Debate About ATVs on Public Roads Creates Acrimony in a Small Town

A recent selectboard meeting in the town of Washington ended not with a bang of the gavel but with an angry f-bomb shouted from a corner of the room. It was fresh evidence of the emotions that have roiled the town for months during a heated public debate about where all-terrain vehicles should be allowed to travel.

The controversy centers on a single dirt lane, Woodchuck Hollow Road, where several residents claim frequent ATV traffic has left behind a deeply rutted mess. One of those residents, Billy Donovan, blames the all-terrain vehicles for turning the road into a channel at times six feet deeper than his home’s foundation. Exposed sharp rocks make for a bone-jarring drive, even in a pickup truck.

A neighbor, Joe Callahan, shares Donovan’s frustration.

“In 31 years, I’ve never given anybody permission to terrorize my front yard. And that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Callahan said. “They’re terrorizing our hill and thinking they can get away with anything they want.”

Hoping for some relief, Donovan circulated some ideas last October to improve the situation, such as allowing only Washington residents to ride ATVs on town roads or creating a committee to develop some rules. The selectboard took up the question of ATV access shortly after. As it debated, the conflict between Woodchuck Hollow residents and local ATV enthusiasts grew bitter. During a June 27 discussion of the issue, the chair of the selectboard had to warn both sides to refrain from obscenities or threats.

She warned in vain. When Donovan attempted to speak again toward the end of the meeting, he earned a shouted, “Shut the fuck up,” from someone in the audience.

Washington is one of a growing number of Vermont towns that have tried to craft rules to govern ATV use on their back roads in a way that pleases everyone. Use of the recreational three- and four-wheel vehicles has risen quickly: The Vermont ATV Sportsman’s Association, or VASA, says its membership doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. That surge produced a backlash in some places among residents who have watched in dismay as groups of riders roar past their homes on country roads that once carried little traffic.

The issue is about more than transportation management. As in Washington’s case, it can reflect competing visions of rural life: those of residents who favor quiet escape and of others who see meddlesome interference in their recreation and way of life. The sport’s increasing popularity means that the sticky matter of where ATVs can ride is likely to pop up in more towns. Right next door to Washington, for example, residents of Chelsea forced a special town meeting last year at which a majority voted to repeal a new ordinance that allowed ATVs on 2.7 miles of town highways.

“They’re not easy debates,” said Ted Brady, executive director of the Vermont League of Cities & Towns. “I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer.”

Brady said so many towns have inquired about the ATV issue in recent years that his group has created the outline of a model ordinance, with suggestions for how towns could tailor it to their own situations.

In Washington, the controversy ratcheted up in May, when the selectboard adopted an ordinance that allows ATVs to travel on all Class 4 roads, the unmaintained town roads that sometimes resemble overgrown trails. The ordinance also allows ATVs on a few Class 3 roads — gravel roads that a typical car can navigate. The ordinance requires the signatures of neighboring landowners to open additional roads to four-wheeler travel.

The measure passed without objection, but then the local ATV club realized Woodchuck Hollow Road was not on the OK-to-ride list. That created a problem for the club because the Woodchuck Hollow route had served as a crucial link between ATV trails.

Selectboard member AJ Galfetti said the omission was an oversight; the selectboard opened Woodchuck Hollow Road to ATVs more than a decade earlier and did not intend to reverse that move now.

Nonetheless, the new ordinance effectively closed the Woodchuck Hollow artery to ATVs, thrusting the issue back onto the public stage as officials tried to find a way out of the tangle. On June 27, the selectboard voted to revise the ordinance, but it has yet to lay out a process or timetable for doing so. The decision to reopen the issue rankled Donovan and some of his fellow landowners on Woodchuck Hollow Road, who under the law as currently written hold veto power over allowing ATVs on their Class 3 wooded road.

Those in the ATV camp, meanwhile, are pleased that the selectboard plans to take another stab. Resident Sherry Beede praised the board and said no ordinance should allow one or two people to override the wishes of the town.

“I own a property on a town road. I do not own the town road,” Beede told the selectboard.

Local ATV enthusiasts in Washington say they have been unfairly maligned as a destructive force. Robbie Perdue, trail master for the Central Vermont ATV Club, said the spike in use during the pandemic has since fallen. With an average member age of 50, his club represents a casual “family sport,” he said. ATV supporters assert that their sport benefits the town by drawing riders to local businesses.

“We go out; we have fun. We aren’t out there raising hell,” said Travis Moran, who attended the June selectboard meeting.

Riders blamed any road damage on mud-bogging trucks, not ATVs, and say VASA can help offset Washington’s road maintenance costs by fixing the ones open to ATV traffic. The ATV association’s trails coordinator, Ethan Hill, noted that the club only uses town roads as connectors between the woods trails that are its priority and that it spends $20,000 a year maintaining Class 4 roads around the state. The group also can help fund local law enforcement to monitor ATV use, he said.

Residents on Woodchuck Hollow Road say they could count as many as 100 ATVs a day before the recent ordinance shut down access, and they are skeptical of how much VASA does to repair the roads. They worry that Washington, which sits at a crossroads in VASA’s trail network, could find itself overwhelmed by ATVs from all over.

Moreover, they object to the behavior of some riders and express concerns over safety. Gayle Callahan, who lives with her husband, Joe, not far from Donovan, used to walk the road. She recalled a number of near misses, including one in which she said she had to pull her granddaughter into a ditch to avoid being hit by an ATV. In 2015, Callahan, a registered nurse, rushed to the site of a fatal ATV crash on Woodchuck Hollow Road. She said it took police and EMTs almost three hours to reach the rider through the woods because the road was impassable to their vehicles.

Joe Callahan no longer dares to ride his horse on the road, he said. Gone, too, are the hikers, joggers and bikers who used to enjoy the trails, the road’s residents say.

The ATV controversy has created deep personal antagonisms. Donovan, who has lived on Woodchuck Hollow Road for 19 years, said he believes that he has been targeted by town officials since he initially spoke out. He noted that a member of the selectboard visited his property to inspect a stone wall officials say narrows the road too much to allow snowplowing. Donovan said others in town have property features that sit too close to the road, and that his has been singled out for scrutiny.

But the chair of the selectboard, Sheila Duranleau, discounted that charge and said she thought the matter had been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Besides that, Donovan said his involvement in the ATV issue got him kicked out of a local store by the owner, who accused Donovan of taking business away from him.

Lisle Kulbach, a Massachusetts resident who has a camp in Woodchuck Hollow, said the situation is part of a long history of “anti-flatlander” sentiment in the town. She said she worries about the safety of Donovan, who moved from New Hampshire.

The Callahans have long had cameras up at their house and recently set up more to monitor Donovan’s property. They reported pickup trucks stopping there late at night, particularly after contentious selectboard meetings, and suspect efforts at intimidation. Donovan said his stone wall has been vandalized.

Elsewhere in Vermont, the ATV issue also has proven contentious, if less personal.

In Craftsbury, selectboard cochair Bruce Urie said trying to write an ordinance governing the use of ATVs on public roads was the most controversial issue the town had seen. ATV riders, angered over their neighbors’ vocal opposition, threatened to close their own land to skiing and hiking.

After the proposed ordinance in Craftsbury was voted down, the town abandoned the idea of ATV regulation altogether. Urie said there have not been any related issues so far.

Towns across the Northeast Kingdom, including Canaan, Montgomery, Holland, Hardwick and Sutton, also have held meetings or passed ordinances or amendments to their ATV policies in the past few years. Newport became the first city to allow ATVs on municipal roads, a decision made in large part in hopes of the business ATV riders might bring to town, according to Travis Bingham, chief of police.

One of Washington’s neighbors, the town of Orange, amended its rules in 2021 to allow anyone to ride ATVs on public roads as long as they are headed to a trail. It was the ATV club that did not want to open all roads, according to the chair of the selectboard, Eric Holmgren. Instead, the town now discusses individual openings as residents request them.

The debate in Washington is on pause, possibly for months, until the selectboard takes up the matter of revising the ordinance it adopted in May.

In the meantime, Woodchuck Hollow Road lives under a kind of cold peace. The ATVs have, for now, ceased traveling there. Donovan is enjoying the quiet and monitoring a different kind of traffic: Bears, his sightings of which had fallen to one or two a year, and are already up to nine.

This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2023.

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