No Fooling: April 2019 BAC Meeting: 4/1/19 7pm 2100 Clarendon Blvd.

[davidcowan]

Hi! I’m curious about one of the items from the October BAC brainstorm:

@dasgeh 189273 wrote:

A. Bring All Types of Cyclists Together (commuters, family, mountain, racers, etc.)

I want to advocate for free, healthy and exciting recreation within Arlington. Specifically, I want to see some sanctioned mountain biking trails. While Arlington doesn’t have any huge parks for 15-mile trail systems, there are some notable places that could support smaller trail systems attached to currently existing trails. Glencarlyn dog park’s goat trails and Donaldson Run are two possibilities.

Thw two main concerns of mountain bike trails are shared use safety and erosion.

Erosion is the easy issue, because mountain bike trails are actually the least impactful unpaved trail as compared to hikers, multi-use, equestrian, and OHV. See Dave D. White’s article at <https://www.nemba.org/sites/default/files/PDF%20%20Files/Comparative%20Impact%20Study%20White%20et%20al%202006.pdf>. A simple explanation to this is that mountain bikes have a small in-line footprint, and mountain bikers just ride through and don’t stop to smell the roses, let alone pick them, litter, etc.

Shared use safety can be easily addressed by making the most enjoyable downhill track for downhill bike traffic only, and discouraging bike traffic on other downhill sections. Shared use is not a safety issue on flat or uphill sections of trail.

I’m new to the area and wanted to get these notes out here as soon as I learned of this forum – I plan to attend May’s meeting and see where we can go from here.

[dasgeh]

@davidcowan 189797 wrote:

I want to advocate for free, healthy and exciting recreation within Arlington. Specifically, I want to see some sanctioned mountain biking trails.

Welcome and great timing! While recreation biking is not central to the BAC’s work, we have discussed is recently, because Arlington is updating its master plan for parks (the “Public Spaces Master Plan”). It’s been a long process and the plan will be considered by the County Board NEXT THURSDAY, April 25 at 7pm at 2100 Clarendon Blvd (3rd floor board room). There’s a big effort to make sure MTB, CX and pump tracks are included in the plan.

You can help:

– Email the Board now: https://p2a.co/1dClECT
– show up on 4/25 7pm 2100 Clarendon Blvd to tell them in person

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