Rails-to-Trails Conservancy 2010 Campaign for Active Transportation Campaign for each state to receive $50 million in federal funds focused on infrastructure and programs to shift automobile trips to walking or biking trips. Pledge Program Getting individuals to pledge to walk or bike more, and drive less. This program strives to engage local active transportation advocates [...]
Kaiser Permanente partnered with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to determine the facilities, resources, infrastructure and programming needed to insure the maximum use of the trail by a diverse group of users.
Trails are being built in urban, suburban, and rural areas. They are being built on former rail corridors as well as in vast public lands. People use trails for: walking, jogging, biking, in-line skating, skiing; even equestrians, snowmobilers and people in wheelchairs use them. With all these uses in a variety ofsettings come a host of concerns about liability issues.
This report concludes that trail-related liability is primarily a management issue. Laws are in place to protect all parties from unwarranted lawsuits and the rest is up to proper design, maintenance and management.
A list of more than 50 unique ideas for trail fundraising from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.
A very comprehensive document covering all aspects of trail and greenway organization.
The benefits of making trips by bicycle can be significant, both to the individual and to society as a whole, and thus encouraging trip making by bicycle is within the national interest and worthy of significant investment if such facilities are indeed used. Though the comment is often made that the U.S. cannot achieve the bicycle trip rates seen in some other countries, an argument can also be made that it is not the lack of desire to make trips by bicycle but rather lack of opportunity.
The experience on 372 trails. Written by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in cooperation with the National Parks Service.
Section 8(d) of the National Trails System Act (“the Trails Act”) was enacted by Congress in 1983 in response to this crisis of corridor loss. It provides an effective mechanism for preserving railroad rights-of-way for future rail service and for energy efficient alternative transportation use, without imposing additional burdens on rail carriers. The law allows railroads to transfer inactive railroad corridors to qualified trail managers for interim use as trails, until such time as these rights-of-way are needed for future rail service on the condition that trail managers assume all carrying costs (liability, maintenance, and taxes) of the rights of way. This process is known as “railbanking.”
A comprehensive discussion of how railroad rights-of-way may be converted to recreational trails under the Interstate Commerce Commission’s new regulations implementing Section 8(d) of the Trails Act.
Although the general public thinks of a corridor as being “owned” by a railroad, in reality the average rail right-of-way is a hodgepodge of different legal entities that do not come unraveled until abandonment. In general, the railroad will own some portions of the corridor outright (in fee “simple”) while it will only have restricted use of other portions (“easements”).
