Fetch the facts
The Mill Valley Pump Track Alliance has shared four handouts under a campaign called "A Reasonable Ask."
We read every one, and we encourage you to read them too. They're thoughtful, and the riders behind them care about this town as much as we do.
We see a few things differently, so we made four of our own. Same topics, more tail wagging. Mill Valley needs dogs and kids.
We'd love to see a pump track built in an area where traffic isn’t already a serious problem, with room to ride and room to park.
We're volunteers who use the park. We don't raise money, and we have no sponsors.
We checked our facts and listed our sources, and if we got something wrong, we want to know.
Write to woof@savebayfrontdogpark.org, and we'll fix it. No growling.
Plenty of “Common Ground”
Our reply to “Common Ground.” The Alliance’s newest handout lists eight ideas for Bayfront, and we like most of them. So we sorted all eight. Four can start today, with or without a pump track. Three are only needed if the track goes here.
One is still an open question. We also noticed what isn’t on the list: parking and traffic. So we counted.
Click the flyer below for a larger, printable version.
Two reasonable asks. Two different sites.
Our reply to "A Reasonable Ask."
Their math states that a pump track will take up about 21% of the off-leash area (fact-check: it will be more than 30%).
A percentage can't tell you about safety, traffic, or parking, so we looked at those. We also found more common ground than we expected.
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30 Years of Wagging.
Our reply to the Alliance’s "28 Years of Riding."
Riders have a long history in Mill Valley, and we're sorry the Scott Valley jumps are gone. The dog park has a history too, going back even before 1996. Here's ours, told with respect for theirs.
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We fetched the facts on all five.
Our reply to the Alliance’s "Dog Parks & Bike Parks." The Alliance points to five places where dog parks and bike parks are neighbors.
We looked each one up. They're good parks, and they make a strong case for a pump track in the right place.
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Safety for riders of every age,
Why a fence is not enough
Ten years of U.S. emergency-room data show dogs involved in about 35,000 bicycle injuries. Younger riders were the ones most often chased and bitten, and the most serious injuries came from swerving to avoid a dog or hitting one.
For older adults, falls while walking a leashed dog are a growing risk. A JAMA Surgery study found fractures among adults 65 and older walking leashed dogs rose from about 1,671 in 2004 to about 4,396 in 2017. A dog that lunges at a passing bike pulls on whoever holds the leash.
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Best in show, by acreage.
Our reply to "Marin Dog Park Comparison." Bayfront is the biggest off-leash park in Marin, and we accept the ribbon.
That space is why the park works for dogs without yards (neighbors in affordable housing, apartments, condos, and townhomes), neighbors from The Redwoods, and anyone who comes without a dog.
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