Safety first
Starting in July, The Marathon County Infrastructure Committee will take up the controversial question of whether it should open up the county highway system to ATV/UTVs.
We say no, safety should rule.
On all sides of Marathon County, counties are opening up all of their highways to ATV/ UTV use, putting further pressure on local authorities to liberalize restrictions. We are persuaded, however, by Marathon County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Ted Knoeck, the county’s highway safety coordinator, who last week told the committee to proceed with care and avoid full-scale opening up county highways to ATV/ UTVs.
Four-year-annual crash data for neighboring counties (2014-18) is as follows:
_ Clark, 576 _ Langlade, 458
_ Taylor, 427
_ Shawano, 1,372
_ Wood, 1,274
_ Portage, 1,440 Marathon County’s four-year average crash experience is completely different. The county’s average is 3,137 accidents.
We agree with Lt. Knoeck when he says that the experience of neighboring counties cannot guide ATV/UTV policy here in Marathon County. “Our roads are different,” he told committee members.
We are not saying the county shouldn’t expand ATV/UTV use on its highways, but that any expansion should be approved segment by segment, as is permitted under the current ordinance.
What we want to avoid is a crossfire conflict between the county and local townships when it comes to ATV/UTV use.
Currently, many rural Marathon County townships have opened up their town roads to ATV/UTV use, but not those townships that sit west of the city of Wausau (Marathon, Rib Mountain, Rib Falls and Stettin). Other townships east of Wausau have opened up some, but not all of their roads (Wausau, Weston). Other townships scattered across the county do not allow ATV/UTV use on local roads (Brighton, Bergen, Guenther and Harrison).
What we want to avoid is a situation where a town does not want ATV/UTV traffic, but might have to put up with these vehicles should the county open up all of its highways for this alternate vehicle use. If, for instance, the county opened up all low-volume county highways (under 500 vehicles a day) to ATV/ UTV use, the town of Marathon would need to deal with these vehicles on CTH O. The town of Rib Falls would have the same issue on CTH U and S. Ditto the town of Brighton on CTH E.
At present, the county ordinance permits the highway department to open up small segments of county highway as connectors between local ATV/UTV trails and roads. If local riders with the support of town governments want longer stretches of county highway open to ATV/UTVs, that can be proposed and debated. A decision should be made employing standard safety criteria.
What we want to avoid are hasty decisions that could create unsafe situations. We prefer a slow, incremental approach where, piece by piece, the county, in collaboration with local townships, builds its ATV/UTV network.
True enough, ATV/UTV use has expanded dramatically across rural Marathon County and it has not, to date, created big problems. Still, we see no rush to put ATV/UTVs on every inch of county blacktop given our annual crash experience. Safety should be the priority. Editorial by Peter Weinschenk, The Record-Review
