Marathon Co. opens roads to ATVs/UTVs
The Marathon County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to open up most county roads to ATV/UTVs.
The nearly unanimous vote followed the county’s Infrastructure Committee resending an ordinance back to the board after failing to adopt any of the suggestions made by the Public Safety Committee.
Board members did adopt two amendments to the Infrastructure Committee ordinance proposed by county board chairman Kurt Gibbs, town of Cassel.
The first bans ATV/UTV use on county highways that go through townships without any local roads open to the vehicle. The townships include Rib Mountain, Guenther, Rib Falls, Stettin and Marathon. A second amendment anticipates the state legislature giving counties the ability to post county highways with different speed limits for traditional vehicles and ATV/UTV vehicles.
Chairman Gibbs said the county would be hypocritical to support local control in resolutions sent to the state and national government, but then undermine local town boards who don’t want ATV/ UTVs within their jurisdictions. He said the county has the power to allow ATV/ UTV use on all of its highways, but that doesn’t mean it should not work in concert with town government.
“You can do, it, but does that mean you should? he asked.
In an amendment to Gibbs’ first amendment, supervisors clarified that border county highways that run between a town open to ATV/UTV use and another closed to ATV/UTV use will be closed. An example would be CTH H that runs between the town of Rietbrock (open) and Rib Falls (closed).
Both Gibbs amendments were uncontroversial and passed easily.
The county government followed a winding path to open up county highways with traffic under 1,500 vehicles per day to ATV/UTV use.
At the county board’s Oct. 26 meeting, supervisors voted to send an ATV/UTV ordinance to the Public Safety Committee for review and improvements after being hashed out for most of the year by the Infrastructure Committee.
Last week Wednesday, Public Safety Committee members agreed that the Infrastructure Committee’s ordinance needed improvements, but, not wanting to step on that committee’s toes, only offered “suggestions” for members of that committee to use in rewriting the ordinance.
Appearing before the Public Safety Committee, Sheriff Scott Parks repeated concerns he had with the ATV/UTV policy adopted by the Infrastructure Committee.
The sheriff said he thought the policy was unsafe, was in part unenforceable by law enforcement and would demand more time from deputies for crashes and complaints.
Parks, who said he was himself an ATV enthusiast, said he understood that surrounding counties have opened up their roads to ATV/UTVs, but in these counties, riders largely rode on trails, not public roads. Marathon County has a limited ATV trail system, he noted.
The sheriff said there was an inherent safety problem in mixing cars and trucks, which are able to travel at 55 miles per hour, with ATV/UTVs that by county ordinance, can only travel at 35 miles per hour. Parks said he was especially concerned about night time ATV/ UTV use.
“Darkness scares me in regards to this,” he said.
Parks said his department would be unable to hold ATV/UTVs to a 35 mile per hour speed limit. Officers can only enforce posted speed limits, he said.
The sheriff said he was unimpressed with proponents of the ordinance change who said that fatal ATV/UTV crashes around the state have been “minimal”and generally do not involve collisions with trucks and cars.
“Minimal is not good enough,” said Parks, saying that the hardest part of being a law enforcement officer is to tell a family that their loved one has died.
“I don’t take death notification lightly,” he said.
County board chairman Kurt Gibbs, himself also an ATV rider, said he could not support the Infrastructure Committee’s proposed ordinance change because it allowed ATV/UTV use on CTH N west of STH 107, a busy county road with many gravel trucks and dump trucks.
Gibbs said ATVs with knobby tires were made to ride on gravel roads, not paved highways. He said he would hate to see a 16-year old trying to negotiate truck traffic on CTH N with an ATV equipped with tires that made the machine “squirrelly” or behave erratically. “It is not going to be safe,” he said. Public Safety Committee chairman Matt Bootz, town of Texas, said he would communicate “suggestions” to Randy Fifrick, chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, based on these and other committee comments. The suggestions, he said, would concern travel on CTH N, AT V / U T V use during hours of darkness, a l l owing townships that don’t allow ATV/ UTV use on their roads to veto use of the machines on county roads within their borders and connectivity with neighboring counties.
A day later, the Infrastructure Committee debated the suggestions, but, in a series of votes, agreed to resend their original ordinance to county board for its approval.
The vote to resend the ordinance was supported by supervisors Sandi Cihlar, Mosinee, Chris Dickinson, Stratford, Allen Christensen, Ringle and Richard Gumz, town of Holton. Voting against the motion were Fifrick and John Robinson, Wausau.
Previously, Robinson suggested three motions to respond to the suggestions, but all of them failed:
_ A motion to grant town governments that do not allow ATV/UTVs on their own roads the power to stop ATV use on county roads within their borders was defeated 4-3. Voting for the motion was Fifrick, Cihlar and Robinson. Voting against were Dickinson, Johnson, Christensen and Gumz.
_ A motion to deal with the CTH N concern by allowing Highway Commissioner Griesbach the power to immediately amend an approved ATV/UTV map rather than wait two years was defeated 5-2. Voting yes were Robinson and Fifrick. Voting no were supervisors Johnson, Chlar, Dickinson, Christensen and Gumz.
_ A motion that would anticipate the state legislature passing a law allowing counties to post roads at 55 miles an hour for trucks and cars and 35 miles per hour for ATV/UTvs was defeated. Only Robinson voted for this proposal.
