ATV ban brings quiet to forest, few complaints

It's a quiet afternoon in the Georgetown-Rowley State Forest, and that's not a bad thing.

It has been a little more than a year since state officials banned the use of all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes.

"Without them on the trails, it's certainly quieter," Elizabeth Coleman, 42, of Amesbury, said as she took her mountain bike from the roof rack of her car on a recent Sunday.

The quiet is not the only benefit to the ban, said Coleman, who noted that the ATVs that used to roam the park would stray from their designated trails (covering approximately 2 1/2 miles), thrashing the other trails and leaving large ruts in their wake. The former Georgetown resident had begun finding new places to mountain bike because the trails had been so degraded.

"Maybe four years ago, the state must have gone through and redone the fire road," Coleman said. "They put down gravel because it was all rutted and you probably couldn't get a fire truck through. A year later, I came back and noticed that the four-wheelers had gone through and it was all rutted and torn up again.

"And [ATV riders] have terrible manners, as a general rule," she said. "I've never had any slow down for me. [Dirt bikers] are better. They're a little more aware of the impact they have, and you have a 50-50 chance of them being polite and slowing down in the forest or not burying you in their dust when they go by."

Lieutenant David Brouillette of the state Environmental Police Department said that his agency has received relatively few complaint calls in the past year, and he hasn't noticed an increase in illegal riding nearby.

From May 1, 2006, to May 1 of last year, environmental police fielded 24 complaint calls, 17 from Pingree Farm Road in Georgetown, where the park entrance is. Since May 1 of last year, when the ATV and dirt bike ban went into effect, the department has had just 12 complaint calls.

"Normally in this area, you'd be able to see [ATV] track marks, but it hasn't been dug up at all in a long time," Brouillette said during a recent ride in the forest.

Pointing to a set of deep ruts on a side trail, he said, "That's old, but that's what typically people were upset about. [ATVers] loved going through these wet areas, to see what the machine could do, and it ended up ripping up a lot of area. On the other hand, it actually kept the trails open: You didn't get that growth coming up, raspberries and everything else."

Without the motorized recreational vehicles, the area has been left to the hikers, dog-walkers, runners, mountain bikes, and equestrians. Hunters use the forest as well, in season, as do cross-country skiers and snowmobilers.

"So far, I think the only people who aren't happy about it are the ones who got kicked out," Coleman said.

Two Georgetown residents walking through the forest on a recent Sunday - Steve Boynton, 38, and Chris Simons, 29 - weren't aware of the ATV ban.

"I wasn't really aware but it seems pretty obvious - there's no noise," Boynton said as a garter snake lolled at his feet.

Not surprisingly, ATV users look at the ban differently. With the closing of the forest to motorized, off-road vehicles, they lost one of the last legal public places to ride in Eastern Massachusetts. Instead, they've migrated north to the trail system of New Hampshire or sold their ATVs.

"I saw them up on the lawns for sale in the area around here, on different roads," Brouillette said. "There were probably three or four of them in that first 90-day period" last summer.

Andrew Savy, 42, of Lynn, a dirt-bike rider and vocal opponent of the closure, still thinks it was unfair. He and his stepson still ride, but not in Georgetown.

"We ride in New Hampshire now, and do a little illegal riding in Billerica," he said. "We don't have a choice. We've got to do what we've got to do. I've got about $10,000 invested in [two] dirt bikes."

The Georgetown-Rowley State Forest was a relatively small area for riding, and Savy conceded that the mixed uses - horseback riders, hikers, joggers, and mountain bikers - might have created unease for many. But that forest was the only easily accessible public park that allowed riding in Massachusetts. The nearest now is in Foxborough, approximately the same distance away as those in New Hampshire.

The fine for riding inside the park is $50, although a rider may get tagged with additional fines for riding on a public way, or if the vehicle is unregistered, or if there are other issues. The forest "was decent and close, and we liked it," said Savy, who used to ride every week. "That's why we're so angry."

Registering his bike in Massachusetts cost $40 for two years, Savy said. In New Hampshire, a one-year registration is going to cost him $78.

"They make us register in Massachusetts, but we can't ride them anywhere."