Leadville/Lake County OHV use - town hall meeting

[Mad Maxx]

Hey folks, I figured y'all might like to hear about the happenings up here regarding off-road use from a local's perspective.

Last night, there was a town hall meeting discussing OHV use in the area. There were no decisions to be made last night, this was a preliminary discussion.

Currently, non-highway-registered vehicles are prohibited from using roads per state law, however 10 years ago Leadville passed an ordinance allowing them on county roads here to reach "point A to point B", essentially. The townspeople now seem to think that may be a bit too vague.

They defined OHVs as including dirt bikes, UTVs, ATVs, and off-road capable trucks and SUVs, though the latter seems less effected by the ordinance in question, though the ordinance itself wasn't solely what was discussed.

The meeting began by defining the county roads, land use areas, and defining OHVs (as mentioned above) before moving on to a presentation by someone who grades and grooms the county roads. He showed slides with pictures - one showed a snow-groomed road and he talked about how snowmobilers rode over a groomed raised line of snow on the side marking where the road is, posing a danger to groomers. He also showed the side of a road where asphalt had eroded claiming that it was people going on and off of the road to and from the trails. Next he showed a picture of a parking lot with skid marks where it appears someone did burnouts - he admitted this wasn't really relevant, it's probable an on-road vehicle did it. What appeared to be the worst offense he showed was a trail that had some washout/very slight rutting in the middle, which someone later pointed out appeared to be runoff from rainwater.

Afterwards, citizens were given a few minutes each to speak their thoughts.

The biggest concern by most was noise.

This seemed to spiral into hardly relevant opposition to OHVs in general, with people stating things like they're bad as they produce air pollution, that they lack the safety equipment and features of passenger vehicles, their tires are louder, that they contribute to overcrowding of trails, and that the people who drive them are inconsiderate. As an example of overcrowding, someone cited one time that they heard that there was 15 vehicles in a group on Tincup Pass - she immediately admitted that was beyond our area anyway.

The expand upon the safety concern, something that was cited a few times was that people, especially kids, were driving/riding OHVs without helmets and protective gear. I fail to see how a lack of personal responsibility and bad parenting is the city/county's problem, however - especially since UTVs do have seatbelts and roll cages anyway.

A recurring stated fear was that as Leadville is less regulated with OHVs as opposed to other mountain towns, that people would come here instead and overcrowd and overrun us with their issues caused by OHVs, and that the town needs to get ahead of this and regulate them.

Another concern was enforcement. Here the police will not pursue an OHV driver for liability concerns. Also until recently the city had only "1 and a half" police officers, though they said they'd just hired more so this would improve.

There was a few who spoke up, myself included, attempting to defend OHV use and expressing doubts that the concerns were valid and the possible consequences of further regulation.

[Jim]

Thanks for the info.

[JLWILLYS21]

Good stuff to know. The OHV population is growing and definitely a concern for the state. Many OHV drivers (not all) don't know the off-road rules, ignore which roads they can or cannot be on, and I frequently see them off the trail all together. As a Colorado native and off roader, I long for more regulation and enforcement of these vehicles, especially when there are large groups of them making lots of noise and causing destruction of the wilderness.

[Mad Maxx]

JLWILLYS21 previously posted: