City To Residents: Do Not Block Entrance To Olde Rope Mill Park

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The city of Woodstock is reminding visitors to Olde Rope Mill Park not to block the entrance to the park.

Over the weekend, police and fire rescue responded to three different injury calls on Sunday at the park, which sits at the end of Rope Mill Road just north of Ridgewalk Parkway.

Unfortunately, crews were hindered in their rescue efforts by several cars parked along Rope Mill Road, effectively blocking the entrance to the park.

Five cars were towed and 20 vehicles were ticked, Police Chief Calvin Moss told Patch on Tuesday.

“Our challenge is (that) emergency vehicles are blocked from gaining access,” he said when vehicles park along the road near the entrance.

There were a total of three injuries reported on Sunday along the Taylor Randahl Mountain Bike Trails, including a male with a broken collar bone, a broken arm and a head injury, according to the police department’s incident log. Officer assisted Woodstock fire crews in carrying the male approximately a half-mile from the trails to the parking area, the log states.

The vehicles blocking the entrance delayed the response time to help those in need of medical attention, the chief added.

Olde Rope Mill Park has become popular due to the opening and expansion of the mountain bike trail network. The growing popularity propelled the city to build and open an overflow parking lot along Rope Mill Road just south of the park.

City Manager Jeff Moon, who informed the City Council of the incident on Monday, told city leaders that staff will expedite the process of expanding the overflow parking at the park in an effort to prevent this latest occurrence from happening again in the future.

Meanwhile, Moss said his department will continue to stress to residents to be mindful of the fact that the entrance to Olde Rope Mill Park is the only entrance and exit point to the park.

“We don’t really have any options,” he said. “We have got to maintain that open access.”

Photo credit: city of Woodstock