Hidden Hills Feedback

I received the following E-mail today (May 31, 2011) about efforts to keep the non-motorized vehicle access open to Hidden Hills. I have not published his contact information to keep him from getting spammed by Web crawlers, but anyone who wants to contact him can get his info through me. -- JQ

Jack, you have done a wonderful job of describing the problems and the history of the easement. It is extremely important for Scottsdale to maintain the easement. For that reason, even a temporary closure would set a terrible precedent, and make it unlikely to ever reopen.

At the meeting last Thursday of the Trails Subcommittee of the Scottsdale Transportation Commission, no immediate decision was made. They agreed to have an open forum at the next meeting (in three months) to hear public comment on the issue.

We must convince the city that we, the "cycling community", can reasonably police ourselves to be good citizens. At the Saturday meeting, five cycling groups were represented and all agreed to participate in the following manner. We still need to include more groups.

1. Begin educating our individual groups, as well as all others we can contact, to obey the traffic laws and be respectful of the private community we are being allowed to enter.

2. Establish a "Courtesy Patrol" for peak hours during the week. Ideally, each cycling group will volunteer to take a week at a time.

3. Make contact with all levels of city government to insure the voice of the cycling community is being heard.

The city's plan and subsequent decisions have made this .7 mile the only way to connect to Fountain Hills and beyond. While we don't know when the remaining .4 will open, we must not lose what the city has planned and paid for over the last 15 years.

Thanks,
Preston Miller