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Neighbor conflict: Shuttling at Forest Lakes Must Stop!

June 21st, 2011


MBoSC received a 12 page letter with photos documenting shuttle drivers who trespass though their community. This letter is dated May 19, 2011 and signed by 30 residents of Forest Lakes and has been widely distributed to the local water district, State Parks, UCSC, Sheriff and Police Departments. The press is starting to pick up this issue so you will be hearing about this soon.

The letter states that the shuttle situation has grown out of hand over the past few years. It has gone beyond the actions of locals, kids and parents and has turned into a full scale commercial enterprise. There are commercial shuttle vans that take riders from 7 am until dusk carrying up to 14 riders at a time.

The Forest Lakes neighbors specific complaints are

  • After the shuttle drivers drop off their riders they will speed speed through the neighborhood roads to pick up riders at Hwy 9. This creates an unsafe situation for residents.
  • Many of the roads in the neighborhood are private and the cost of maintenance is borne by the residents. The shuttle driving increases wear and tear and has direct economic costs to the neighborhood.
  • Illegal parking in the neighborhood blocks access to roads, fire lanes and driveways.
  • Trash has been left in the neighborhood. Some can be directly attributed to the shuttle industry.
  • Shuttle drivers and riders have been agressive when confronted by neighbors. Cars and mailboxes of local residents have been vandalized.

MBOSC’s stance

  1. We condemn the actions of these riders and the shuttle companies who do not respect the environment and private property. These riders and shuttle companies creates a negative image of the mountain biking community.
  2. These riders and shuttle companies reflect a small minority of the mountain biking community. We are doubtful that they are involved with MBoSC or are MBoSC members.
  3. We will communicate to our membership, the local bike shops and local bike industry that this behavior is wrong and should be stopped immediately.
  4. The neighborhood conflict demonstrates there is a strong social need to provide legitimate access for downhill style trails in the County. The best long term solution is to provide a safe and sustainable location where riders can engage in legitimate DH type riding. We would like the the Forest Lakes neighbors to support our goal of providing legal DH riding in the County.

What can you do

  • If you or anyone you know engages in this activity please ask them to respect the Forest Lakes neighborhood and stop shuttling at that location. Yes, we need to find a legitimate place to ride in this community but Forest Lakes should no longer be used as a staging area.
  • Work with us to find a legitimate place for legal DH riding and shuttling. We need people/organizations to lead this effort.

There were a few representatives of law enforcement agencies present at a Forest Lakes Community meeting last week. There is a direct correlation to the incidences of neighbor conflict and an increase in enforcement. Consider this a warning.

Posted in advocacy, conflict, henry cowell, scumbags, ucsc | 9 Comments È

Public Service Announcement

September 13th, 2007

Saw this on a ride the other day…

Shame on you, hippie for f**cking up UCSC’s sign!

Anyway, as a mountain biker, I’m not ashamed. I practice sustainable recreation and I know that the forest is a resilient ecosystem. Besides, the upper campus is hardly a wilderness area. The winter runoff from the roads and the parking lots are funneled into the creeks and cause more erosion in a good storm than thousands of bikes over several decades.

Debating about the impact on the forest becomes moot when UCSC implements their Long-Range Development Plan. The supreme irony is that the forest surrounding this gate will be completely developed with student housing and academic buildings by 2020 according to the UCSC plan (see Figure 20 p. 66). Most of this forest (and the trails) will be gone. Pipedream, Ridge Trail, Rock and Roll, Garden of Weeden, Geoff’s trail, Swamp trail, Mr. Twisty, RV Park will be a memory.

Heed the words of Jim Morrison: “I wanna have my kicks before the whole sh**house goes up in flames”. Get it while you can but be nice out there. Ride slow, say hello and smile like you love the forest. Because you do. You’re a mountain biker.

Posted in conflict, ucsc | 2 Comments È

Scoping the UCSC Moore Creek Project

February 20th, 2007

For years an ad-hoc trail called “Star Wars” has run through the upper Moore Creek on the University of California Santa Cruz campus (UCSC). The Director of the Campus Natural Reserve (CNR) and the Co-Director of Transportation and Planning Services (TAPS) has expressed a desire to work with the trail building community to construct a legitimate recreational/interpretive trail through the upper Moore Creek in a sustainable way.

An undergraduate student thesis, “Trail Alternatives through Upper Moore Creek in the UCSC Campus Natural Reserve” (link pending) 3/27/2006 by Iris J. DeSerio may be used as the starting point for the project. This thesis identifies 12 projects along the Moore Creek and would be a good basis for estimating the level of effort. Members of MBOSC did an initial walk along the project route and we agree with most of the recommended projects. There are some concepts that we disagree with and we will be documenting them sometime soon.

The trail project may not require more CEQA effort other than a mitigated negative declaration since the “no project” alternative is so bad. However, the UCSC officials are qualified to do the environmental work if they determine that it needs to be done.

One constraint for the project is that it would have to work within the UCSC storm water and Drainage Master Plan (See Table 8, Kresge Tributary projects 74 – 82. pdf page 153 Fig 12. pdf page 146 has a map which corresponds to the table). The trail projects in Moore Creek would have to be co-ordinated with this project. We had a discussion with the Project Manager and she is willing to work with us to ensure that both projects are complementary. The Moore Creek section of the storm drain project is slated to be part of Phase II – which could commence in 2008. The storm drain project consultants are planning to walk the creek sometime this spring in order to come up with some project concepts.

One of the recommendations of the student thesis is the extensive use of pavers. Ideally, MBOSC would like to have a sustainable trail which doesn’t require pavers. We also think that the trail should be a bench cut trail located at least 8 feet above the creek bottom. I’m sure we will get some flack about sanitizing the trail from the bike community but the alternatives are much worse. There is a very strong desire from UCSC to do something about environmental damage on Star Wars. If we are not involved then the check dams and the gravel beds from the Storm Drain project will make the trail mostly un-ridable.

Our goals would be to deliver a sustainable trail that is fun to ride. This could be an excellent demonstration of the beginning of a productive relationship between mountain biking community and UCSC. Without it, we will remain the pariahs and scape goats of all environmental problems on the upper campus whether or not the damage is a result of mountain biking.

We anticipate that this project will start sometime in the Spring/Summer 2008 – which will hopefully coincide with the storm drain project. We would love the support of the mountain biking and trail building community to help us out when we start this project.

Posted in moore creek, trail building, ucsc | Comments Off

Report: UCSC Bike Plan Public Meeting

November 22nd, 2006

Last Friday I attended the public meeting which reviewed the UCSC bike plan. This meeting was attended by local bike transportation advocates, student commuters, mountain bikers and representatives from transportation planning of the City of Santa Cruz.

A revised map of the bike plan was made available which included a dotted line that represented the Moore Creek trail (a.k.a “Star Wars”). This was a hopeful sign.

Some points as it relates to mountain biking

  • This is one of the only bike plans in the UC system that addresses off-road trails.
  • The recreational off-road trails portion of the plan generated a lot of very passionate written comments. Most of them were pro-mountain biking.
  • There was no opposition to the off-road aspect of the bike plan at the meeting. I was expecting opposition but it never materialized.
  • The Moore Creek trail may become the first legitimate trail in the preserve. The director of the Campus Natural Reserve, Maggie Fusari, commissioned a student to do her thesis on a re-route and I am currently in discussions on working on the logistics and funding for the project.
  • Larry Pagler (transportation planning at UCSC ) suggested that the existing Chinquapin fire road could be converted to become a recreational trail. If so then we could probably use some of the road decommissioning and narrowing techniques that were employed at Annadale State Park to create a better recreational trail experience.
  • This draft plan is pretty close to being finalized. This means that it is highly unlikely that recreational off-road trails will be pulled out of the document. This is the best news!

Some points as it relates to bike commuting

  • It’s clear that there aren’t enough ways to get into UCSC from the City by bicycle. Bay and High Streets are both quite dangerous and intimidating to novice bike commuters. There was some discussion of propose bike access to Pogonip to open up an eastern transportation corridor into the upper campus from Harvey West Park.
  • A suggestion was made to close McLaughlin Drive to private cars (service vehicles and buses would still be allowed) as a way to increase safety and circulation of pedestrians and bikes throughout the central core of the campus. This suggestion was very well received.

Next steps

  • They are still accepting feedback on the plan until December 18, 2006.
  • There will probably be small revision to the plan which will be posted on the web
  • The goal for completion and acceptance of the final bike plan is July 2007.

The meeting was very productive and satisfying. After the meeting, a bunch of us went for a nice ride around campus. It was a beautiful and clear evening and we stopped on Chinquapin fire road in the large meadow near twin gates and admired the stars.

It looks like legal recreational trails is going to be a possibility at UCSC. Furthermore, we are starting the planning process to create a legitimate trail project up on UCSC. This trail project can be done independently of the acceptance of the bike plan.

Thank you very much for sending in your written comments to support recreational trails in the plan. They really helped. I hope we can count on the mountain biking community to help us build the trail network.

Posted in ucsc | 2 Comments È

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