High-speed rail between major city destinations is a front-page story across the nation. Big players, stimulus money, and a short timeframe are coalescing in a sustained effort to provide alternatives to the interstate and air travel. In rural and suburban communities, where population densities don’t attract major public transit dollars, a less glamorous and more incremental story is unfolding. The “Rails-to-Trails” movement is slowly morphing into a “Trails-to-Transportation” movement.

The “Rails-to-Trails” movement started in the mid-’60s, after a substantial consolidation of the rail industry led to the closure and abandonment of many lines. The movement was driven by a certain ideology—environmentalists wanting to get “back to nature,” redefine public space, and simply go for a walk. The effort was relatively inexpensive and often hurdle-free. After purchasing a portion of the property from the railroad companies, volunteers would take out the tracks, use the old rail ties in their home gardens, and once a year, come out to the “linear park” to cut back the brush.

Today, new ideologies are in place—and with those ideologies come new priorities. Environmentalists, many of whom were a part of the 60s Rails-to-Trails movement, are now looking at rail trails as part of a non-motorized transportation network.  Keith Laughlin, president of the national nonprofit Rails-to-Trails now sees his organization as a transportation advocacy group: “There was a time when people viewed having these trails in their communities as a nice-to-have thing, but not a necessity. But what we’re seeing is an increased demand at the local level, and the trails are now viewed as critical infrastructure for a livable 21st century community.”

In a 2008 survey of Ulster County (NY) residents, 21% of the respondents said they used non-motorized transportation to get to work and 35% used it for shopping and errands; 68% said they don’t use non-motorized transport because there are too many cars or motorists drive too fast. This potential demand for safer routes could be met by a connected network of protected trails. In Manchester, CT, the rate of biking-to-work was ten times greater among those residents who had access to the Charter Oak Greenway compared to those who did not, according to the Capitol Region Council of Governments (the Greenway connects East Hartford with outlying towns).

Building a Network

Perseverance has led to some high-profile wins for trail advocates. Walkway Over the Hudson was an effort that was started in 1992 by Bill Sepe, whose organization eventually bought the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad bridge (built in 1888) for $1. The pedestrian bridge, which in the end cost $38.8M to renovate, opened to great fanfare last October, and is now the longest pedestrian bridge in the world, and a key link to the Amtrak/Metro North station. In August 2009, the Open Space Institute and the Wallkill Valley Land Trust bought the iconic Rosendale Trestle Bridge and 11.5 miles of trail—a missing link between New Paltz and Kingston that had been owned by a private property owner. The two land trusts waited for 20 years for an opportunity, and, amidst the recent economic crisis, the property went into tax foreclosure.

The challenge now is to link together the various bits and pieces of trails that have already been preserved–not always an easy task. Ruth Elwell, President of the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail Association, pointed out to MTR that most of the defunct rail lines in the Hudson Valley ran north-south. To transform these corridors into useful networks, east-west links are needed to get commuters to train stations along the Hudson River. These are connections where rail beds never existed, and have proven to be even more challenging. For example, in order to link western Ulster County to the Walkway Over the Hudson, advocates need to find a way to cross some major roads, including I-87. Of the 19,000 miles of “rail trails” across the nation, 4,000 miles are connecting trails that aren’t on old rail beds.

Funding is always a problem and the largest funding source for trails, the federal Transportation Enhancements (TE) program, has been under attack. In recent years, the federal government has issued rescission orders that require states to return federal dollars—and many states have chosen to raid their pot for trail money instead of distributing the cuts evenly. According to the Rails-to-Trails website, “although TE receives 1 to 2 percent of all transportation funds annually, it bore the brunt of more than 10 percent of rescissions in 2006 and 2007.” NYSDOT returned 85% of its TE apportionment in 2009.

Rails With Trails

A growing trend has been the embrace of “rails with trails” by local governments and advocates. The Trails Act, which passed Congress in 1983, enabled the establishment of a national railbanking program, which preserves established railroad rights-of-way in the event they can be reactivated in the future for rail service. The program paved the way for trail preservation, but also opened up the possibility of shared-use corridors. In New Jersey, there has been extensive discussion about a “Rails-with-Trails” section of the Boonton Line, now a lightly used freight rail line. In Ulster County, municipalities along the O&W Line are discussing plans for their own shared-use trail.

Such plans have their detractors. Norfolk Southern, which owns the Boonton Line, is concerned that a trail close to an active rail line could cause safety and liability issues, as well as restrict the ability to expand rail capacity in the future. For some of the same reasons, USDOT “does not actively promote” such projects. Still, few things demonstrate the trail movement’s shift away from a “back to nature” ethos and towards a transportation-focused mindset than this new multimodal approach.