Boy, I thought I was verbose!

2011 where I enter the chat and my knowledge here is partial, at best. Even though I visited Portland Metro because I had friends in the area (Beaverton at the time), we just visited Portland. But my wife and I honeymooned in 2011 and while in Portland I read a article in the paper about trails in parks. That is where my following the drama begins.

Here is my understanding: Firelane 5 is created as demonstration of what singletrack in Forest Park would look like. Great concept, but its just a point point-to-point trail divorced from anything else. Still, it would be a good demonstration of the “look”. But then Fish and Fritz come in like a wrecking ball and fail to follow through (well, mostly Fish, till later, Fritz enters the chat). This leads to a situation where Fireland 5 is the weird trail with no real connectivity and no future as part of a larger system, so its basically abandoned by the city and the NWTA.

Now, this is think were the “demonstration trail” term gets misunderstood. First a true “demonstration trail” might not be a singular trail. It can be one or two or even three trails. That can be anywhere from several tenths of a mile up something like 3 miles. Second, its a complete system, not a divorced stub of point-to-point trail. So its going to have an entrance (usually a separate dedicated one) with complete signage. Its going to be full loop/stacked loop layout so it can be used by itself without the need to access it from another trail network. Third, it has definable metrics that are part of its creation. That is, its created with a goal to fulfill and that goal is tied to its performance during a set time, usually a year or two.

If you just read that paragraph and go “holy crap, that doesn’t sound anything like Firelane 5”, then you understand why I don’t consider Fireland 5 a true demonstration trail.

Just so you know, I totally agree that the Portland government is a large part of the problem here. But the way to fix that problem isn’t to surrender to them. The way to fix the problem is by pushing back against them while showing them to be the bad guy at every turn.

But even then, Portland isn’t the only game in town and the fact that Portland isn’t surrounded by other urban trails would suggest its not all a City of Portland problem. What I mean by that is this: where are the trail systems in Troutdale, Gersham, Damascus, Lake Oswego, etc. If the NWTA was, as they claim, really interested in urban mileage, but Portland is tough nut to crack, then where is all the trail directly outside the city limits of Portland? If their process is actually working or workable, and the City of Portland is 100% of the problem, then NWTA should be announcing new trail in Beaverton or some other adjacent city every couples of years.

And that would suggest to me that some of the issue isn’t a shield around Portland held up by Marcy Houle’s dark magic. Some of it is that the people trying to do this are trying to build an airplane while pushing a cart of parts down the runway after watching the children’s cartoon Tale Spin while actively avoiding answers from the people who make airplanes all the time how they actually build the $%#@ing airplane.

A few quick answers to finish this up.

“if Riverview hadn’t been purchased with bond money that supposedly didn’t allow for any kind of trail expansion”
I have never heard that. I’m not sure that is true. Even if it is, then get a survey grade GPS rig out there and survey every inch of trails, including social trails and propose a 1:1 decommission/replacement with a shared system.

“How did mtb builders deal with decades worth of this sentiment in Duluth? Now that’s what I’d like to learn!”
They didn’t because it didn’t really exist. Parks in MN have a long history of shared use. We have hunting season in most city parks, including those in Minneapolis/St. Paul, for instance. We have anti-mountain bikers here in MN, yes. But they are laughed at because you can go to the next town over and see a trail behind some houses that has been there umpteen years without killing everything. In fact, that has been our biggest way to teach public officials about trails.

Seattle. Seattle is the example to look at. That is basically a 6 year saga spearheaded by the DeJong family. And they did what I’m suggesting in the article: they when to a place, saw the trails, talked to the people who did this before, and then copied what they did. Bonus points here, they were willing to challenge the city and the anti-mountain bikers directly and keep pushing and keep the fight up. Never stopping, always pushing.

Marcy Houle is defeatable, as are her ilk. But you won’t do it with op-eds or screaming at her. You do it with direct challenges to her facts. You do it with photos and videos of a location that looks like Forest Park and is somewhere else. But you have to know what exists somewhere else. And you have to know how that place can teach you the method to do the thing.

The Hyland project is in the Three Rivers Park district in the suburbs of Minneapolis-St Paul,
Minnesota. The location is a little obscure on the website, I was curious.

It’s really encouraging to see what people are doing in other places to construct natural surface trails in urban areas.

Of course, part of the problem is that the people in the Portland bubble think mountain bikers are a bunch of crazed thrill-seekers. Those people exist, but the overwhelming majority of mountain bikers in Bend are basically hiking on a bike. Going for an easy ride because they like being in nature.

Thank you

Thanks for the kind words! I’m so stoked on her and can’t wait for all the adventures in the future.

Thanks for taking the time write an excellent reply! I think I understand you better now.

A few clarifications:

1. With regards to Portland vs midwestern environmentalism: I didn’t mean to imply that I think voters here are “better” environmentalists. I lived in Sioux City when I was younger, but haven’t lived in the north woods kind of country you’re from, so I’d be totally speculating on their political culture. It’s mostly a comment about Portland: I think Portland can lack pragmatism at times, and our politics can err on the side of expressive and ineffective. Our environmentalism can be like that too: like taking a stand against bikes in “wilderness” parks.

2. Regarding Firelane 5, my question wasn’t “did building Firelane 5 usher in a new era of mtb trail building in Portland?” but rather “why, if building a short trail can get the flywheel turning, why didn’t the building of Firelane 5 get the flywheel turning?” Obviously, it failed to fit your model of a “demonstration trail,” but why?

You linked to a BP article about Marcy Houle advocating for Forest Park’s “wilderness values”, but it didn’t explain why Firelane 5 failed. (I *am* glad you included that link: my pissed off comments are near the top of the thread!)

I think I understand from the rest of your comment that the technical details of the way a trail is built will have a big impact on its success as a “demonstration” trail. Firelane 5 might not fit those details. So maybe you’d argue that, in an alternate universe, had 2026 trail building techniques been followed those many years ago, Firelane 5 actually *could* have been a successful demonstration trail, and we wouldn’t have this problem.

I still don’t think that argument gives a sufficiently powerful reason why we have less trail building than Knoxville.

I think the strongest reason for the fact that Portland stalled out on this issue actually embedded in that article: at a few crucial moments in our long local push for mtb access, anti-mtb people just had greater political power. I mean, the article references Commissioner Fritz, who was instrumental at several points (especially Riverview). Nick Fish was more sympathetic, but he literally died. Mayor Hales got the ORCMP started, but who got stuck in the quicksand of our homeless crisis and opted not to run for reelection.

Some of this obviously just random: if Riverview hadn’t been purchased with bond money that supposedly didn’t allow for any kind of trail expansion, or if our rotating-commissioner system didn’t put Fritz in control of Park and Recreation, maybe Riverview would have a nice trail network on it.

On the other hand, for a long time now there’s been an influential constituency of mostly wealthy people living in the West Hills, who are regular visitors to Forest Park, and would rather not see bikes there. MTB access has just never a strong enough counterweight to that influence. Politicians heard the negative sentiment from wealthy Forest Park neighbors and well-connected environmentalists, and made a calculation that it wasn’t worth it.

I used to have epic threads of argument about mtb access on Portlandhikers.org (now Oregonhikers.org), and if you read the comments on that BP article you linked, you’ll see that there was a bunch of people (regular bike riders and commenters!) who really didn’t like the idea of mountain biking! How did mtb builders deal with decades worth of this sentiment in Duluth? Now that’s what I’d like to learn!

I’m sure that attitude is *everywhere*, but the hair-shirt, degrowther brand of environmentalism is pretty strong here, and with powerful allies like Commissioner Fritz and Marcy Houle, it’s not surprising they’ve slowed down our progress.

I just think that if one is looking for a reason why we’re a decade or two behind Duluth or Knoxville, some of these local factors might rank above or at least alongside the technical details of modern trail-building. It’s hard for me to visualize a trail that looks so great to someone like Marcy Houle, or even perhaps looks so great to just a normal, mtb-neutral citizen, that it somehow defeats the kind of sustained pushback we’ve had here.

Anyway, I really appreciate your answer, and I hope we get to build your demonstration trail here someday 🙂