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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/16/2018 Item 9, Culhane From:Connor Culhane < To:E-mail Council Website Cc:Hill, Robert; Carscaden, Doug Subject:Public comment regarding: Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use Attachments:CCCMB Public comment regarding_ Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use, submitted 1%2F12%2F18.pdf Dear Madame Mayor and members of the Council, On behalf of the Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers, I'd like to submit additional public comment regarding the Pilot Program of Winter Open Space of Hours of Access in advance of the Tuesday, 1/16 council meeting. I've attached a pdf document of our full comments in support of the pilot project plan. Best regards, Connor Culhane President of the Board - Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers 1 Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers Public comment regarding: Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hours of Use (Cerro San Luis) Submitted to the City Council of San Luis Obispo - 1/12/18 Madame Mayor and Council members, On behalf of the Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers I would like to again express our support for the Pilot Program for Winter Open Space Hour of Use. We urge the council to, as staff recommends, adopt a resolution for a mitigated negative declaration, and move forward with the pilot program. We won’t reiterate the entirety of our position, as we’ve thoroughly outlined our position previously (see attached pages), but merely voice our support for the City Staff plan as detailed in the submitted report. The city staff’s plan carefully considers and addresses potential impacts while allowing for public access to trails in a controlled and reasonable manner. This change constitutes an approximate 3% increase in annual hourly access to an open space area that constitutes 3% of the SLO greenbelt with an immediately impacted trail corridor of .3% of the greenbelt. We’d also like to express our support for the Open Space program, public trails, and land conservation. We’d like to politely and respectfully push back against any perception that our desire for a modest increase of winter access hours constitutes a lack of support for the goals of open space and conservation. Once a decision has been made on the pilot program, we hope the open space and outdoors community can continue the hard work of protecting, maintaining, and expanding the SLO greenbelt. Respectfully submitted, Connor Culhane President of the Board - Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers Further details: Reasonable Evening Access ●The verbiage “night hiking” and “night riding” has been used by critics and advocates alike, as well as by the local press, to describe the activities of hiking, running, or cycling in the evening. This language is misleading and does a disservice to the discussion. What we are really talking about is “early to mid evening hiking” or “early to mid evening riding.” We are not talking about people being in open space “at night”, or when most people are either sleeping or preparing for bed. The pilot project proposes to allow access until 8:30PM for about 4 months of the year. Altogether, this adds up to approximately 250 extra hours of human access to the open space trails. There are 8,760 hours in a year, making this increase an approximate 3% increase in the amount of hours humans are allowed in just one small part of City Open Space. ●The Cerro San Luis area of the City of SLO Open Space network is 118 acres in size. The entirety of the City of SLO Open Space network is nearly 4000 acres. In other words, this area comprises about 3% of the city owned greenbelt. Furthermore, trails exist in only select parts of the Cerro San Luis area. The acreage of the immediately impacted trail corridor is about 18 acres, which is about .3% of the city owned greenbelt. ●Ultimately, we are talking about expanding hourly access by 3% in area that comprises 3% of City Open Space, and on trails that have a corridor of .3% of City Open Space. We are ​not​ suggesting the City of SLO recklessly expand public access to open space. We are suggesting the City spend further time understanding animal and human use patterns on Cerro San Luis and carefully and thoughtfully move forward with a plan to expand access in a limited fashion and in a limited area, ●While this is clearly a small expansion of access, it would make a significant difference to the recreation, outdoors, and open space community. The area contains several miles of trails that would allow hikers, runners, and mountain bikers to continue to experience their open space and get exercise and fresh air during the darker months of the year. This is especially important to those who work and have families, and thus have limited time to access the outdoors during the limited daylight hours of winter. Safety ●The issue of both trail user safety and a potential increase in cost of emergency services has been brought up as a concern. It seems that most users who have required assistance in the Open Space have been hikers who have twisted an ankle or have become lost or exhausted. Obviously any trail user can suffer an accident at any given moment. However, CCCMB believes that, generally speaking, night-time trail users are much more likely to be familiar with a trail and more experienced in using it than day-time users. We believe that allowing expanded access in select areas is not likely to substantially increase rescue related costs. Furthermore, there were at least two cyclist/pedestrian vs. car fatalities on the roads last year in the Central Coast Concerned Mountain Bikers SLO area, not to mention many other non-fatal injuries. Riding or running after work on the roads with cars is certainly more dangerous than using trails, and accidents involving cyclists on the roads also consume emergency services resources. Year-round after work trail access for runners and cyclists may decrease the risk of users being involved in accidents necessitating emergency services. Further comments ●It is important to note that we support the decision of the City Council to exclude the Bishop Peak Natural Reserve from any consideration for expanded hours of access. The pilot project proposed by city staff does not impact Bishop Peak or the neighborhoods around Bishop Peak. ●During public discussion related to this topic, several inaccuracies about mountain biking, trail use, and the role CCCMB plays have been noted in public comment and we would like to briefly address those below: ○CCCMB operates a bell program. The purpose of this program is to promote cordial interactions between trail users. We have received significant positive feedback from this program from other user groups and continue to purchase, through a sponsor program, and at our own expense, thousands of dollars worth of bells each year. ○An important component of CCCMB’s mission is education. We educate our members about the importance of riding in control, yielding to other users, and simply being nice. Our program has grown to include an annual presentation event at Cal Poly where we educate incoming student mountain bikers about how to share trails and about our local history of land conservation and trails. Additionally, last year we held our first Sustainable Trail Building School, an effort to expand local knowledge of sustainable trail building technique.