Help Increase Bicycling Opportunities in National Parks
The International Mountain Bicycling Association brings a huge amount of professionalism and energy to the table for all of us that use trails.
Now it’s our turn to step up. We need mountain bikers to contact the National Park Service.
According to IMBA:
The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has proposed an important rule change that will make it easier for parks to open trails to mountain biking. IMBA urges mountain bikers to register comments in support of the new rule. We have been asking the NPS to make this change since the 1990s — we now enter a 60-day commentary period to make the change official.
We know that several groups are working hard to defeat this proposal. It will take thousands of comments supporting the NPS to ensure the rule is approved. Please lend your voice to the discussion today.
Fortunately IMBA has made it super simple to contact the National Park Service.
And they’re also so professional about it. As opposition groups rely on whipping up emotions and passions to get a response, IMBA writes a white paper that responsibly lays out the impacts of this rule change.
A rule change will not diminish protections that ensure appropriate trail use. All regular NPS regulations, General Management Planning (GMP) processes, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) still applies. Absolutely no environmental processes will be shortchanged. The public will still have ample opportunity to comment both locally and nationally. The parks that have existing mountain biking have gone through the GMP and NEPA processes and the trails are signed, actively managed and documented in the superintendent’s compendium.
If you want to support IMBA a bit more, by all means consider an IMBA membership.
And if you hurry, you can still get the tax deduction for this year.