At 02:03 PM 11/13/2002 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >This article from madison.com and The Capital Times >has been sent to you by Matt Logan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Matt Logan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] notes: "The Cap times has a slightly more >in-depth story today as well..." I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't get the article, just headlines and captions, so I'm reproducing it here... chuck
Commuter cyclists ride county over trail fees Path is a transportation route, they say By Bill Novak Capital Times (a1) November 13, 2002 Bicyclists using the Capital City Bike Trail to commute to work are fuming about Dane County's plan to charge a fee to bike or rollerblade on the trail, saying it could become the first and only toll road in Wisconsin. But Dane County's parks director defends the fee because it's considered a recreation trail, not a transportation corridor, and the county charges user fees on recreation trails. Fee opponents disagree, arguing it's a transportation corridor and there should not be any user fees. The Capital City Bike Trail fee is one of many on the agenda tonight for the Park Commission meeting at 5:15 at the Parks Department offices, 4318 Robertson Road. Public comment on the new fee schedule is set for 6 p.m. "If we're going to have toll roads, start with the Beltline," said Chuck Strawser, program manager for the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin. "We have to maintain the trail," said Parks Director Ken LePine. "In the last year, it cost $27,258.19 to maintain the Capital City Bike Trail. We had to find that money from somewhere else." The Park Commission OK'd charging a fee to use the trail last year but never implemented it. Users would spend $10 for a season State Trail Pass to use the bike trail, or pay $3 a day. The state trail pass would be good on all state bike trails. Bicyclists and rollerbladers 16 years old or older would have to buy the trail pass to use the Capital City Bike Trail. Hikers would not have to pay. Self-registration stations would be set up on the bike path so users could pay and go. "I don't think we'll raise tons of money with this, but if we work together, we should bring in enough money to pay for the bike path's maintenance," LePine said. Federal highway money was used for the Capital City Bike Trail, so fee opponents complained that a fee couldn't be charged if a highway subsidy was used to build it. But the state Department of Transportation ruled the county could charge a user fee on all but the highway right-of-way sections of the trail. Strawser said that because transportation funds were used to build the trail, it's supposed to be considered a transportation corridor, free of any user fees. "There will be protests from people who won't pay it," Strawser said. "What's at issue here is the trail was built as a transportation corridor." County Board Supervisor Brett Hulsey, an avid bicyclist, said a fee shouldn't be charged. Trail users "are already doing their part to reduce traffic and pollution," Hulsey said. "That bike trail is so heavily used for commuting into town, and we are so desperately trying to keep people off the highways." _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
