Lauren Haughey and Scott Bartlebaugh attended the 2022 California Trails and Greenways conference held in April. Lauren is our BTCEB Vice President, a board member for CAMTB, and works for NICA. Scott is the BTCEB Advocacy Director, participates as a member organization on the CAMTB Advisory Council, and is our Lead Trail Steward at Crockett Hills. The conference is an opportunity to attend sessions on topics ranging from trail project development, planning and execution, trail organization formation and experiences, E-bike policy development, trail conflict & user education, CEQA experience, and cutting green tape.
Equally important is an opportunity to have in person discussions with land managers which included EBPRD board members Barbara Lane and Dennis Waespi, the entire Trails Program staff and several other EBRPD staff. Attendance at the Trails and Greenways conference by mountain bike oriented groups has steadily increased over the past several years and are now one of the most significantly represented user and advocacy segments in attendance.
Mountain bike oriented groups in attendance included California Mountain Bike Coalition (CAMTB), BTCEB, Redwood Trail Alliance (formerly REMBA & Sonoma County Trails Alliance), San Diego Mountain Bike Association, San Francisco Urban Riders, Folsom Auburn Trail Riders Action Coalition FATRAC, Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewards (formerly Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruze), Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association CORBA, Access 4 Bikes, Marin County Bicycle Coalition MCBC, Orange County Mountain Bike Association, IMBA and IMBA Trails Solutions, Bay Area Ridge Trail, Slow and Say Hello.
As a member organization BTCEB has significant on-line interaction with the CAMTB board and the council members from the other 29 member organizations but it’s no replacement for in person discussions.
Additional land managers represented included California State Parks and US Forest Service. BTCEB founder Michael Kelly who now is active in ebike access presented an ebike policy session. The conference is also attended by trail industry related businesses including Trail Boss trail tools, SWECO trail machines, and ECO Counter trail counters to name a few.
A take away from the conference is that the East Bay is a difficult area to affect change in MTB access but the work we are doing with land managers, our MTB community, other trail users, and interacting with opposing concerns is in line with successful efforts in other regions. Attendance and participation at this conference, with CAMTB, and with other advocacy and trail organizations are one we strive to continually improve our advocacy, trail, and MTB community building efforts.
