New road rules worry biking, running clubs
A set of new state highway-use regulations has local running and cycling club organizers worried about impacts on their events. State officials, however, say the new rules will have minimal impacts.
The new regulations, part of a 39-page document dealing mainly with roadside memorials for people killed by drunken drivers, include rules requiring highway event permits for athletic contests and organized walks.
The new rules require the payment of a $100 fee for every athletic event and organized walk with 100 or more participants that uses state roads. The rules also require organizers of every event, including those with fewer than 100 people, to fill out an application that includes a description of the route, a traffic plan outlining risks and written consent from affected municipal governments and police departments. Larger events require traffic control plans and applications must be turned in at least 30 days before the event.
While most of the local bike- and running-club officers understand the need for permits for larger events, they wonder about the impact on Juneau's smaller walks, runs and races. They also feel the regulations were snuck through the system.
"We heard about it a week ago," said Dave Ringle, the president of the Juneau Freewheelers Bicycle Club and a teacher at Dzantik'i Heeni Middle School. "We hope that in the next couple of days the guy who wrote them realizes how ridiculous they are. It's easy to fall into violation without realizing it. If a bunch of my middle school students decide to walk from Dzantik'i Heeni to Floyd Dryden, do they need a permit?"
Ken Maas, the president of the Southeast Road Runners club, said requiring a separate permit for each race is a larger burden than the fee.
"Our response to the state would be if we can put together a list of our races and see if we can obtain one permit, like we do with the Forest Service," Maas said. "It's a big paperwork hassle."
Most of Juneau's roadside running and cycling events use state highways. Maas said Southeast Road Runners has several trail runs on U.S. Forest Service land, and the club paid a one-time fee of $370 for its season this year. He said the club turned in a list of its races, which the Forest Service used to determined the fee.
Bill Cummings of the state attorney general's office, who drafted the highway event permit regulations, said the state has been working on the rules for about two years. He said there hasn't been a statewide permit process for athletic events, and it's something the state needed to do to limit its liability. He said the permit process is based on an informal setup used in Anchorage.
"We're not looking at this as a source of revenue," Cummings said. "It'll give us the ability to get a handle on what's going on on our state highways. They (the regulations) are really low key and here in Juneau they will have little impact. But the Department of Transportation found stuff happening all over the state it didn't know about. This will allow us to make sure we're not scheduling a highway oiling project when there's a race scheduled in the area. Highway rights of way can be dangerous."
Cummings, who said he's occasionally driven a support vehicle for Juneau Freewheelers Bicycle Club races, said the two Southeast events he thinks will be the most impacted are the Klondike "Trail of '98" International Road Relay race from Skagway to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and the Kluane-Chilkat International Bike Relay from Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, to Haines. Those two events both draw about 1,000 participants and the new fee works out to about 10 cents a person.
The biggest local cycling event last year was the Tour of Juneau, which had a field of 40 riders. But there were several running events that had more than 100 participants, including the Sea Coast Relay, the Only Fools Run at Night race and the Beat the Odds breast cancer run. Many of the larger events are charity fund-raisers, but Cummings said they still will need to go through the permit process and pay the fees.
Rick Kauzlarich of the state Department of Transportation said three meetings about the regulations were held over the past two weeks. One in Fairbanks had no attendees, one in Juneau drew two people concerned about issues not in the regulations, and one in Anchorage that drew two people from Mothers Against Drunk Driving and one representative of the Arctic Bicycle Club. The only comments he's received on the new regulations came from the Anchorage meeting.
The new regulations can be found on the Internet at www1.dot.state.ak.us/stwddes/row/rowidx.html, and the highway event permit regulations are on pages 18-20 of the document. Written comments can be sent to Rick Kauzlarich, State Right of Way Chief, Division of Statewide Design and Engineering Services, Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, 3132 Channel Drive, Suite 105, Juneau, 99801. All comments must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
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Charles Bingham can be reached at cbingham@juneauempire.com.