The Town of Apple Valley held a “vision workshop” last night (Wednesday, October 6th), with the expressed goal of help set policies for the parks and recreation department for the next 20 years. For the most part, this was a waste of two perfectly good hours, as Apple Valley has contracted with a firm called MIG to help them with their “vision,” and MIG’s representative seemed set on making the process so general as to be meaningless.

There were, however, a couple of interesting things that came out of this meeting. According to materials presented at this meeting, 91 percent of adults surveyed, 79 percent of “intercept respondents,” and “many” focus group participants want Apple Valley to have more trails. The types of trails wanted are:

1. Off-street paved trails (43-53 percent) 2. Unpaved trails (25-28 percent) 3. On-street bike lanes (19-23 percent)

In addition, cycling was the fourth most popular recreation activity, as well as the fourth most popular activity that people would undertake if they had unlimited time and resources.

With any luck, we’ll be able to use these findings to push for bike lanes sooner rather than later, as well as “share the road” signage for some of the great cycling roads we have around here that are not currently wide enough to include a bike lane.