Bike Kentucky

At last Friday’s RTP meeting, the citizen’s advisory board recommended that funding be approved for Metro Parks application. Metro Parks is requesting $95,945 in funding, that they’ll match dollar for dollar, which will be used at both Waverly Park and Jefferson Memorial Forest.

Total funding for Waverly Park will be $90,750. Of that amount, less than 25% ($21,250 to be exact) will be used for new trail construction.

In the application Metro Parks states that “60% of the trails did not meet current International Mountain Biking Association standards.” Therefore, all of those trail sections will need to be shut down, and new replacement trails built.

The 60% figure is just an estimate, because when I looked at the color coded Proposed Projects map for Waverly it was clear that much more than 60% was going to be shut down.

There’s a small loop starting and ending at the Kiosk in the main parking lot that stays, total trail length, approximately 1,500 feet. All of the new trail construction over the last couple of years near the back of the park, part of which runs alongside the golf course, also stays. The total in this area is approximately 7,000 feet.

In the balance of the park, over 90% of trail system will be re-routed. That’s right, by my estimate, a good 90%, if not more, of the remaining trail system will be shut down, to make way for new trail. There’s only one existing section of trail that exceeds 500 feet that stays. There’s also a second section, close to 500 feet that will be reused, but other than that, the plan approved by your local mountain bike leaders will result in basically shutting down the entire trail system as we know it at Waverly Park.

For anyone who has ridden Waverly and has knowledge of sustainable trail building techniques, shutting down over 90% of the trail system is not needed. There’s huge sections of well-built and flowing trail that simply needs maintenance, not a complete overhaul.

So where were all of the meetings and opportunity for public input?

How many mountain bikers, who have sacrificed thousands of hours working on the trails, had an opportunity to comment on the new trail system?

Did Metro Parks just decide, in closed door sessions, that this was the way it was going to be without any public approval?