Not all Franklin Park's roaring is at the zoo

Motorized vehicles are not allowed on the paths at Franklin Park, but these ATV riders were spotted last week. (Christina Pazzanese/for the boston globe)

For those who live nearby, Franklin Park is an urban oasis. With wooded trails, basketball and tennis courts, cricket and ball fields, a golf course, and a zoo, the park is a quiet sliver in the middle of the noisy city. But tipster Leslie Belay of Jamaica Plain says kids on motorbikes, all-terrain vehicles, and even motorcycles are spoiling the peaceful refuge.

"The problem is that on most summer days, families with strollers, dog walkers, cyclists, runners, and others are competing for access to pathways with kids on motorbikes. Don't get us wrong; we love kids on motorbikes, just not racing through the woods or fields of our largest historic city park," Belay writes. Riders regularly buzz through the woods and across the playing fields at high speeds, she says, startling walkers and joggers, damaging greenery, scaring off wildlife, and disturbing the park's tranquillity. "It's really noisy. They have no mufflers and are very polluting," she says.

During a visit to Franklin Park by a Globe reporter, six motorbike and ATV riders raced down paths behind the zoo and past the stadium one sunny afternoon last week. The high-pitched, whirring motors were akin to a quartet of chainsaws on wheels.

"Community advocacy groups have been working for over a year with our city's parks commissioner, superintendent of police, and mayor's chief of staff to increase both park ranger and police presence in the park. Unfortunately, none of these collaborative efforts have made much of an impact on the problem. Why?" asks Belay.

Belay says she and others have questioned some officers and kids on motorbikes and were told that police encourage riding in the park as a safe alternative to city streets. And while she understands the allure of riding through the park without fear of being hit by a car, she thinks park officials and police should arrange for motorized bikes to remain somewhat apart, like in a large overflow parking lot near Shattuck Hospital.

Park jurisdiction is awkwardly divided among State Police and two city police precincts, E-2 and E-13, making awareness and enforcement of the "no motorbikes" rule haphazard. Belay says if park rangers maintained "a consistent presence" in the park during the summer, instead of what now seems to residents to be erratic coverage, the motorbike problem could be better controlled.

Police and parks respond
Elaine Driscoll, a Police Department spokeswoman, denied that officers have encouraged kids to ride in the park or have turned a blind eye to the problem. "We routinely patrol the park. We also routinely seek to cite any individuals who are operating these vehicles in an unsafe manner both inside the park and on city streets," she said in an e-mail.

"Since the beginning of the warm weather when we see an increase in this activity, officers have been issuing citations of the city ordinance that address this issue. In June we issued 24 citations, eight of which were in the Franklin Park area. We encourage individuals to contact police if they are aware of any youth who are riding dirt-bikes without helmets and jeopardizing public safety," she said.

An initial citation comes with a $25 fine; a second is $50, she said. If police end up towing a bike, that carries a fine of about $100, Driscoll said.

"If people are aware of specific individuals who are not operating these vehicles safely, then we would encourage people to provide that information to either the local Community Service Officer or contact CrimeStoppers at 1-800-494-TIPS and provide us with the information," Driscoll said.

"While the Park Rangers are a deterrent, they too rely for arrests on the Boston Police with whom we have been working on curtailing motor bikes in many of our parks," adds Mary Hines, spokeswoman for the Parks Department, in an e-mail.

"The police and rangers, who have met with members of the [Franklin Park] Coalition, agree that there is a public safety concern for Park users about chasing motorbike riders through the park in vehicles, so their preference is to intercept them at the edges of the park, coming or going. Recovering from past cutbacks, we now have funding in place for 12 full-time rangers and six seasonal rangers working in Franklin Park and other portions of the Emerald Necklace."

Hines believes parks officials and coalition leaders had agreed to wait until summer's end to see how effective ranger deployment was in tackling residents' concerns.

Antonia Pollak, commissioner
Parks and Recreation Department
1010 Massachusetts Ave., 3d floor
Boston 02118
617-635-4505