Press Release

February 18, 2000 For Immediate Release

An innocuous-sounding motorcycle registration bill (S529) is surreptitiously masking off-road motorcycle access to trails in New Jersey’s state parks and forests.

The bill, introduced in January 2000 by Senator Louis F. Kosco, requires off-road motorcycles to register with the Department of Motor Vehicles – AND requires the Department of Environmental Protection to designate and make available one site in a State park or forest in the northern part of the State for off-road motorcycle use...consist[ing] of 30 miles of trails.

The NY-NJ Trail Conference and the Sierra Club/ New Jersey Chapter are vociferously OPPOSED to this legislation, which would increase the States' insurance and park maintenance costs, cause environmental damage to our state parks, increase the risk of accidents with other park users and effectively close a state park for everyone other than motorcyclists. This legislation may only be the beginning of efforts to have other park lands usurped for motorcycles or other special interest groups, ranging from All-Terrain Vehicles to television towers.

The off-road motorcyclists, most notably the Ridge Riders Motorcycling Club, have the attention of certain state legislators, including Sen. Kosco, a motor-cycle dealer. S529 is the companion bill to last-legislative-session’s A-3019, introduced by Assemblymen E. Scott Garrett and Guy R. Gregg (both R-24) in March 1999. Through S529, motorcyclists are asking for de facto exclusive use of public parkland in the most densely populated state in the nation.

Bill S529 requires 30 miles of trail be created in one park or forest alone. By way of illustration, in south Jersey, there is an off-road motorcycling site with 5 miles of trail on 262 acres of land. Because S529 mandates 30 miles of trails, it requires six times the miles - and likely six times the acreage - of the south Jersey example. That’s about 1,300 acres...half of Allamuchy Mountain State Park, or almost the size of Paramus.

Can New Jerseyans afford to let about 1,300 acres of public parkland be pre-empted from public use for all but motorcyclists?? Can New Jerseyans afford to let such a precedent happen?

This proposed legislation would fund an activity destructive to the very resources that New Jerseyans have voted to preserve through taxpayer dollars.

For further information, contact Anne Lutkenhouse, Trail Conference Projects Director, at (212) 685-9699, or Jeff Tittel, Executive Director, Sierra Club/ NJ Chapter, at (609) 924-3141.

Public Policy, Financial, Liability and Environmental Reasons for Opposition

Public Policy:

Bill S529 sponsors find that illegal motorcycling use of public park land is happening - and thus environmental damage occurring - because there are ‘virtually no areas in State parks or forests...set aside for their use’.

An illegal activity should not be legalizing merely because people are doing it. Under that rationale, if people began ‘recreating’ by chainsawing trees, should public land managers then legalize chainsaw cutting on public lands?? Where does one draw the line?

It is NOT the State’s responsibility to provide for every type of recreational activity, as this legislation and its supporters assert. Limits on the recreational activities permitted on public lands exist, due to the public land managing agencies’ mission to preserve the lands entrusted to them. This bill would erode the integrity of the Department of Environmental Protection’s main objective and the purpose for which these lands have been previously saved.

The proposed legislation seeks a program which ‘does not conflict with other types of trail use’. This sounds great...but from a safety, and enjoyment, perspective, can walkers, families with children, bird watchers, nature photographers, hikers, campers, hunters and others REALLY use land where motorcycles will be whizzing by?

Financial:

According to the report of the Governors’ Council on New Jersey Outdoors, the State Park Service budget should be increased minimally by $10.5 million for park maintenance. The report identified a need for an additional $160 million dollars over the next ten years for repairs and capital funding, and recommended spending $15 million per year over the current appropriation. For illustration, the proposed Fiscal Year 2000 budget increases funding for state parks by $3.5 million, but falls far below the recommended target of $14 million for State Park operational funding per the Governor’s Council on New Jersey Outdoors report.

Opening parks and forests to off-road motorcycles would create even more of a need for maintenance funding. There are insufficient rangers now to adequately patrol the lands, and users, of the State Park Service system. And new park acreage will be increasing with the permanent source of open space funding.

Liability:

Off-road motorcycling on trails on State lands increases the State’s liability risk, and, in turn, taxpayers’ financial burden. Rider-only, and rider-and-other-user, accidents and injuries will increase. Why should New Jersey citizens pay for public land to be chewed up - and for the lawsuits when someone gets hurt??

Environmental:

Off-road motorcycling clearly causes environmental damage on sensitive lands: soil erosion, wildlife/flora/fauna destruction, streambanks degradation, noise pollution, and particulate pollution. Much of northern New Jersey consists of sensitive lands, such as steep slopes, shallow soils, wetlands, and streams.

A solution to the issue

There are two ways to satisfy the off-road motorcycle riders without sacrificing the greater populace’s rights of access to preserved State (public) lands.

Let vehicle registration fees be used to buy land for a dedicated off-road vehicle ‘park’, or let the industry-funded motorcycle constituency buy some land for an off-road vehicle ‘park’ and operate it as a for-profit business. Using worked-out sand and gravel operations, abandoned quarries, brownfields or other not-so-sensitive land would be a great private enterprise for local economy(s).

Call to Action

Get Active! How to lobby

Follow this link to the actual bill, S529. (PDF required)

Do you want 1,300 acres of public parkland pre-empted from public use for all but motorcyclists?? We cannot afford this precedent-setting legislation to pass!  This proposed legislation would fund an activity destructive to the very resources and open spaces that New Jerseyans have voted to preserve through taxpayer dollars (through Green Acres referenda) since the 1960s.

Your elected representatives need to hear from YOU! Write or call to express your opinion. Identify yourself:

• as a resident of their district.
• as an active volunteer and member of the NY-NJ Trail Conference, representing over 65,000 in New Jersey.

State your opposition to any motorized use in state parks or forests because damage to State property and natural resources will increase; because the state has inadequate financial resources to repair the damage; because the risk to other users will increase the state's liability - which it also can't afford.

Find Your Legislator If you are unaware of who your elected officials are, CALL the Trail Conference at (212) 685-9699.

As a registered voter, your opinion makes a difference!

Anne Lutkenhouse, Projects Director