It’s great to hear that we’re finally going to get a well-designed, built and marked trail system sometime in the not too distant future (especially once you consider that the park is over 100 years old).
The old adage “better late than never” certainly comes to mind in regards to Metro Parks latest series of promises. The 1994 (at one million dollars plus I might add) Master Plan cited similar concerns “immediate landscape management is” needed, “effective control of . . .rogue trails” and on and on. The Master Plan also mentioned “an ongoing program to gradually control exotic invasive vegetation” and here we are well over a decade later only to find the park is “dying” (per Olmsted Conservancy’s website) due to being overrun by invasive vegetation. At which time parks will point to the 1974 tornado as being the main culprit for allowing the invasive vegetation in. But that was over 30 years ago! How hard is it to plant some trees and pull some weeds?
One of the reasons that parks has done so little over the years is that there’s no leader established for the project. Exactly who’s in charge of insuring that the Master Plans are properly implemented? Who’s the one person who’s going to be in charge of the most recent trail project? Wouldn’t it be nice if they installed and rallied around a leader for a change?
Our Mayor recently cited the increasing cost of providing retirement benefits for former city workers as a major financial burden that could ultimately lead to cut backs in city services. This impending “train-wreck” points out the need for privatizing our non-essential services such as parks. By installing some entrepreneurial style private sector leadership, we could expect to see a much more effective and efficient parks department.
I certainly hope that the TORO Dingo (partially financed by donations from local mountain bikers) is used to cut all of the trails, and only the finishing portions are done by hand. Metro Parks has made very poor use of this trail building tool, allowing thousands of volunteer trail hours to be wasted in the process. If the Dingo is not used for each and every trail day (and this includes OCP & Waverly as well) you should be contacting your elected representatives to let them know about parks wasting our tax dollars. It’s simply a disgrace that you have a trail building piece of equipment gathering dust, while volunteers are having to dig trails by hand.
In conclusion, let's hope that this latest trail restoration promise is actually acted upon and completed. Furthermore, Metro Parks has a responsbility to fully utilize the Dingo trail building machine on each and every work day, to expedite the trail building process while fully utilizing the volunteer labor.
I've been to every trail
I've been to every trail day at waverly this year, put in over 8 hours so far and the Dingo was there waiting when I got there. If trail days take place and the dingo is not there, then It's not MP's fault but those building trails not asking for it. Not every trail needs a dingo to be built, some require a blower and that's it. Keep up the good work
Great to hear that the Dingo
Great to hear that the Dingo was on-site to support your volunteer efforts, thereby making the trail building much more efficient.
For the Cherokee project I understand that Olmsted is in charge of all work days and activities, therefore, as part of their leadership responsibilities and to fully utilize the very valuable (and limited) volunteer trails hours, the Dingo should take the lead in trail building.
The first year that Metro Parks owned the machine it didn't cut one foot of trail, as they received no instruction/training on how to operate it on the (sometimes) steep side slopes at Waverly. The second year it was hit & miss (unfortunately mostly miss, as we continued to build plenty of trail by hand).
Furthermore, I've never seen it used at Otter Creek, where it could be used to deberm and improve water drainage (but I have witnessed recent, and much appreciated, manual deberming efforts). Kind of odd that they wouldn't be using it on one of our largest trail systems, as there's plenty of opportunity for improvement at Otter.
There's a trail day in the near future at Waverly, approved by parks, and the Dingo will greatly expedite the trail building process. Hope they have it out again (and the trail leader has requested it).
Sour grapes anyone? the
Sour grapes anyone?
the mountain bike community finally gets some much needed good news and you get to read about how MP did this or that wrong. This is a great break through and shows that people have been putting in a great deal of time behind the scenes to make the relationship with mp better, and its paying off.
Be nice to see old annimosity go away, and be replaced by support.
S
Big Trail Day & No Dingo
Big Trail Day & No Dingo equals very little trail built.
The recent well-attended Saturday trail day was lacking one main ingredient; the Dingo trail machine that was purchased (w/the help of local mountain bikers) for the sole purpose of trail building. What better way to effectively kill a trail project, or at least the volunteer efforts and momentum, than to force people to build trails by hand while an expensive piece of machinery collects dust.
There's been several Cherokee trail building efforts over the last few years, and most ended up w/a small (but dedicated) group of volunteers working Saturday after Saturday w/very little progress to show for their efforts.
If Metro Parks was truly serious about our dirt trails they would take a very small slice of their $20 million dollar plus budget and have the Dingo, and several workers, out for each and every trail day. Or better yet, maybe even hire some professional trail builders (the same way they do for every other building project) to do the work.
chris said although the
chris said although the dingo wasn't at this trail day it or another one will be at the next trail day. does metro parks have access to another dingo somewhere? Or could this be a early hint of an outside group coming in to help?
I know of at least one
I know of at least one hardware store that rented a Dingo a couple of years back ($175 per day). With all of the homebuilding that's taken place in recent years (the Dingo is actually made for landscaping work and fitting in tight spots) I wouldn't be surprised to find Dingo's available at other rental agencies.
It's just a shame that volunteer efforts are not being used effectively. All Metro Parks has to do is have a worker walk behind the machine while the volunteers do all of the trail finishing. But once again they've dropped the ball. Furthermore, if they took their responsibilities seriously, they could use the Dingo to rough cut the trails ahead of time, and leave the finishing work to the volunteers.
Could you imagine inviting 25 volunteers over to do some work, while an almost brand new piece of equipment, that would expedite the work, sits on a trailer? That's simply inexcusable. Once again, our ineffective and poorly lead Metro Parks never ceases to amaze me.
It would also be interesting to see the total trail cutting hours logged since the Dingo was purchased several years ago. During its first year of use at Waverly Park it didn't cut any new trail, and was only used in and around the main parking lot and up near the radio tower for improvements to the gravel road.
Metro Parks purchases a specialty trail cutting piece of equipment, and the majority of trail work/cutting is still left up to volunteers working by hand- go figure.
Dingo's blow. I'd use MP's
Dingo's blow. I'd use MP's for free, but wouldn't rent one to build trails.
Rent a ditchwitch and a blade (which is sometimes hard to find to rent). I'd get the one w/ the 24 HP diesel engine - I can't recall the model #. It can build circles around a dingo. Or I'd rent a mini-excavator. Whatever is rented needs a qualified operator. A machine in the wrong hands can do alot of damage.
There's no substitute for
There's no substitute for horsepower! The Dingo is basically a landscaping tool that TORO has also pushed as a trail building machine. I was surprised at Waverly to see how relatively small tree roots stopped the Dingo dead in its tracks.
With the increased visibility given to parks lately, I'm hoping that this trail project goes much smoother than the ones planned/promised over the years. The 1994 Master Plan listed the same complaints we're hearing today, poorly marked trails and a poorly maintained trail system.
It would be interesting to find out if one person is actually responsible for leading this latest trail project. One of the main problems mountain bikers have experienced over the years, is that you never knew exactly who was in charge of any given project. Often times, when it came to decision making, parks staff would start passing the buck, and the project would never get off the ground. (How else can you explain a 100 yr. old heavily used park w/o a formal well marked trail system?)
Parks also needs to supply a time-line w/anticipated completion dates, and explain exactly how they plan to get the system finished. (ie- are they relying on thousands of hours of volunteer labor??? or do they have a plan on which they'll take the lead the finish regardless of volunteer turnout)