Seymour-New London Trail use debate rages on
Although it has not yet been decided who will use the still undeveloped 23-mile Seymour to New London rail-trail in east-central Wisconsin, the topic made the agenda of the last two Outagamie County committee meetings, first as “ATV Trail Discussion” and then “ATV Trail Proposal.”
Nevertheless, the airport and property committee heard cogent arguments for keeping the trail nonmotorized from Vicki Milde, president of Fox Cities Greenways Inc.; Dale Schaber of the Fox Valley chapter of the Sierra Club; and myself.
We pointed out, as we have in the past, that the Seymour-New London rail corridor would provide a vital link between the nonmotorized Wiouwash, Friendship, Mountain Bay and Fox River state trails. It is not a connector to any existing ATV trails and therefore would give ATVers “nowhere else to go,” as DNR Regional Trails Coordinator Gary Hanson informed the committee a month earlier.
Nevertheless, the Trax Trail Riders Club of Black Creek, which lies along the abandoned railbed, is pressuring the county to allow both motorized and nonmotorized users on the trail. Club members want the county to green-light ATVs on the trail which would then allow the club to seek from the DNR up to $450 per mile in maintenance funding annually.
Hanson, who has helped other counties build ATV trails and motorized recreation parks, said $450 per mile won’t be enough to maintain a trail surface suitable for ATV’ers, bicyclists and hikers. If true, then the county will be on the hook for the additional, and probabaly annual, trail maintenace costs – as well as overtime for sheriff’s deputies patrolling the trail for speeders, intoxicated drivers and off-trail vandals. In contrast, a nonmotorized trail rarely need to be resurfaced more often than once every 10 to 12 years, and law enforcement needs would be minimal.
Rail-trails designated for bicycling typically include fine limestone screenings over a crushed stone base. “This material does not hold together during freezing conditions, even with a large amount of moisture, making it vulnerable to the spinning wheels of misused ATVs,” points out Sam Tobias, planning and parks director for adjoining Fond du Lac County. (For this reason, Tobias recommended against allowing winter ATVing on the Eisenbahn State Trail. But the county board permitted ATV access to the trail, beginning Dec. 10.)
The question remains why any county officials believes an ATV club is capable or the least bit motivated to properly maintain a “multi-use” trail at the higher surface standard the DNR requires for trails used by bicyclists. The ATV club will only want to patch those inevitable ruts and washouts ATVs create with a coarser, larger-diameter material through which bikes can not be safely or comfortably pedaled.
“We can share the trail,” the ATV’ers like to say. (Or, as the over-powering and oblivious ATV’er in the cartoon above says, “For crying out loud, there’s plenty of room for all of us!”) Clearly, there are Outagamie County Board members who believe that. But I wish them luck finding a hiker or a biker who will use this trail once they know they could run into or get run over by an ATV, or know from experience that the trail surface will not likely be walkable or rideable because of previous ATV traffic. The fact is, if ATVs are allowed on the trail, it will become a de facto ATV trail.
As the Appleton Post-Crescent reported today, the property committee plans to meet again in January, probably on the 22nd, “with a special advisory committee appointed several years ago to determine whether it can make some headway toward a decision about use.”
In the mean time, snowmobilers are riding the trail largely illegally and without recourse. There are only three short sections of the Seymour-New London Trail, totalling 1.5 miles, that snowmobilers are allowed to use as connecting routes to club trails on private land, yet they are reportedly running the entire 23-mile length of it.
– Joel Patenaude