The Greater Boston NEMBA Board of Directors has carefully considered the letter released by new Commissioner, Jack Murray, of the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation. It is very disappointing to learn that the implementation of the Fells Trails Plan has been sidelined by successful calls for an RMP.

All of us in the mountain biking community feel like we have been let down by this.

While there are small rays of hope within the letter, including superficial acknowledgment of legitimacy and some minor changes to specific policies, it remains that the bulk of the Trail Plan was not adopted as official policy and therefore will have no guarantee of being incorporated into the proposed RMP.

NEMBA has specific issues with changes described in the letter which include:

• No effective date on Winter Closure and continued targeting of riders exclusively when all trail users cause harm in soft conditions;
• Inconsistent statements about increasing enforcement now while acknowledging that current rules are confusing;
• Winchester and MWRA issues which have not been part of the Trails Planning process;
• The suggestion that mountain bikers need to be segregated as a user group which only furthers conflict;
• No dates on the RMP process - this makes it very likely that the RMP draft will never be good enough - and never get approved;
• "No new trails because of public disagreement." The whole point of the Trails Process was to gather public input, sort out the disagreements and come up with solutions.

We don't know where this is going and while trying to stay positive about what the letter implies about the Trails Plan being incorporated in the RMP, there is an absolute lack of any clear statements committing to any part of the Trails Plan. All of us in the riding community fear that this means that everything is potentially back on the table as part of the RMP process. This is a real fear that has been the repeated history of equitable riding access at the Fells for over twenty years.

We're not sure what the next steps are yet. We all have spent a lot of time and energy participating in this process and we do not intend to throw that away. It is also a strong likelihood that DCR does not want to waste all their effort that they've expended on the Trails Plan either.

It is also likely, that as we sign on for the RMP process, that this will be the last opportunity that DCR will have for positive engagement from the MTB community on the Fells. DCR's two year, open and intensive Trails Plan came up with all the right answers on the Fells that we have been lobbying for over twenty years. We engaged and participated. We were told that this is the process. We have been told repeatedly how much we are valued as partners...

...And now we don't know whether those efforts will matter. This is the crux. Reassurances don't mean very much without concrete, tangible outcomes. It's hard to feel valued as a partner when, at the end of the day, it doesn't look clear at all whether we're going to see any positive gains. And without positive gains, how can we, the Greater Boston Chapter of the New England Mountain Bike Association, ask any of you to comply with inequitable access rules that don't make any sense at the Fells?

The conservation groups had one goal: force DCR to do an RMP. They achieved this. However, senior representatives from both the Sierra Club and Mass Audubon have said in private that they are OK with the Trails Plan. Both of these organizations take public positions affirming support for mountain biking. Yet their actions, masked under their rigid insistence that DCR can't do anything without an RMP, contradict their public positions.  (And we will say again, the RMP law as written does not support that position, because if it did DCR shouldn't be doing anything in any park or property without an RMP. DCR would have to stop all operations in their properties. Period.) This is a smoke screen used to further a private agenda of restricting or banning equitable access for mountain bikers.

So, now we have an RMP process. If, as Sierra Club and Mass. Audubon have stated publicly and in their official comments to DCR, their main issue in opposing the Trails Plan is lack of an RMP (when privately they are OK with the Trails Plan), then now is the time for them to speak up and support the Trails Plan components of it. Sierra Club and Mass. Audubon, your public silence on this will prove that you've been anti-biking, just like the Friends of the Fells, all along. We challenge you to prove us wrong.

One more thing. While we disagree that the absence of an RMP should not halt much-needed changes and maintenance, the DCR has decided otherwise and that restriction should apply equally to ALL organizations. No scheduled or planned work should be done without an RMP in the Fells, by anyone, until the RMP is complete.

Let us not forget, people have been riding in the Fells, and all other parks around Massachusetts for years - with virtually no issues. The only issues in the Fells are reported by the same small group of individuals attacking bike riders and leading the charge to ban biking there. This is a manufactured conflict created by a small group of anti-social, anti-recreation extremists (Friends of the Fells) who have corrupted the system and process of determining fair use and access for their own agendas, and will no doubt do their utmost in the coming months to further subvert, delay or damage the RMP.  

Good luck with that - because we'll continue to fight you every step of the way.



We need your help to win this fight.  Stay tuned for next steps



Adam, Tom, Mike, Claire, Terry, Chris, and Tim

Greater Boston NEMBA, Board of Directors

1/7/2011