Hillside Trail aka. Elk River Trail Fees

[Rocky Mountain]

The following message is a copy sent to me by Bob Mueller who is associated with BLAST. How can this help our sport? I ride there alot so I guess I will have to buy a season pass. What a bunch of BS!!!

FYI-The City of Elk River will be charging fees to out of town people to use the Hillside trails. User fees collect will be used to help pay expenses and buy things for the park(water service, tables, shelter, etc.). I understand it is a go but a formality of getting envelopes and stickers printed up and pay box. Day use fee per car will be around $5 and season pass about $40(min) and can be purchased from the Rec. Dept. The Elk River police will check vehicles for permits and the Blast team will report violators.
As things get formalized, I will send a mailing to riders making them aware of the out of town user fee for this year.
I will be in charge of issuing trail vouchers for trail workers. They will have to bring the voucher to the Rec. Dept to pick up a complimentary a seasonal pass. The Blast team will use this as an incentive package to get more trail volunteers to work the trail.

Hillside trails will open for riding May 1, 2003
Excluding possible wet conditions during events, riding at Hillside is prohibited when trails are muddy.

Our preliminary dates for events at Hillside this year will be May 3 and Sept 27.
We are also coordinating riding clinics with the Rec., Dept.


--
Bob Mueller
the BLAST(Build Land Access Share the Trail)
Blast Promotions
17810 Second Ave N
Plymouth, MN 55447
T: 763-476-1953-days
F: 763-476-4939
http://www.bikeblast.com


:banana: :banana: :banana:

[gopherhockey]

Wow.. a whole army of bananas!

Interesting... I don't know whether to be upset about this kind of thing or wonder how well it might work.

I know there are other trails in the area that have a much larger volunteer effort going on that do not charge...

My suggestion might be to give a free season pass to anyone volunteering X hours of time toward the trail....

Or, perhaps try a volunteer donation area first before ticketing people... ? I know about how well this would probably work, however...


(BTW: I hope everyone noticed that I moved this discussion over here to the Hillside Park forum.)

[SickBoy]

I'm sorry but the "out of town user" thing is crap. I'll sooner park in those neighborhoods close to the trail and ride the pavement as a warm up.

There's nothing wrong with trying to get some money out of the trail users for trail improvements but honestly. I do agree that they should try a voluntary system first. Think about what would happen if -every- trailhead charged $40 for a season pass. I am a Three Rivers Parks patron and I sure as heck get a lot more for the $25 I pay them for a yearly patron membership (which includes parking at all their parks/trails/facilities).

I think they need to look at how they are structuring this before they implement a fee system. As propsed it makes little if no sense to me.

[egoo]

I say we all just park at wal-mart just down the road. It's a huge lot, so there won't be any problems. The whole idea stinks, charging "out of towners" to use a public park! I'll remember to bring $5 next time I bring my son to play on the swings down the block! Oh yeah, I guess as long as I live there, it's ok.:cryin:

[Paul Bunyan]

I suppose that we could all park at Walmart, but I can forsee the city realizing that this is happening and thus instituting a trail pass system.

We non-residents are guests of the city of Elk River. As such we are bound by their rules. It is well within the rights of the city of ER to set up whatever fee structure they wish. I have posted further opinions in the other thread (http://www.mtbmn.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133) on this topic and would appreciate hearing your opinion.