Mountain bikers soon may have to pay for access to the bike trails at Ft. Yargo State Park.
Because of several successive years of budget cuts, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is considering charging a new mountain bike trail fee at Ft. Yargo, Hard Labor Creek and Unicoi state parks.
The proposal includes the options of a $2 single-visit fee or a $25 annual pass that would provide year-round access to all state park bike trails.
The department also is considering imposing user fees for other park activities such as horseback riding, disc golf and miniature golf.
To discuss the planned implementation of the new bike trail fees, the department has scheduled two public meetings.
The first is at 7 p.m. Monday at Fort Yargo in the Camp Will-A-Way gymnasium. The other is at 7 p.m. Jan. 11 at Unicoi State Park in Helen in that park’s lodge.
A public notice on Ft. Yargo’s web page explains that the fees are a response to having been “challenged with finding ways to rely less on state funding while keeping parks open for public use.”
Written comments may be submitted before Jan. 20 to the department’s director at: Director.GSPHS@dnr.state.ga.us.
Contact Representative Terry England, Senator Frank Ginn and Representative ??? Let them know you are about fed up with the BS nickel and dimeing us to death. Vote their butts out of office if they keep supporting this king of sock it to the folks mentality.
Those trails are created and maintained by YABA and volunteers. If bikers have to pay anything, it should be to them, not some DNR general fund. You think a penny of the proposed trail fee would actually go to the trails?
Steve Gordon (President of Yargo Area Biking Association)
The trails are built and maintained by bikers. Did you build the lake or raise any fish to throw in it? The biking fees at Ft. Yargo will not go to benefit bikers. And unlike a fishing license, you don't have to buy one to bike in the state of Georgia. You can bike at a lot of other places without paying.
The $25 isn't really the issue, however. Apparently no study has been done to estimate the revenue and expenses of this program. I am afraid that the park will lose money as a result of this fee, and that the fee will hurt rather than help mountain bikers. I hope I am wrong, and people continue visit Winder and Ft. Yargo, continue to bike at Yargo, and trails continue to be built and maintained.
But Ft. Mountain, another state park that has charged for mountain biking for some time, raised less than $1500 in their last fiscal year.
Should they charge picknicers, bird watchers, and children who use the playgrounds? As someone at the public hearing so eloquently pointed out, if you go to Six Flags, you pay to get in and ride as much as you want. Would Six Flags be a success if you had to pay to get in and then to ride?