Tuesday Afternoon Commute - critic

Good afternoon

• A Takoma Park resident gave up biking for a month. They report that they "Saved no time because I spent more time sitting in traffic, driving around looking for parking spaces, driving further than I would have walked, and returning so fatigued from coping with traffic I was less productive the rest of the day."
• Obama signed the recently passed bill that "cleans up language written in the National Forest Ski Area Permit Act of 1986 in order for resorts operating on federal land to receive permits for activities other than alpine and Nordic skiing." One of these activities is mountain biking. Does anyone know if this will include any east coast ski resorts?
• A New York Times art critic rides a bike in NYC with JSK with an eye on the aesthetics. "The resistance of New Yorkers to new transportation ideas harks back, as Ms. Sadik-Khan likes to point out, to protests against the introduction of the IRT subway a century ago, and to the implementation of the grid street plan a century before that. Progress can be hard to accept."

Comments

[Purple Eagle]

Are any of the southeastern US ski resorts on Forest Service lands? (I believe some resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire are).

[Early Man]

I found this on the National Ski Areas Association website:

The measure will allow ski resorts located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wyoming to offer their guests a wider array of activities in summer, including zip lines, mountain biking and mountain bike parks, ropes courses and Frisbee golf courses.

So New Hampsire (Wildcat Mountain) and Vermont (?) it is.

[Purple Eagle]

I think Killington and Bromley Mountain are in Green Mountain National Forest. Maybe the resort just north of Stratton Mountain too. (all of those are in Vermont). Killington runs their lift in the summer for mountain bikers already - or at least it was doing so in 2005 when I hiked to the top on a side trail from the AT.

So it sounds like this change will have limited effect on DC-area mountain bikers.

[darren]

i thought Seven Springs in PA was on Federal land

[Michael H.]

The main reason that the ski resort law doesn't affect the D.C. area is simply the fact that there aren't many mountainous national parks nearby. The vast majority of National Parks are located west of the Mississippi River.

I couldn't find a simple list on the NPS website so I have to rely on the unofficial Wikipedia list (which seems accurate). Of the 58 National Parks (not National Monuments, preserves, historical parks or historical sites, most of which are too small or too flat to have ski resorts, except maybe Capitol Hill? LOL), only 9 are in the eastern U.S. (east of the Mississippi).

Shenandoah National Park is the only one in the Mid-Atlantic.

But I did some searching re nearby ski resorts. It seems that we can already use them for mountain biking in the summer. I looked through the websites for Seven Springs in Pennsylvania and Massanutten Resort in Virginia. Both resorts specifically indicate that mountain biking is allowed and promoted in the summer. So we don't really need a new law around here. The closest ski resorts already promote summer mountain biking.

http://www.7springs.com/page/category.detail/nav/5637/Mountain-Biking.html

http://massresort.com/v.php?pg=55

[Purple Eagle]

There no National Parks with downhill/commercial ski areas. This new ruling deals with National Forest land. National Parks generally promote only activities that have a minimum impact on the natural resources and promote engagement with the natural world, thus their emphasis on hiking and nature observation as opposed to golf courses and ski resort (the Parkways, golf courses, tennis courts, etc in DC area parks are the exception). National Forests have a multiple-use mandate.

We do indeed have quite a bit of National Forest in the southern Appalachians - Jefferson and Washington in Virginia, Monongahela in West Virginia, and several more in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Two million acres just in Virginia.

7 Springs is not on federal land - it's state land. The only national forest land in PA is the Allegheny NF, north of Pittsburgh. Timberline in West Virginia is on the edge of the Monongahela National Forest, but I think it's private land.

[Michael H.]

OK. But regardless, local mtn bikers can already use some of the closest ski resorts for summer riding. So DC-area residents aren't losing out.

[I forgot]

@Purple Eagle: Au contraire. The Badger Pass Ski Area is in Yosemite National Park.

[Scout03]

Takoma Park commute report -

My bike commute is almost the exact same time duration as if I used mass trans...unless the metro is stuck in the tube for just short of forever as usually happens with recent delays.

[Purple Eagle]

True, I forgot about Badger Pass. I think it's the only exception. There's a golf course in Yosemite too - a relic from before the Park Service took over management of the valley. NPS does maintain XC ski trails in many parks though. Some may have commercial vendors who rent skis/snowshoes.

[oboe]

activities that have a minimum impact on the natural resources and promote engagement with the natural world, thus their emphasis on hiking and nature observation as opposed to golf courses and ski resort

Wait! How can golf not fall under that definition?