Public Service Announcement

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.

Scoping the UCSC Moore Creek Project

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.

Report: UCSC Bike Plan Public Meeting

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.

UCSC Bike Plan Draft Review November 17th

There will be a public review of the UCSC bike plan next Friday November 17th from 4:30-6 pm. Details are at the end of this post.

This is a great plan since UCSC has made provisions for LEGAL off road single track trails in Section 2.

If you haven't done so already, please make comments on the plan to UCSCbikeplan@ppc.ucsc.edu.

Some talking points:

• Express your support for the provision of recreational off-road bicycling in the draft.
• Express you willingness to help with trail design, construction and maintenance of the trails.
• Express your willingness to serve on the Campus Bicycle Committee (CBC) to oversee bicycling issues.

This recreational trails part of the plan is a great concession to the mountain biking community. I hope we can work together to make it work.

For more details please look at the Bike Plan page

UC Santa Cruz 2006 Draft Bike Plan

A public meeting to review the Draft 2006 Bike Plan (PDF) for the University of California, Santa Cruz will be held on Friday, November 17, 2006, in Bay Tree Conference Room C, from 4:30-6:00 p.m. Larry Pageler, Co-Director of Transportation and Parking Services, will start the presentation at 5:00 p.m.

This meeting is an opportunity for the campus community to comment on the Draft 2006 UCSC Bike Plan. Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to learn about and comment on the University's framework to improve and encourage bicycle use on and around the campus. The general public is also welcome. An updated project list (although not yet available on the web) will be available at the meeting.

Comments on the Draft 2006 Bike Plan are welcome until 5:00 p.m., December 18, 2006. Send comments to: UCSCbikeplan@ppc.ucsc.edu

Questions should be directed to Larry Pageler (pageler@ucsc.edu), Co-Director of TAPS, or Cathy Crowe (cacrowe@ucsc.edu), Transportation Planner at TAPS.

2006 Draft UCSC Bike Plan Released

The 2006 UCSC draft bike plan has been released:

http://www2.ucsc.edu/taps/pages/bike_plan.html

A review of the plan shows that UC has made provisions for LEGAL off road single track trails in their plan.

Section 2 recognizes the recreational opportunities for students and the community by allowing single track trails. Maintaining an off-road network of trails is going to require involvement from the mountain biking community in the design and maintenance of environmentally sustainable trails.

Section 4.3 discusses a bicycle licensing program as the foundation for education, outreach and enforcement. I would love to get clarity on the position of off road bikes and the licensing program.

In section 5, the plan calls for the formation of a Campus Bicycle Committee (CBC) to address the future adaptation of the plan. There are staff, student and community positions available on this committee and I hope that we can have the interests of mountain biking represented.

The bike plan is accepting written comments to UCSCbikeplan@ppc.ucsc.edu I urge you all to write to support the plan to allow mountain biking at UC. They will be accepting comments until the end of June.

Last year representatives from MBOSC had a serries of meetings with UC officials and land managers where we presented a proposal for legitimizing the UC trail network. I'm happy to say that the draft proposal incorporates many of the ideas in the proposal.

This plan is great news for mountain biking in Santa Cruz. I hope that we can count on the mountain biking community to help us out in the design, maintenance and monitoring of a future legal trail system at UCSC.

Environmental Survey on "Star Wars"

An intern named Iris is doing a study on mountain biking on the Campus Natural Reserve. She has been stopping and interviewing riders as they rode though the Upper Moore Creek (a.k.a Star Wars) trail. She interviewed a friend of mine...

She mentioned that they are considering an interpretive trail through Star Wars. She asked if bikers would stay on the trail if it was routed out of the "creek" bed. My friend mentioning the fact that it is only a creek when it rains and the runoff from parking lots and streets are also flowing into it. Bikers would stay on the trail if they made it fun but currently, it is still appropriate for bikers, horses and hikers.

It was mentioned to her the numerous studies that support our position that hikers and bikers cause similar amounts of damage and it is a qualitative difference that, due to the numbers of bikers on the trails, often gets biased against us. MBOSC has offered to help with constructing any trails on campus that would be open to bikers, and equestrians including a re-route of Seven Springs. As an example, MBOSC had success with the Uconn trail and it has held up with essentially no maintenance and the illegal campsites and bootleg running trails that used to be in that area are no longer there.

It is our opinion that the UC should use the "reserve" as a research tool to study urban trail design and use for all users. UC should not continue with the status quo that "hikers and their trail damage are okay but others are not" without providing any scientific basis for that position. People have been riding, running, and hiking on that trail far longer than it has been a reserve and that they will continue to ride it since they don't have any better access to the upper campus. In fact, I wonder if she was aware that there is a sewer main buried down the middle of that canyon, and that the Rec department put the "par course" down it decades ago, thereby establishing it as a recreational and fitness route for the campus community.

She seems to be the typical environmental intern with preconceived ideas that mountain biking damages trails (hint: it's actually the water) but she was still interested in getting our perspective. She admitted that she hikes and doesn't enjoy sports involving speed so I doubt if she will ever relate to why we love riding so much.

We don't expect much from this. It is interesting that the CNR is looking for changes to improve the situation. Maybe they'll actually do something that doesn't try to shut us out!