TULSA, Okla. — After an evening ride along the river, Heidi Blackmon and a friend were enjoying the sunset and cooling off on the Pedestrian Bridge.
Suddenly, they heard something that didn't belong.
"I heard motors, and I thought they at first were on the road but they were on the trail," said Blackmon. "If you stepped out in front of them, you could risk being run over. It was shocking."
A video she captured shows a four wheeler and what looks like a dirt bike nearly plowed into Blackmon and other pedestrians.
"There's people jumping out of the way to avoid them, and one guy went up one side one guy went up the other so it didn't matter which side you picked, it was very dangerous," she said.
Per the River Parks Authority ordinance, no motorized vehicles of any kind are allowed to be on the trails.
However, it's not the first time executive director Jeff Edwards has received complaints of people breaking that rule.
“The last four to six months we have seen an uptick in at least reports made directly to our office where they’re seeing excessive speeds," said Edwards. "Maybe not the instance like what we saw today with the four wheeler on a trail, but these E-Bikes can certainly go upward of 30-40 MPH and we just need better enforcement on that.”
He told 2 News River Parks and TPD are collaborating on the issue, looking for anyway to nip it in the bud. But monitoring all of the trails all the time to catch the perpetrators, Edwards said, isn't realistic.
“River Parks system is very expansive, about really 26 linear miles in length with about 80 miles of trail, so as you can imagine not only for the authority ourselves, but for Tulsa Police Department as well, it’s hard to be everywhere at the same time.”
And while River Parks can ask people to follow the rules, they can't do anything if they aren't.
“We don’t have any enforcement opportunities or ability, so all of those calls need to be made through to local law enforcement so they can come make contact and issue citations.”
Though, he acknowledges it's a huge safety concern that River Parks is taking very seriously.
2 News Oklahoma's Stef Manchen asked Blackmon if this makes her feel unsafe to ride the trails.
“Its kind of getting scary now, I hadn’t thought about it," she replied. "But it’s Fourth of July coming up. They could really hurt people if a crowd is watching fireworks, it could be really troublesome.”
This, the exact opposite of what Edwards and his team want.
“For the most part, really relatively safe trail network and system," he said. "Yes, while we’ve seen an uptick in this over the last couple of months, by and far, we run about 1.5 million users through the park annually and maybe a handful of them are being impacted by this unfortunate situation.”
For Blackmon, she would like to see someone come up with some way to keep these individuals off the trails before anyone gets seriously hurt.
“It’s illegal to do it. It makes no sense to have a motorized vehicle on any of these trails, but you know, the police came up with a good solution with the curfew just a week ago, maybe they can come up with a another solution for something like this.”
Edward's is asking for trail users and Tulsans to call the 311 number or in more extreme cases to call 911. By documenting it directly with TPD, he is hopeful trends and reports will help the department put an end to the rule breaking.
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