TRAIL USE SURVEY – SUMMARY OF RESULTS

In November 2009, to give our members an opportunity to input to a new trail plan being developed for our park, the Friends Executive Committee conducted a survey of members concerning trail use issues. Specifically, the survey asked members if they supported efforts to (a) keep a reasonable amount of trail in the park for use by pedestrians only and (b) promote a greater degree of courtesy by mountain bikers toward pedestrians. The actual survey can be seen by following this link.

The survey drew an extremely strong response – 50.8% of the memberships responded. Of these, 184 members voted "YES" for keeping a reasonable amount of pedestrian-only trails and for greater courtesy by mountain bikers toward pedestrians, and 10 voted "NO". Many people added comments or otherwise gave emphasis to their votes.

We believe the primary significance of the survey is to demonstrate that a large number of pedestrians are not comfortable sharing trails with mountain bikers and strongly prefer to have some trails kept for use by pedestrians only. The comments indicated concerns with safety, lack of courtesy, and general discomfort with this mixture of active and passive recreation types.

We communicated these results to the Division as an input to the planning process for the new trail plan being developed for White Clay. We suggested that the Division consider the following approach as a way to provide an appropriate balance of opportunities for different trail users:

• Existing pedestrian-only trails in the Carpenter Recreation Area and the Preserve Loop Trail along the Creek would be kept pedestrian-only. We noted that these areas are held in special esteem by many pedestrians as areas of great beauty and wildlife.

• Existing multi-use trails throughout the park, including the one multi-use trail in Carpenter, would be kept multi-use. We do not advocate converting any of these trails to pedestrian-only. The Friends leadership is not anti-biking, we are just trying to maintain some balance.

• Consideration would be given to constructing a few other pedestrian-only trails in other areas of the park, recognizing that virtually all of the park on the east side of the Creek is served only by multi-use trails.

We note that currently in the Newark vicinity, 100% of the trails in the Fair Hill Recreation Area, Iron Hill County Park, and Middle Run County Park, as well as a large majority of the trail mileage in our park, is multi-use and thus open to mountain biking. Surely a reasonable amount of trail can be reserved for pedestrians in this area.

The Executive Committee