The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) authorized the Recreational Trails Program. This program replaced the original National Recreational Trails Funding Program authorized by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA). The U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (USDOT/FHWA) administers the Recreational Trails Program in consultation with the Department of Interior (National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management) and the Department of Agriculture (U.S. Forest Service).

The Recreational Trails Program is a state-administered, federal assistance program to provide and maintain recreational trails for both motorized and non-motorized recreational trail use. The Recreational Trails Program legislation requires that states use 40% of their funds apportioned in a fiscal year for diverse recreational trail use, 30% for motorized recreation, and 30% for non-motorized recreation.

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) is the state agency administering this program in New York. It offers communities the opportunity to receive this federal transportation funding in support of trail development, maintenance and improvement activities. Statewide, there is $1,500,000 available for the 2001 round of the program. Awards can range from $5,000 to $100,000 with 20 percent match requirements.

The following is a list of eligibility requirements for proposed projects:

• The proposed project must be legally and physically accessible to the public, or be a portion of an identified trailways project which, when completed, will be legally and physically accessible to the public.
• The proposed project must be physically and environmentally developable as a trailway.
• The proposed project must be planned and developed under the laws, policies and administrative procedures of the state.
• The proposed project must be identified in, or further a specific goal of, a recreational trail plan, or a statewide comprehensive outdoor recreation plan (SCORP) required by the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965.

The following is a list of eligible activities:

• Maintenance and restoration of existing recreational trails
• Development and rehabilitation of trailside and trailhead facilities and trail linkages
• Purchase or lease of trail construction and maintenance equipment
• Construction of new trails, subject to certain conditions in cases where the new trails would cross federal lands
• Acquisition of easements and fee-simple title to property for trails or trail corridors

There are also activities specified as ineligible as follows:

• Condemnation of property or the use of the value of condemned land toward the match requirement
• "Upgrading, expanding or otherwise facilitating motorized use or access to trails predominantly used by non-motorized trail users, and on which, as of May 1, 1991, motorized use was prohibited or had not occurred" (basically, encouraging motorized use of trails historically limited to non-motorized use)
• Conducting trail feasibility studies
• Routine law enforcement
• Trail planning if it is the sole purpose of the project
• Improvements to roads and/or bridges intended to be generally accessible by regular passenger cars unless they are specifically designated for recreational trail use by the managing agency
• Construction of paths or sidewalks along or adjacent to public roads or streets unless they would complete missing links between other recreational trails.

There are also project activities that receive special consideration as funding priorities:

• Clearly and specifically provide access for the disabled
• Mitigate and minimize impacts to the natural environment
• Utilize the youth conservation or service corps to perform construction and maintenance of recreational trails
• Receive Millennium Trails recognition
• Are on National Scenic Trails, National Historic Trails or trails designated as National Recreational Trails

CDTC approved funding for this program in the TIP as project RG96. Since CDTC is not directly approving specific projects, it granted approval to the entire list of specific known candidates for the CDTC area. Therefore, whichever projects receive approval from the OPRHP are on the TIP for the funding approved by the OPRHP. The TIP project listing shows an estimate of funding for each year in the TIP, and is not intended to be a required minimum or maximum.