A little over a year ago, we had a good rant about a proposed multi-use trail here in town in a once beautiful little park called Pogonip. Since that time, there has been some forward motion in the planning of said proposed trail, as well as a whole lot of fear- and hate-mongering on behalf of the fearful and hateful opponents of said proposed trail. To very briefly recap, the proposed trail would be a connector that ran along the southern flank of Pogonip, bisecting an area currently known as “heroin hill”, and allowing an alternative way of getting from town to the U-conn trail that leads up to UCSC. Currently the options are: a) ride up highway 9, b) hike or ride illegally up the railroad tracks, or c) climb way up through Pogonip, then drop down to U-conn. That only works if you are hiking, and have your dog on a leash. On a horse, or a bike, and you’re shit outta luck. Pogonip, peacefully rotting into the ground, is off-limits. Technically, it is also off-limits to heroin trafficking, but there sure is a lot of it going on in there. If none of this sounds familiar, read the above link before we swing at the next pitch here.
Aaaanyway, the opposition to the proposed trail was immediate, hysterical, and vicious. The proposed trail – which, to stress the obvious, is designated “MULTI-USE”, meaning, open to hikers, horsers, kid-walkers, rollerbladers, and, yes, cyclists – was viewed straight away as some sort of Trojan Horse for a nefarious master plan on the part of local cyclists who would use this as a stepping stone to launch a campaign of wheeled terror upon the hapless and peaceful ambulatory population of Pogonip. Once this trail was opened, the bloodshed would begin, and then the cyclists would actively begin warring and maiming their way upward until they achieved their ultimate goal of total trail domination.
Cue “Muah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhh” sinister laughter at this point. Nevermind the fact that we’re talking about a mile or so of trail in a county that consists of hundreds of miles of trails, most of which is by legal definition off limits to cyclists. Nevermind that cyclists represent a legitimate voting bloc in this county. Nevermind that the currently unopposed and unrestricted and unenforced heroin trade in them thar woods hasn’t heretofore raised a peep out of the suddenly vociferous windpipes of the stale old farts who are opposed to this trail.
The distortion of fact that has gone hand in hand with the fear-mongering has at times been impressive. In an October 4th column, local Spectator-At-Large, Bruce Bratton, published the following from local Prolific Writer of Letters, Bruce Englehardt: “Stop any efforts to destroy the lower eastern side of the preserve to put in a “multi-use” trail for mountain bikers, dirt bikers and other extreme sports enthusiasts who would drive hikers out of the park as they have atWilder Ranch and many others.”
This was an opening salvo in an ugly broadside, rife with prejudice and misinformation. Dirt bikes? Extreme sports enthusiasts? Driven hikers out of other parks, Wilder specifically? Ouch. Something’s rotten in Denmark, and Bruce Englehardt could do well to check his facts before spewing his rhetoric. To the credit of the other Bruce, Bratton did publish something of a correction in his column a week later.
However, none of this seems to have slowed the roll of the opposition, as evidenced by the recent legwork done by those stalwart haters of all things bike, the Sierra Club. Here’s a nice nugget from that page: “The thrill of mountain biking on forested, hilly terrain consists of gaining substantial downhill speed on steep, narrow, rough terrain, in poor lighting conditions. These conditions pose bicycle control challenges that make the activity thrilling for the bicyclists and absolutely frightening for the hapless hikers, possibly accompanied by small children, who happen to use the same trail. Horses, too, are spooked by speeding bicycles and those appearing suddenly around blind turns“. Cue the sound of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Oh, wait, the Sierra Club are okay with horses, it’s just US that are the devil.
Another sweet piece of turd scented prose on that page can be found here: “The Pogonip, with its unique terrain, varieties of species, and wildlife habitat, is the last nearby open space of our Greenbelt that allows pedestrians ”including runners, children, older people, and hearing- and sight-impaired” to walk or run without fear of being overtaken by bicyclists. It is a pedestrian sanctuary, now largely bike-free.“ Nice going there, Ventana Chapter. Way to stay classy. Bring in the imagery of children and impaired elders being run down by bikes, and pair it with a disingenuous slap to the balls by referring to Pogonip as a “pedestrian sanctuary”, so long as you steer clear of the homeless camps, human waste dumps, drug sales, and scary people with knives. Don’t for a second mention ANY of the many other local parks and trail systems where bikes are completely off-limits, because that wouldn’t feed well into the whole “keep ‘em all scared shitless” way of doing your stuff, would it?
It is shit like this that makes trying to be honestly and honorably involved in any politics, local or otherwise, so damn hard to do. People aim for the low hanging fruit. They lie. They resort to predating upon base fears and appealing to the simplest motivators. Because it is easier to do that than it is to try and achieve some sort of workable broad-based solution. Because it doesn’t involve that dreaded word – “compromise”. I want to like the Sierra Club. Much of what they represent resonates with much of what we as a company believe. But at the same time, they are such a bunch of myopic bigots when it comes to bikes that my usual response to anything they have to say about bikes is one of rage. This latest jab doesn’t help.
Maybe we’re being too harsh on the Sierra Club, since they’re just parroting the bile being sprayed around by Peter and Celia Scott and their quixotically named “Friends of the Pogonip“. We feel somehow dirty for even mentioning that website since it deserves to just sink beneath the surface and linking to it will only send traffic that way, which in some perverse sense then helps justify the damn thing. But, in this case, it is best to know one’s enemy. And in this case, one’s enemy need not be reminded that using comic sans for anything, least of all a “keep our shizzle bike free” flyer, makes you look like an imbecile. Yes, we know that is being petty, but they are our enemy, and they have already judged us. We’ve tried our best to stay the high road, and in honor of that, we’ll refrain from commentary on Celia’s poetry. But comic sans? Come on, you deserve to be pants-ed for that.
And here we go, devolving right down to their level. We’ll stop now. Here’s the official City Of Santa Cruz scoop on the Pogonip Multi Use Trail. It is sound, and it is well thought out, and it is something that would be a 100% positive addition to this community, in spite of what the so-called Friends of Pogonip might have you believe. Read it, click the links, get familiar with the whole deal, get involved, and help make something GOOD happen in this community. Make your well-reasoned voices IN SUPPORT OF THIS TRAIL be heard (funny that, coming from this pissed-off screed, huh?), send letters to mgarcia@cityofsantacruz.com and citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com. Blast the petitions in opposition clean out to sea.
