Bicyclists want riding ban lifted at Pawnee Prairie Park (+video)

There’s a range war brewing out west in Pawnee Prairie Park, between those who want to ride their bicycles in the park and those who say that would spook the horses.

Wichita Park Board members got an earful from both sides at their meeting on Monday, where dozens of bike and horse enthusiasts squared off over whether the city should repeal a longtime ban on bicycles in the 625-acre park.

Both sides are trying to claim the high ground on safety.

Bike backers say the ban on riding in the park forces children to ride on busy streets, while the equestrians say bikes would frighten horses and result in people getting thrown, kicked or both.

City Council member Jeff Blubaugh, who represents the west Wichita area, brought up the issue. He said he has heard the let-us-ride message from a lot of bike-friendly constituents in the neighborhoods around the park.

Kids can’t ride bikes there

Constituents like Michael Gomm, who for the past 18 years has lived in a subdivision just west of the sprawling park, which is south of Kellogg and west of Tyler.

Gomm said it’s ridiculous for the city to maintain a park where neighborhood kids can’t even ride their bikes.

“My kids are forced … onto the streets within the subdivisions or out on Maize Road or 31st-Pawnee area with 40 mph traffic, at some risk,” he said.

He said Pawnee Prairie actually acts as an obstacle in getting to Air Capital Memorial Park, which does offer riding trails for mountain bikes.

“The huge irony of having this wonderful bike park that we’ve built within the city is that the huge residential area that’s immediately adjacent to that park cannot be accessed by bicycle legally or safely,” he said.

He said the only legal way to get there is to take the bikes in by truck or ride on the high-speed access roads that serve as the entries and exits for the Kellogg freeway. He admitted to riding across Pawnee Prairie Park to get to Air Capital Park.

“I’ll pay my fine now if someone wants to place the citizen’s arrest for me,” he said. “But I am not going to place my 10-year-old in danger of being hit by cars so I can avoid being fined for traversing 50 yards into that park.”

‘A safety issue’

On the pro-horse side, Terry Fry said Pawnee Prairie has “been primarily the principal riding place for horseback riders in this area for probably 75 years now.”

He added that he has ridden there himself for the past 50 years.

Fry said the park is full of overgrown shrubbery and forestation that blocks sight lines. And the trails have blind curves that create a serious risk of accidents between horses and fast-moving bicycles.

“If the bikes are permitted anywhere in that park, it’s going to become a safety issue,” he said.

In a collision, “it’s probably not the bike rider that’s going to get hurt; it’s going to be the horse or horse rider most likely,” he said.

The argument spilled out into the hallway, where Blubaugh was cornered by a group of horse riders.

He told them he thinks that if a horse is skittish enough to get spooked by a few bicycles, it probably shouldn’t be ridden in a public park anyway.

Horse enthusiast LaKimra Baldwin said Blubaugh was trying to twist the discussion to be about wild horses when those aren’t what people ride at Pawnee Prairie.

And even well-broken horses can get startled and hurt somebody, said Baldwin, an Andover Realtor specializing in country and horse properties.

“A child, on a kid-broke horse … that has somebody fly up behind it on a bicycle, what is going to happen to that child?” she said.

Replied Blubaugh: “I think my major issue is it’s not fair for the constituents that live all around the area to tell children that they can’t ride a bike in that area because it’s only for horseback riders that don’t live in this area, that don’t pay taxes in this area, that don’t have another park.”

Park users who spoke at Monday’s meeting – on both sides – were a mix of Wichita residents and nonresidents.

No decision yet

Park Board member Hoyt Hillman, who led the meeting, said he wasn’t ready to make a decision and suggested the board work on a master usage plan for the park, taking into account the public input.

The board unanimously agreed.

Parks and Recreation director Troy Houtman complimented the board for slow-playing the decision.

He said the city hasn’t spent much on Pawnee Prairie in recent years and that the trail system, in the shape it’s in, is difficult for pedestrians, much less bikes.

“I’m glad that we didn’t do a knee-jerk reaction today and make a decision right off the bat, because there’s a lot of unintended consequences that can result from just making an off-the-cuff decision,” he said.

He said he has studied the park for the past few weeks to try to come up with a compromise acceptable to the horse people and the bike people.

“I think there is opportunity for joint usage, we just need to figure out how it’s going to work,” he said.

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 10:15 PM with the headline "Bicyclists want riding ban lifted at Pawnee Prairie Park (+video)."