Why trail town upkeep looks patchy: funding rules

First visits produce the same complaints everywhere. A section was closed, the surface changed without warning, the signage stopped at the county line. None of that is carelessness. It is what the funding rules produce, and the rules are published.

Trail town case studies tips often skip the money: which program paid for which piece of the corridor, and what it would not pay for. That is the part that decides how a surface holds up.

What to take away

Maintenance is funded, within limits

The Recreational Trails Program pays for upkeep, in precise categories. FHWA's guidance on eligible project categories treats maintenance and restoration of existing trails as its first category, read broadly to include rehabilitation, relocation, bridges and signage. Another category covers the purchase and lease of trail construction and maintenance equipment, provided it is used primarily for that.

States may spend up to 7 percent of an annual apportionment on administration and up to 5 percent on educational programs promoting safety and environmental protection.

The program itself is authorized by 23 U.S.C. 206 and run by a designated agency in each state, usually the state transportation or parks department. That agency sets the application window and decides which projects get funded, so a town's resurfacing schedule is really a state schedule.

The same guidance lists what is not eligible, and the exclusions explain the gaps you ride through. Feasibility studies and trail planning on their own do not qualify, condemnation is prohibited, and sidewalk or path improvements next to public roads are excluded except where they complete a missing trail link.

Why the surface changes at a line on the map

Each segment of a long corridor was usually funded by a different applicant, in a different year, to a different budget. That produces the thing first-time visitors notice most: eight miles of asphalt, then crushed stone, then a mile of something that was clearly done last. Nobody planned the transition. Two applications did.

It also explains why the good section is often the newest rather than the busiest. Money follows an application, and an application follows whoever in that county had the capacity to write one. A town with an active friends group and a planner who knows the program gets resurfaced; the identical town twenty miles down the same corridor waits.

The corridor is still a corridor

Where a trail runs beside a working line, the railroad's own concerns are documented. FHWA's rails-with-trails case study work recorded trespassing observations showing 58 percent of incidents were walking along the rail, 38 percent walking across it and 2 percent walking on it. Some 44 percent of trespassers were following a path the trail would not have accommodated.

The profile was consistent: 68 percent were male, 77 percent were pedestrians, and most were under 20. On four trails built during the study period, researchers found either no change or a significant drop in trespassing once the trail existed.

The practical reading is simple. The track side is not part of the trail, whatever the fencing suggests.

What to expect on a first visit

For the wider published record, see what the trail studies found. For the locals who can tell you the current state of a corridor, see how to find the people who know a trail town.

Common questions