6412 Clear View Drive l Anderson, CA 96007 l www.reddingtrailsandbikeways.org
TBC POSITION STATEMENT 4-08
WHO WE ARE-WHAT WE BELIEVE AND WHY WE ADVOCATE FOR TRAILS NOW
The Trails and Bikeways Council of Greater Redding (TBC) is a 501 3c nonprofit organization made up of local citizens whose mission is help create a regional world-class trails and bikeways system that links Redding, neighborhood communities, public land and other open space together with non-motorized routes for the benefit of the area’s citizens and visitors. We believe, based on several well researched and documented studies, that regional trails and bikeways benefit the culture, health, safety, enjoyment, livability, economy, and vibrancy of communities, making them better places to live.
The Redding area is an oasis of natural beauty that offers more opportunities for outdoor recreation in a gorgeous setting than almost any place in the country. It is blessed with large tracts of public land and undeveloped open space on private land which would allow for the development of an extensive system of trails at relatively low cost and with little conflict, especially when compared to other communities in the state. This gift of nature is a priceless endowment and one of our community’s greatest assets toward recruiting businesses and people to move here and to entice conventioneers and vacationers to tarry here. A trail system gives people access to many of these beautiful and inspiring places.
As Shasta County has grown and developed, much that made it attractive has been destroyed or placed off limits to the public, because the value of these assets to the community was either not appreciated at the time or because adequate support for their preservation did not materialize in time. A level pedestrian trail that would have followed the ACID canal from Turtle Bay to Cottonwood would have been a huge asset to the community, both for recreation and for nonmotorized transportation, but is unlikely to ever be built, because it crosses private property. A single landowner, who owns property bordering the canal and does not want a trail to cross his property, has the power to stop any ACID trail project in his neighborhood cold, and most neighborhoods have one or a few people who are opposed.
Would the Redding area find it would it be easier to attract a university, high wage employers and highly skilled workers and would it be a better place to live, work, and to visit than it is now and workers if it had:
1. A Sacramento River Trail that ran from Shasta Dam to Anderson on both sides of the River with branches that followed major Redding area streams, including Clear, Olney, Canyon, Jenny, Gold, Salt, Middle, Sulfur, and Churn Creeks.
2. An ACID trail that ran from Turtle Bay to Cottonwood.
3. Trail connections between the above trails and the neighborhoods that adjoin them.
BENEFITS OF A TRAILS SYSTEM TO COMMUNITIES
Numerous studies performed in other communities throughout the nation have demonstrated that trails and bikeways provide the following benefits to the public:
1. Improved air quality when people use nonmotorized transport.
2. Increased real estate value of properties located close to trails.
3. Better health through reduced obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease among trail and bikeway users.
4. Increased regional economic activity through recreation and tourism.
5. Increased ability to recruit new businesses and individuals with skills.
6. Preservation of wildlife habitat and scenic, historic, recreational, and cultural assets.
7. Crime protection—Trail users are far more likely to deter and prevent crime than commit them—and they often have GPS enabled cell phones.
In summary we believe that the development of a world class trails system in the Redding area is one of the most cost-effective ways to make this community more livable, healthy, and economically vibrant and to attract the employers and individuals most likely to contribute to positive growth. The Westside Trail is an example of how inexpensive this type of public work can be and what can be accomplished when business interests, motivated citizens, and government agencies work for a common goal.
OBSTACLES TO A TRAILS AND BIKEWAYS SYSTEM
Despite the many benefits of an extensive regional trails system to a community’s citizens, one of the most intractable barriers to its development is hostility and resistance from individuals and businesses that own property on or adjacent to a potential park, trail, or bikeway that is proposed or may even exist in a de facto fashion but which lacks legal protection. A single property owner can stop the most promising future trail dead in its tracks if he does not want trail users to cross his land. The more frequent landowners’ concerns regarding trails or bikeways on or near their property include the fear of:
1. Loss of privacy, including visual, sound, and physical intrusion by trail users.
2. Crimes and other destructive acts by trail users against people and property, including fires, vandalism, burglary, acts of violence or intimidation.
3. Lawsuits by injured trail users against property owners.
4. Potential loss of property real estate value.
5. Potential restrictions on the landowners’ use and development of their property.
ACHIEVING LANDOWNER ACCEPTANCE OF NEARBY TRAILS AND BIKEWAYS
HOW TO GET THERE
While much landowner apprehension about trails is unfounded, failure to allay it will ensure that some of the best potential future trails in the area will never be built. In addition, the landowner gains nothing in return. Trailside homeowners who have no interest in using the trail might consider the increase in human traffic near or across their property an annoyance. Gaining trail easements from property owners would be easier if they felt that they had realized a net gain in giving the right of public passage and all that it implies.
The right inducements and guarantees to property owners should encourage their support for (or to defuse their opposition to) the development of recreational facilities on or adjacent to their private property. These inducements could include:
1. Providing funding to build visual, sound and encroachment barriers, e.g. hedges, fences, walls, etc., to protect the privacy of property owners who live along the trail.
2. Creating a system that allows and encourages trail users to fight crime and to summon help in the event of emergencies by calling 911 on their cell phones or other mobile device. A GPS-equipped phone or transmitter could add instant localization of a crime or emergency. In this way trail users could be considered watchdog allies rather than potential criminals by home and business owners.
3. Having a government agency or nonprofit agreeing to indemnify property owners from personal injury lawsuits from individuals injured on their property if they agree to allow their land to be used for public recreational purposes. Because of California Civil Code # 846, landowners have no duty to make their property safe for intruders, in this case—trail users. Civil Code #846 was designed specifically for the purpose of encouraging public recreational use of private property by making it virtually impossible (save for a few exceptions) for an injured party to successfully sue a private landowner whose property is used for recreational purposes. Because the risk of a successful suit against a property owner should be very low, so should be cost of indemnification.
4. Offering monetary inducements allowing landowners to profit from allowing public use of their land. They could receive a charitable property donation credit that would reduce their property taxes in perpetuity or as a one off charitable deduction that would reduce their income tax. They also could receive cash for granting a trail easement across their property or for selling the portion of their land to create a trail.
WHAT GOVERNMENT CAN DO
Government agencies, when permitting development, have a duty to ensure that it is done in a way that the public interest is served.
They have the leverage to set conditions for property owners when land is proposed for development. The subdivision map should show the trail alignment as early in the planning process as possible. The trail should be in use before a single lot or unit is sold. This will help avoid future conflict.
We believe that local elected officials, appointed planning commissioners, and professional planners should think of trails and bikeways as necessary enhancements to future development in the same way that paved roads and underground utilities are now considered. If that were the case, potential trail and bikeway locations, connections, and designs would automatically be incorporated into plans for any future subdivision or commercial development or road in the area and could be integrated into long term development plans for city and county alike.
