Elections & Mountain Biking: the good, bad...ugly

[pk]

Got a call from one of the founders of Berkshire NEMBA, Theo Stein, who now lives in Boulder and writes for the Denver Post.

Dirt Rag wants him to do an article on how this year's elections --both federal and state-- will affect mountain biking and trails.

Any thoughts on how the outcome of any senate, representative or presidentail elections in New England would effect mountain bikers? Feel free to share.

pk

[AA]

This topic should degrade into a slap fight quickly :o

I'll come back in a week and see how this shapes up.

[pk]

Noooooooo!!!!!!!

If we POSSIBLY can, let's keep this to specifics w/o a bunch o' political posturing!

As I said, Theo is interested especially in state senate and representative elections, as well as presidential stuff.

pk

[sizlinseagulsoup]

Personally, I don't think the elections will matter.

Let's face it, Mountain bikers may be organized, but the organizations are not rich. The only way any serious change would ever take place is if we sent special interest money up the gazoo to our elected officials. The mountain bike constituency isn't large enough for officials to care about.

However, there are some issues that indirectly disbenefit cyclists. For all of you New Hampshireites (this article directly mentions New Hampshire), Bush is working on lifting the "roadless forests" ban in National Forests in a direct effort to appease the big timber business. Listen to the audio clip, it's fairly interesting. Make any connections you wish, I'm not even sure if we can bike there. http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3351003

Despite the fact that there will be no significant impact (minus timber-happy Bushie) in the federal and state level, it is feasible that more local elections could have an impact. Some of the state senators and house members in Massachusetts are Mountain Bikers (although I am starting to doubt they really care since I've noticed some trail closers in their own districts); if we keep them in office we might benefit from cyclist friendly legislation and increased bike-path budgets. We also need to vote out and stop supporting those who oppose cycling (IE, if the town of Williamsburg votes out all the old traditionalists on their select board, there would be a really nice bike path extention from Northampton to the hilltowns so we wouldn't have to ride on route 9 and stop listening to radio personalities to advocate injuring bikers). http://massbike.org/bikelaw/indexl.htm

Now, if we really wanted to get mountain bike gems such as Mt. Tom and The Fells (if you consider this a gem) reopenned, we would probably need some political funding pressure to force the parks to open up. This is why we need more cyclists to run for office. The best way to get what you want is to cut funding unless the opposition complies. (For proof, research how the federal government got the states to individually raise the drinking age to 21).

[nhiker]

Yah,heres one to think about up here in NH. There is a movement within the state Reps to back door ATV's into Bear brook state park. Now I want to come out and say that I am not anti-ATVs I beleive they should have land and access also my issue is that they need to be ridden and low impact areas not fragile multi-use areas such as BB. Now there is a lot to be said pro and con on this issue and I am not trying to start a hmmmm what was it a slap fight with all the pro atvers out there but I am asking everyone to keep this in mind up here in NH when they vote for state Reps maybe in particular some state reps who own a Kawasaki dealership near the park. If you want ATVs to be allowed in BB feel free to stay home and watch the movie of the week on Nov. 2nd if you don't care for the back door tactics being used to keep this little scheme going... Let someone know. ::) As I write this I am not even sure that the individual I sighted is up for re-election this year...I am not in his district. But I am going to take some time and educate myself on the opinion of my local rep and share with him mine before I vote.