Bikes. Worse than Heroin.

I posted before about a proposed new multiuse path through Santa Cruz’s Pogonip park. The city parks department held a meeting about this plan Wednesday night.

The gist of it: There’s a serious problem with heroin use along the eastern edge of Pogonip. The proposed trail for hikers, bikers and equestrians will bring more people into this area. The druggies will go away. The Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz have offered to pay for trail construction. Everybody is happy.

Except for the local chapter of the Sierra Club, because bikes are evil. Allowing bikes in Pogonip conflicts with the Pogonip Master Plan, which calls for only low impact uses. I understand the tension between preserving wild spaces versus recreational uses of open space, but in this case, there’s already a significant impact on the area from recreational drug use. The “Heroin Hill” area of Pogonip is a littered, dangerous mess.

I stole the title of this post from our friends at Santa Cruz Bicycles, which also supports this trail. Now that you know some of the background, read 104 Bronson’s take on Pogonip.

4 Comments

  1. Ever wonder why the Sierra Club consistently apposes biking, which is pollution free, noise free, and carbon neutral. What true environmental group would not support green alternative transportation. Thats because they are not an an environmental group, they are a special interest group for the elderly, who prefer to drive their cars to the park. They want us to get to parks in the same way they do, and exclude everyone else. If you care about alternative transportation, please do not support the Sierra Club. There are plenty of true environmental groups out there that need your support.

  2. I’m typing this from a hotel in the Austrian Alps, and one thing I’ve learned this week is that the Europeans have a far better idea about environmental protection. We should preserve the environment to keep it usable for human enjoyment indefinitely, not to keep it “pre-human.” It’s also the kind of environmental policy that should be much easier to get republicans on board with anyway.

  3. @IRMO: The various approaches to environmental protection reflect the underlying philosophy that informs that particular environmental ethic. For example, do we manage the environment for the ultimate benefit of man? Or is “nature” inherently worth protecting a la John Muir?

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