City of Sandy park design forum

Thanks Brian.  I believe strongly in what the NWTA stands for and can't wait to contribute.

Just a recap of the meeting last night for anyone that was interested.  The meeting was basically a public forum run by a design company called Group Mackenzie. The purpose was to display 3 parks projects within Sandy and some signage design.  The 3 parks and projects discussed were enhancements to Meinig park (a 10 acre park in the center of town), design of trails and public spaces for the undeveloped Sandy River Park (a little known 124 acre gem in the heart of Sandy) and design of a yet to be built Bornstedt park just feet from my house.

During introductions I let it be known that I am very interested in seeing thought given to more acceptance of mountain biking in the community. The format of the meeting was workshop style, so people rotated from station to station to add feedback and ask questions.  I spent a large amount of time at the Bornstedt park station, just because it was something that will impact me on a daily basis, but I was also very interested to hear if the trails planned for Sandy River park were going to be multi-use or locked down to walking only. I was told that they (the consulting group, not the City) had investigated the idea of adding mountain bike only (ie single track) to the area but in their determination, "the area is too wet and would be too negatively impacted".  Being the only person that seemed interested in riding in the park at this meeting, I thought it wise to make friends and not enemies at this point by not pursuing it further.  

I also made contact with a lady (wish I could remember her name) that had been working on the Tickle Creek series of trails for 12+ years, trying to connect Sandy to Boring's connection to the Springwater trail. I let her know that I was a member of NWTA, gave her my email address and asked if she would contact me if they were interested in having volunteers help work on this project.  If you were to see where the segments of trails that they have now and where they will be, you'd be as passionate about this as I am.  Fifty feet off the road you disappear into 100+ year old growth and can hear nothing but a twisting winding creek.  How amazing would it be to connect Sandy to the Springwater trail and be able to ride all the way downtown and back?  She's also been working on getting the Springwater trail connected up to Rhodedendron and Welches.  Not gonzo downhill riding by any stretch of the imagination, but a great way to connect communities to the East by some means other than by car.

All in all a good meeting, wished more outdoor enthusiasts would've been there rather than people worried about parking in their neighborhoods, but hey, it's Sandy.  There's a follow up meeting planned for the end of Feb that I'll be attending if anyone is interested and I'll post up a recap to that here.