November 24,
1999
Tony Acosta
Director, Office of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs
1520 Lakeside Drive
Oakland, CA 94612
Re: Access to Joaquin Miller Park
Dear Sir:
I am very concerned about the arbitrary and discriminatory
management of Oakland's parks. I like to practice bulldozer racing
(also known as "bulldozer scrambling", or BS, for short). That is my
way of enjoying nature. Who are you to tell me how I should enjoy
nature?! Why is your way of enjoying the outdoors any better than
mine?! You allow roller-bladers, equestrians, mountain bikers, and
even hikers in your parks. But I am excluded, and can't enjoy the
parks that I pay taxes for. You obviously like them better than me, or
maybe you belong to one of those user groups, so you are biased
towards them. In any case, you are discriminating against me and other
bulldozer racers, and I demand that this discrimination, which
violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, stop immediately!
I know that bulldozer racers have a bad name, but that's just
because we are the new kid on the block. We are a tiny minority. I
know that there have been some problems, such as some people riding
recklessly, going off the designated trails, and even secretly
constructing illegal trails. But those are a small minority of
bulldozer riders. You shouldn't allow a small minority to give the
majority of us bulldozer racers, who ride responsibly, a bad name. Why
should we be punished, just because of them, and be forced to walk,
just like everybody else?
I also know that some extremist tree-huggers claim that it's a
violation of CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act) to allow
a new use of the park trails, and the creation of new trails, without
doing an EIR (Environmental Impact Report). But you are right:
mountain biking and bulldozer racing, when performed in an
environmentally responsible manner, doesn't have a significant impact
on the environment. In fact, it's actually beneficial to wildlife. You
can tell that, by the fact that you often see deer tracks on the
mountain biking trails. If the trails didn't benefit them, they
wouldn't use them, now would they? Bulldozer racing doesn't drive out
wildlife. That is a myth. I see lots of wildlife where I ride.
Some people say that we ride too fast to avoid killing small
animals on the trail, such as snakes -- that we have to pay attention
to avoid crashing, and can't also look out for wildlife. Are they that
slow? What about "survival of the fittest"? If they are that slow,
they aren't going to survive, anyway.
Some HOHAs ("Hateful Old Hikers", as the mountain bikers call
them) claim that bulldozer racing does more harm to the environment
than hiking. But a scientific study was done in New Zealand, proving
that bulldozer racing does no more harm than hiking. Another
scientific study showed that most erosion is caused by nature, and so
any additional erosion caused by bulldozer racing is not significant,
by comparison. Would you rather have the park clear-cut, or turned
into another gated community for the rich? Without the support of
strong environmentalists like us, that's what will inevitably happen!
We are your strongest defense against development. If a park doesn't
have a strong constituency of recreational users, no one will care
about it, and it will inevitably be lost. (That's what those
environmental extremists call "destroying it, in order to save it".
But what do they know?) The HOHAs claim that vehicles make it too easy
for lazy, uncaring people to get into wildlife habitat. But if nobody
goes there, who will protect the park? The more people go to a park,
the better it is for the wildlife!
Another claim is that we compact the soil around redwoods, killing
them! Can you believe that?! In Muir Woods National Monument, they
don't even let people walk next to them, making them stick to pavement
or raised walkways. They must be run by an environmental extremist
tree-hugger!
I know that some HOHAs claim that bulldozer racing is
annoying, and destroys their experience of nature. I guess they're
superior to everybody else. They are just being selfish. They just
don't want to share "their" trails with anybody else! That's obvious.
The older ones claim that they have given up going there, because they
are afraid of being hit, or are tired of constantly having to get off
the trail to let bulldozers go by. Isn't that just evolution --
survival of the fittest? Why should hikers, or anyone else, have the
whole park to themselves? We pay taxes, too. We have just as much
right to be there as they do. We are just as much environmentalists as
they are. We love nature! That's why we want to ride there!
When you have spent as much on your equipment as we have, believe me,
it is very frustrating, not to have any place to use it! We don't, of
course, condone illegal trail building. However, we can understand the
frustration of people whose only sin is preferring a different way of
enjoying nature. They think that, because they are able to purchase a
piece of equipment that lets them go off-road, the public is obligated
to give them a place to use it. That's understandable -- isn't that
the American way? Aren't they just like the pioneers?
We bulldozer racers ("BS-ers"😉 belong in the parks just as much as
everybody else. If the HOHAs don't want us on their trails, because we
allegedly create narrow ruts, and make them difficult to walk on, then
we deserve to have our own trails, which we will gladly build for
free. There is plenty of space for everyone. If the wildlife don't
like it, they can always move! It's just survival of the fittest. As I
said, that's what evolution is all about.
We will even police our own riders, so that you won't have any
additional expenses. After all, how would you catch a renegade
bulldozer racer? Your rangers would also need to drive bulldozers,
increasing the wear and tear on the trails. We can do that for you.
How about it? There are more and more of us every day. And we vote.
Sincerely,
Michael J.
Vandeman, Ph.D.
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"😉. Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)