recreational conflicts between their user groups, too.
Even with what looks on paper like a nonmotorized majority, the council has recently voted unanimously (or with one member dissenting) in support of the motorized crowd’s interests.
In October, for example, all but one of the council’s members voted to table a resolution opposing ATV trails in the Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest. And in July 2006, the council voted unanimously in support of the DNR’s efforts to site one or more new motorized recreation parks.
But apparently this deference shown to a minority of trail users (and the most impactful and incompatible of users) is insufficient. Council member and Wisconsin ATV Association President Randy Harden suggested at a meeting last July that 4×4 truckers ought to be given “equal representation.”
Maybe what we ought to talk about is proportional representation. The fact remains that 85 percent of public land users in Wisconsin prefer nonmotorized activities, and bicyclists alone outnumber ATV’ers almost 10 to 1. Yet a lone road biker, not a mountain biker, sits on the State Trails Council.
For that matter, why doesn’t the State Trails Council have two cross-country skiers – one classic skier and one skate skier – since there are nearly twice as many of them in the state than there are off-road motorcyclists (474,000 to 245,000, according to the 2005-2010 Wisconsin Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan)? How about adding a trail runner, since there are 773,00 of those in Wisconsin compared to 736,000 off-road truckers? How about a canoeist and a kayaker?
I could go on like this, breaking down the groups and subgroups until every Wisconsin resident who ever leaves home gets an STC membership card.
The point is that the Wisconsin Off-Highway Vehicle Association and its member organizations want to pack the State Trails Council with motorheads, which would render the board useless and/or heading in the opposite direction of what most trail users want.
Other than serving to show how politically powerful WOHVA is compared to the more numerous but disparate “silent sporters” out there, adding more seats for an already noisy and bothersome constituency would not be productive.
– Joel Patenaude