1. United States
2. Miss.
3. Letter

Oppose H.R. 4924 The so-called “Rails to Trails Landowner Rights Act” was reintroduced as H.R. 4924 on Aug. 8 and includes damaging provisions. The bill is an unconstitutional attack on railbanking, violating Fifth Amendment rights, while masquerading as a series of supposed process improvements. This bill effectively destroys the viability of future railbanking, resulting in fragmented and lost corridors—and poses a threat to thousands of miles of existing rail-trails. If this bill passes, it puts thousands of miles of rail-trail in jeopardy. This bill invites a federal agency to meddle in local decisions about corridor width and trail maintenance for existing rail-trails while putting unworkable responsibilities and expensive liabilities on local trail sponsors to prevent future rail-trails from being built. Here are highlights of the exceedingly burdensome and unworkable changes included in the bill: Trail sponsors must obtain within 30 days of signaling an intention to railbank a corridor signed written approval of every adjacent landowner as a condition of railbanking. Lack of affirmative consent from even a single landowner would preclude railbanking, leaving these corridors irreparably fragmented. Under this bill, financial liability shifts from the federal government to trail sponsors, most often local governments, to compensate adjacent landowners for unspecified “costs” presumed to be associated with trail use, regardless of whether the adjacent property owner has a property interest justifying compensation. Trail sponsors must assume lifetime responsibility for maintaining the corridor until it is reactivated, creating long-term liabilities even for short-term trail sponsors, discouraging anyone from stepping in to save a corridor pending identification of a permanent trail sponsor. The trail sponsor will be required to conduct and pay for unnecessary cost-benefit analysis addressing impacts on security, bio security, food security and other irrelevant topics. This could delay the railbanking process and add expense, discouraging trail sponsors like local governments from protecting rail corridors. Requires the Surface Transportation Board to consider requests to narrow the width of corridors to match future railroad needs, but such needs aren’t known at the time that a corridor is railbanked. Further, the new bill requires the Surface Transportation Board to review existing railbanked corridors and recommend to Congress maintenance requirements of trail sponsors. A report to Congress is not concerning, but the focus on previously railbanked corridors could encourage future legislation further burdening trail sponsors for hundreds of existing trails. Please protect these corridors for their future use—for rail and as trail. Rail-trails are the spines of the country’s active transportation system, which creates safe access for citizens to walk, bike and be active.