They're Opening Up Land In Utah
They're Opening Up Land In Utah
John D. Ulrich
The trend in motorcycling is often set by California, which is the home of the most year-round motorcycle activity on earth. But, the Golden State is also home to the infamous "Green Stickie" off-road vehicle (ORV) registration program. When the program was initiated in June of 1972, it was promised that funds collected under the $15-per-two-year-period charge would be used to provide riding areas for ORVs in California-most of which are motorcycles.
In July 1974, the first two-year ORV registration period expires. The results? Not much. California has taken the people's money without delivering the promised goods. This is an unfortunate situation for sure; but it need not be the case.
Compare the California ORV regis tration program to the one Utah has. Utah has fewer ORVs (30,000 to Cali fornia's 1.3 million), fewer people ad ministering its program, fewer govern ment agencies and levels involved, charges less money for a registration, and yet delivers more. Why?
That's a good question to ask right now. State ORV programs become increasingly important as the ORV land management plans ordered for every chunk of Federal land by Executive Order 11644 are finished. The trend towards land management, restriction of ORV use, and even land closure, is already established. Whichever side, viewpoint, or attitude a state ORV program and its administrators take, can be a weighty factor in the process that decides where people in that state can ride their motorcycles.
The motivations behind the Utah program were the same as those that are behind just about every government action affecting off-road motorcycling. First, complaints about noise and irre sponsible riding habits, and second, fear of environmental damage-the same rea son that the Forest Service started requiring hiking permits and restricting Boy Scout travel in the Sierra Nevada. It was in 1970 that the Utah State Division of Parks and Recreation be came aware of several bills being pre pared for introduction into the 1971 state legislature. These bills were all aimed at "controlling" ORV use and the problems resulting from that use in Utah. The Division was concerned because all of the bills shared another thing in common: each charged the Division of Parks and Recreation with the responsibility of administering the programs started under the bills.
Here lies the biggest difference be tween the California and Utah pro grams. On paper, they both should work pretty well. In reality, Utah is light years ahead of California in terms of understanding problems associated with ORV use, liaisons with ORV user groups, and, most importantly, attitude.
Take a Look You Other Forty-Nine. What this State’s Got is a Good $5 ORV Program
§0 's alifornia gan’s secretary Governor once Ronald told to Reaa ^ woman’s club meeting in Whittier, California, a story designed to illustrate the governor’s “fine sense of humor.” It seems that a young dirt rider wrote to Reagan suggesting that he take up motorcycling as a means to bridge the generation gap. The governor’s reply? “I usually travel with a group of about ten people, and if we all went around on motorcycles we would look Mpe Hell’s Angels.”
^ In contrast, Utah Governor Calvin Rampton talks about “the pleasures of off-road vehicle use.” And when it comes to the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation’s Boating and Recreation Vehicles Chief, Tedd Tuttle, the attitude differences are so obvious it hurts.
When Tuttle talks about those first bills aimed at suppressing ORV use, his feelings become clear. “They were very, very bad bills; completely restrictive. They were going to solve everything by saying no, no, no.”
Concerned about the kind of program that they might get stuck with if nothing was done, Tuttle and the Division of Parks and Recreation started a bold move to have a say in the development of the program they would have to work with once it became law. They started a series of meetings and discussions with individual user groups. Then, a series of workshops was started, with representatives from all relevant interest groups—from bikers to conservationists. Working with the workshop groups, the Division went through eight official drafts of a bill designed to put together a reasonable off-road vehicle program. After the many revisions, they had “something nearly everyone could live with.”
Tuttle points out that the final result did not just concentrate on reducing problems with noise and environmental damage, but gave equal importance to “the enhancement of the recreation use to provide facilities and services, and to give legitimacy to the responsible use of the recreational vehicles.”
The job was done so well that not one person spoke against the bill at the packed first legislative committee hearing held on it.
he bill, which passed as the Utah vl' v Recreational Vehicle Act, set up operating and equipment standards for ORVs being used on any land in the state that was open to the public. Over 70 percent of Utah is comprised of federal land, over which the new bill also has jurisdiction.
Roving patrols enforce the law. Rangers mounted on stripped Suzuki 185s and Yamaha 175s, ride around checking for equipment violations (mostly noisy exhausts), registration, respect of closed areas, and ecological damage. The 25 ORV rangers are mostly concerned with counselling violators, but they can issue citations that carry an average fine of $25.
The idea of bike-riding posses out keeping an eye on their favorite riding area may not appeal to some people, but these patrols play a major part in keeping several federal areas open to ORV use.
It seems that in the past five years, budget cutbacks have made it difficult for many federal agencies to maintain their former level of services, let alone take on additional responsibilities. The Forest Service, for example, is not about to open up a bike trail if it cannot afford to maintain and patrol that trail to make sure that damage is not taking place. In Utah, Tuttle’s men patrol the Forest Service land when the Forest Service itself cannot afford to do so. The result is that land that would have been closed, due to lack of funds to patrol it, remains open.
Cooperating with the Division of Parks and Recreation’s efforts, local motorcycle clubs have pitched in to help with trail maintenance.
Tuttle explains how the enforcement set up under the Utah Recreational Vehicle Act, also gives federal land managers needed options in handling ORV use problems. “Before the Act, the universal tool that all of the land administrators had to control all of the problems was closure. Our being able to come in and patrol the guy who takes his muffler off, or control the guy who tears up a hillside, making a new scar or trail, provides the means to get at the small percent of ‘badguys’ that get land closed for everybody. The Act has provided a tool to get at the problems directly, without having to use closure as a catch-all solution.”
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he program is financed with money collected from ORV regis3m trations, which cost $5 a year. Any vehicle with street registration is not required to be registered under the nroeram. nor are bikes used in commer-
cial promotions not open to just anybody in the public. Thus, a motocrosser used on private tracks may not need a
registration; and the same is true of Bonneville Land Speed Record chasers.
The exemption from contribution to the program (through registration fees), that is provided for street-licensed vehicles, must be changed, in Tuttle’s view, to allow the state to do for bikers what similar programs have done for boaters and snowmobilers in Utah. With only 30,000 ORVs in the state, and many of them street-legal, the Parks and Recreation boys aren’t getting all of the money they need to keep their ambitious program going.
What is that ambitious program? The state has already leased two riding parks in the Salt Lake City area, and admission is simply an ORV registration. Anybody who has one can get in free.
Future plans? Tuttle hopes to provide sanitation facilities for existing race tracks and areas; and maybe even at desert races. And, they have been eyeing twenty possible ORV parks in Salt Lake County alone. About ten of these sites either already are, or could easily be, made into, in Tuttle’s words, “good motocross courses,” for use by both organized groups and the general public. Think of it! Just drive up to the gate of your neighborhood state-operated-andmaintained MX track, flash your $5-ayear ORV registration, and race! It could happen.
And the rest of the 20 areas? Tuttle believes that right in the most densely populated area (the Salt Lake Valley has most of Utah’s population), the need is greatest for neighborhood ORV parks where “little kids who aren’t licensed to operate on the highway, can push their bikes, after school and on weekends, and ride. That’s got to be close to home.”
t a very minimum, according to Tuttle, 20 ORV riding areas in the Salt Lake Valley (which has a total population of about 250,000), providing both a place for the racer and the trailrider, would be justified. In fact, he would like to see even more than that. “These areas,” he explains, “would from the little local riding area where the kids could ride and have a good variety of riding experiences, to the competition courses. These would maybe have a motocross, Junior and Senior; a trials riding area; maybe an obstacle-type course; and a variety of other riding. A third type of area might be more mountain-trail-type riding parks, since we’re endowed with these mountains all around us.” The
biggest challenges that must be overcome in order to make this “dream” come true, are financing, and also the often exaggerated fears of local residents who don’t want any race tracks within fifty miles of their homes. Tuttle calls those people “chronic complainers,” and likes to point out that “We’ve gained a lot of ground in getting the average person to realize that young people, particularly, need this type of opportunity —it’s a justified opportunity.” So
far it all sounds pretty good, but the most amazing thing is yet to come. In
many states, it is safe to generalize, as far as land use goes, a biker must convince the government of the validity of his viewpoint. In essence, it is the motorcyclist vs. the government. Tuttle’s organization does not allow that generalization to be applicable in Utah. Take
an experience of the Salt Lake Motorcycle Club as an example. The club had been running a desert race known as “Cherry Creek” on federal land for eleven years before the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) first required performance bonds to be put up by race sponsors to ensure clean-up of the course and start areas. The BLM, with no precedent to go by, arbitrarily set the performance bond at $2,000. The club did not have that kind of money lying around, and could not find anyone who would sell them such a bond. “We contacted the Division of Parks and Recreation,” relates club member Dave Spencer, “and they helped us reason with the BLM office. We got it down to about $200 bond.” That’s
right, the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation actually works on behalf of motorcyclists with other government agencies! That’s
not all. Over the last three years, Tuttle has, on many occasions, “taken four or five motorcycles out, and we get some of the district managers from the Forest Service, or the Park Service, or the BLM, and put them on machines. We take them out into their area of responsibility, and make them aware of the damage machines can do, but also the fact that they can be enjoyed without doing damage.” What
makes Utah different when it comes to ORV programs? Dave Eccles of the Utah Motorcycle Dealer’s Association sums it up pretty well: “We’ve got a state agency on our side!”
