 |
|
No trails in my backyard
By Tim Post
Minnesota Public Radio
September 6, 2001
|
RealAudio |
Minnesotans love recreational trails. And while the state leads the country in the miles of bicycle trails available to residents, parks officials and trail aficionados say there's always room for more. Most often when a new trail is proposed, there is a huge outpouring of support from local residents. But not always. One example is the disagreement over expansion of the popular Lake Wobegon Trail in central Minnesota.
 |
|
|
|
||
|
||
"It's quiet, wasn't very many people out there. Close, easy to get to, lot of stuff to look at along the way. Goes through the country - lot of farm country. It's real pretty, lot of wildlife," says Marty Anderson. "It's a real safe trail system so it's easy to take kids, so if you get spread out it's not to big of a deal."
"The people who use it for biking and hiking I think the vast majority of them are really nice," says a rural Stearns county resident who, along with her family, own a small acreage along the Lake Wobegon trail. "Of course, there's always a small minority who are going to ruin it for the others."
She doesn't want her name used in this story because she's afraid raising concerns about such a popular local attraction will damage her standing with many of her neighbors. She says the Lake Wobegon trail, which borders her property, opens her family up to trespassers.
"I've had bicyclists come off the trail, go up the road - which is obviously not part of the trail - up our driveway, and stand in our driveway and watch us work in our yard, which is really an invasion of privacy. And then act like it was totally natural to be there," she says.
She says being treated as part of the trail's scenery is annoying and unnerving. But the real problem with the trail is the noise. Not so much from the summer traffic, but from the snowmobiles that travel along the corridor in the winter. She says even if snowmobilers follow speed limits, pay attention to crossings, and don't trespass on their land, the noise from the machines invades their privacy, during the day and much of the night.
Reports from Stearns County officials show few police or injury calls along the trail. But it's the anecdotal complaints that rural landowners point to when Stearns County officials tout a nearly $500,000, 10-mile planned expansion of the Lake Wobegon Trail from Albany north to the small town of Holdingford.
| |
|
|
|
||
|
||
"We had planned to build a retirement residence here, and our plan was to start that in the year 2000. We've put that plan on hold. We will wait and see at this point what happens as far as the usage, and how it's used," Coykendall says.
Coykendall, who acts as a sort of spokeswoman for the other landowners and farmers opposed to the trail, has a list of fears about the trail's effects. At the top is noise; problems with trespassers; an increase in crime; and the potential liability that landowners face if a trail user is hurt on their land. Coykendall says the fact that her family now has to cross a busy trail to get to their property, increases the likelihood of a collision with a trail user.
Landowners along the existing Wobegon Trail, and along another stretch of undeveloped rail corridor south of Albany - about 200 in all - have banded together to voice their concerns. They've hired St. Paul attorney and former state Sen. Fritz Knaack to represent them. Knaack says the perfect solution, in some landowners' eyes, would be to stop the trail altogether.
"But absent that, a very well-policed and very well-regulated trail - with fences that will keep people out of the adjoining property as well as adequate to keep animals off the trail - minimizing to the extent possible, the impact that this trail is going to have on the surrounding rural residents," he says.
Knaack says landowners are concerned bikers or hikers could trespass on a farm and get hurt, putting the landowner at risk of litigation.
County park officials say those concerns are blown out of proportion, and that it's unlikely there will ever be such problems. Chuck Wocken, director of the Stearns County Parks Department, says there are a few problems with trespassing, and a few reports of petty crimes and minor injuries on the existing Lake Wobegon Trail. Wocken says he thinks landowners' concerns will mostly disappear when the trail is built.
"I think it'll prove that a lot of the fears of a public trail being a bad neighbor will be unfounded," says Wocken. "What we think will happen eventually when we blacktop - or put a hard surface on that corridor - is the more users you get, the less abuse you'll have. If you only halfway design it and halfway develop it, then you're asking for more trouble."
Wocken is trying to calm the fears of landowners along the new trail. He says they won't be liable for trespassers if they get hurt, and if someone is hurt on the trail, it's the county's responsibility. They carry insurance that covers park land and trails in those cases. Landowners opposed to the trail dismiss those assurances, and say in this litigious society, everything is up for argument, and anyone can be sued in court. Opponents say they'll threaten legal action to stop the construction of the trail, if all of their concerns are not addressed.
But, Stearns County is moving on with its plans to develop phase two of the Lake Wobegon Trail from Albany to Holdingford. In fact, crews are now preparing the trail. By November they say they'll have a trail bed of crushed rock for bikers, hikers and snowmobilers to travel, with plans to further develop a paved trail in the future.
More Information
Lake Wobegon Trail
© 2024 | Home : Terms of Use : Your Privacy RightsRadio Listening : News & Features : Events Calendar : Your Voice : About Us