by Suzanne Webel
The City of Boulder has just completed its West Trail Study Area process, having convened a new group of stakeholders to determine the fate of existing trails, future trails, and off-trail use of this very large area. Popular trails in the block include the Mesa Trail, South Boulder Creek Trail, Shanahan Ridge, Bear Canyon, Flagstaff, Chautauqua, Mt Sanitas, Wonderland Lake, and Foothills… all the Mountain Parks Trails as well as the foothills trails. Unfortunately for horse people, we gave up a lot of our equestrian habitat in the spirit of cooperation and got very little in exchange. You can learn more about this project, and which trails are open to horses.
It is estimated that the West TSA process entailed over 20 hours a month per person for more than a year. If every volunteer on the committee put in the same amount of time, that came to almost 3,500 hours of citizens’ time spent on determining the fate of trails west of Broadway. If staff and the alternate(s)’ time is counted, you can more than double that time, to, say, 7,000 hours. Give it a time-value-of-money of $25 an hour, throw in the consultant’s fees, and we got a project “worth” around a quarter of a million bucks. Was it worth it?
Nope. We did achieve two extraordinary things: after a full year of negotiations and discussions, the entire Community Collaborative Group and the Open Space Board of Trustees reached consensus on the horse recommendations. However, in its infinite wisdom and very finite knowledge, the Boulder City Council threw out the “horse regs” entirely, denying us historic off-trail access, closing several key trails and favorite haunts for horses, and preventing staff from even “looking” for additional horse trailer parking in the West TSA. Why? their actions were entirely arbitrary and punitive, to punish horses and horse people for being politically incorrect in the People’s Republic of Boulder.
The only consolation is that many other people are angry about the process as well. We can only hope that the next TSA process will be less gruesome. And — make no mistake — OSMP is gearing up right now for the “North TSA” (from Linden Drive all the way to Rabbit Mountain, and east toward Longmont), followed by the “East TSA” (from Longmont all the way around to Erie, Lafayette, Louisville, and east Boulder). There is no rest for the weary in this regard. If we don’t participate, we will surely lose even more equestrian access. We need a new volunteer to work with OSMP. If you care about equestrian issues, please step up and volunteer to help, provide input, give moral support, come to meetings, and stay in touch.