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
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.