Wednesday, March 12, 2014

A Big Legal Blow to the Rails-to-Trails Movement

decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court Monday could endanger rail-trails, many of which have become integral to the economies and communities where they are located.


The court ruled decisively, 8 to 1, in favor of a southern Wyoming landowner named Marvin Brandt, whose father once ran a sawmill making railroad ties on the family’s 83-acre piece of land, now contained within the Medicine Bow National Forest. Brandt had contested the United States Forest Service’s right to use a half-mile-long, 200-foot-wide rail right of way going through his land as part of a 21-mile-long trail that runs along the former rail tracks. Read more.

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