Federal Policy Update: New Threats to Regional Trails/ Multi-Use Paths/ Rail-Trails

We're grateful to our national partners, Rails to Trails Conservancy for their reporting, coordination, and advocacy on these issues. This blog post borrows heavily from their reporting.

Nationally, Previously Awarded Trails Project Are Being Cancelled by Trump Administration

Recent stories published in Bloomberg and Streetsblog report on how the administration is taking aim at discretionary transportation grants – awards of federal funding for which states and counties apply, when it believes those already-awarded grants don't directly support the "DOT’s priority of preserving or increasing roadway capacity for motor vehicles."

To successfully win federal funding in the first place, communities have to successfully demonstrate why investing in trails is a community priority for all the safety, health, mobility, and economic benefits that trails bring to our communities. We're currently not aware of any projects in Oregon that have been affected but are concerned that federal funding for trails projects from the Naugatuck River Greenway Trail in Connecticut to an off-street path paralleling Route 66 in Illinois to an on-street bike and pedestrian safety project in New Mexico has been revoked.

Rails to Trails Conservancy is encouraging folks to call your member of Congress. Tell them canceling essential trail projects puts lives and economic development at risk while wasting local resources. Urge them to demand that the USDOT restore funding immediately. Even if Oregon projects are unaffected today, community projects in the pipeline still may be at risk, and it is important to let your elected officials know what is at stake.

Current Bill in Congress Could Effectively Destroy the Viability of Railbanking for Trails

The “Rails to Trails Landowner Rights Act” (H.R.4924) undercuts the law at the foundation of the nation’s decades-long movement to preserve unused railroad corridors as multiuse trails. Railbanking, established in 1983 as an amendment to the National Trails System Act, is a popular and effective tool to preserve unused rail corridors for future transportation needs while allowing interim use as recreational trails.

When a corridor is railbanked, a “trail sponsor,” such as a local government, negotiates with the railroad to acquire the right of way and works with residents to design and build the trail. Through railbanking, corridors are preserved by the federal government, which is responsible for compensating landowners if a legal property interest has been taken. Over more than four decades, railbanking has been upheld by the Supreme Court and is widely used by rural, urban, and suburban communities to keep unused rail corridors intact while providing an essential service to people and places nationwide.

Learn more about how the current bill could negatively impact rail trails from Rails to Trails Conservancy.