Panel addresses snowmobile issues, promotes economic development
Julie Buckles
The Daily Press
Last Updated: Thursday, October 17th, 2002 09:55:06 AM

Before the first flakes fell, the city snowmobile committee held a public information session last night at Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College. It drew a slim crowd — only two people in the first 90 minutes — but Mary McPhetridge, executive director at the Chamber of Commerce and a member of the committee said that was OK. "We just want to keep the process open to the public," she said.

Maria Keena and Bob Vlasaty arrived with common complaints: snowmobilers speed and they don't slow for stop signs. They own the first house inside the city limits on Golf Course Road and the only house in city limits with a driveway that crosses the Tri-County Corridor. "I just don't want anyone to get hurt," Keena said.

Former mayor Lowell Miller appointed the ad-hoc committee about a year ago to address such concerns. He charged the diverse group of nine to alleviate pressure from the Fifth Street Corridor, an old railroad grade converted to a trail running east to west, after the city rejected a proposal for a lakefront trail.

The ad-hoc committee has since expanded its mission: addressing immediate local concerns, while creating a plan for economic development. "There's no other group like this," said DNR conservation officer Matthew MacKenzie. "that works through the summer and works so proactively."

Lee Erickson agreed. A citizen member of the committee, Erickson lives on the Fifth Street Corridor, opened in the 1980s. He said the many of the 130 people who live along the corridor remain upset 20 years later that the snowmobile trail was plopped in their front and backyards. In one day alone, he counted 250 to 280 snowmobiles passing by his house, "and that's nothing," he said.

McPhetridge estimates snowmobiling brings $10 million dollars directly and indirectly to Ashland County, even though the city of Ashland is considered a dead end for snowmobilers. If the Bad River Reservation opens a trail —tribal members vote on November fifth —that will change. The trail will link the Iron Horse trail in the Hurley area and the Tri-County Corridor which runs from Ashland to Superior, placing Ashland smack dab in the middle of the route.

As one of the few cities with snow last winter, Ashland experienced a bit of a snowmobiling rush, waking interested folks to potential and real problems. Out-of-town snowmobilers needed space to park their trailers, wanted easier access to the trails, and more signs to find their way around. The worst speeding and off-trail offenders, said the committee, is not tourists but rather locals who want to get onto the trails from their homes and don't believe speed laws apply to them.

The city still needs to address the issue of snowmobile routes through the city -- presently snowmobiles are allowed anywhere north of the Fifth Street Corridor. Snowmobilers also complain about the 10 mph speed limit and the 25-to-30 stop signs to get from one end of the city to the next. One of the ways to promote peace, is for the city to decide the rules, then communicate them to the snowmobiling community, MacKenzie said.

Members of the committee recommended, and the city council approved, a southern trail to divert traffic from the Fifth Street Corridor and a spur trail to the AmericInn. They are also planning for more signs, said Mark Imsande, president of the Ashland Snowmobile Club. The club only has 15 members, eight of them active, who clear and groom the trails, purchase rescue equipment, teach snowmobile safety to 12 year olds, and maintain signs in the city.

"It's a privilege for us to ride on any trail since landowners give us easements," Imsande said. "We have to make sure we tread lightly."