To the Editor:
The all terrain vehicle (ATV) lobby has been pressing the State of Wisconsin to develop a 2,500 acre or larger “intensive use area” for off-highway vehicles, namely ATVs. ATVers want a place where they can ride hard, jump high, and tear through the mud without fear of repercussion from the neighbors or the law. According to ATVers a designated intensive use area would also alleviate pressure on other public lands because it would limit ground-ripping activities to one managed site.
Isn’t it optimistic at best and naive at worst to think that an ATVer out on the trail will think twice about tearing through a wetland because if he just trailered up his vehicle and went to an ATV “park” he could do it legally?
ATVers have been getting their way in Wisconsin primarily because they have a powerful lobby that keeps the pressure on the legislators who in turn keep the pressure on agency staff. ATVs account for most of Polaris’ annual revenue and half of Arctic Cat’s - that’s hundreds of millions of dollars for each company and billions for the ATV industry as a whole. These companies can smell the money and they want as much of it for themselves as possible.
These companies know where the money is (remember we’re talking billions of dollars) and it is in the manufacturing and sale of ATVs not the development of intensive use areas or trails. This seems a little counterintuitive since most people picture ATVs out on a trail or in the woods. But the fact is most ATVs are used in a work application and only a third of the ATVs sold are used for recreational riding. Who says? Polaris says.
“Most of the calls this morning would have you to believe that every ATV is used on a trail in the state of Minnesota. That’s not quite exactly the case. About two-thirds of the ATVs that are sold are actually sold for a work application…that’s where the vast majority of ATVs have been used and are used… The recreation market is about a third of the total ATV industry.”
Tim Tiller, President and CEO of Polaris Industries
Minnesota Public Radio interview, July 19, 2004
If we trust that Polaris knows its customer then the state needs to look a little closer at those ATV registration numbers that get thrown around like tube tops at Sturgis. The ATV lobby is fond of saying that ATV registrations in Wisconsin have surpassed snowmobile registrations and are hovering around 300,000. What they don’t say is that all snowmobiles except for a few rare exceptions are used exclusively for recreation while the vast majority of registered ATVs – according to Polaris – are used on site as a work vehicle.
That would explain why so many ATV owners don’t even think about riding them on a trail.
If there was money in intensive use areas the industry would already be there developing their own playgrounds for ATVs, jeeps and jetskis for that matter. Projections are that the property for intensive use area would cost anywhere from $1 million to $5 million and the facility would cost $300,000 annually to operate. Too bad Wisconsin isn’t considering using that money to repair the existing ATV damage on its public lands and trails.
Brook Waalen
Luck, Wisconsin
How about a park for ATV's, jet skis, fireworks, and party piers? We could call it "wreckreation area" or "God forsaken Hell Hole Park". The state digs out a 4 square mile ditch, lines half of it with concrete, and fills it in with water, and lines the other half with sand. All piers will be wide enough to have ATV traffic in both directions. Even the Honda Generators will have after market high performance mufflers!
Mark
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