The federal Surface Transportation Board has proposed a change to the rules dealing with negotiation time limits for railbanking that should be helpful to those trying to create rail trails. Railbanking is the process by which railroads that are to be abandoned instead get turned into trails.
Under existing rules, a prospective trail sponsor has 180 days to complete negotiations with a rail carrier over a line that it has proposed to abandon. But current practice is for the board to issue extensions for "good cause" and it seems that they grant them pretty liberally. The new rules would give sponsors a year to complete negotiations, permit up to three one-year extensions if the trail sponsor and the railroad agree; and permit additional one-year extensions if the trail sponsor and the railroad agree and good cause is shown. This basically matches the changes that Rails to Trails (RTC) has sought (and so is good news for supporters).
The whole rule making effort began last year when the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners (NARPO), suggested a set of rule changes.* NARPO represent the interests of adjacent land owners, and can be considered the anti-rail trail opposite of RTC. One of those changes recommended limiting the number of 180-day extensions of the interim trail use negotiating period to a maximum of six extensions and the STB proposed a rule to do just that.
Then RTC petitioned for a separate rule change to instead establish a one-year period for any negotiating period and codify the Board's authority to grant extensions of the negotiating period for good cause shown.
So the two rule proposals were considered together, and RTC brought the receipts. RTC had a database of almost every instance where a sponsor sought to build a trail and that it included how long negotiations lasted for most case.
of the 370 railbanked corridors for which its database indicates the length of negotiations, 289 railbanking agreements (78.1%) required more than 180 days to negotiate, while approximately half (183 of the 370 corridors) were negotiated within one year. RTC argues that its data supports the conclusion that an initial railbanking negotiating period of one year, rather than 180 days, would more closely reflect the actual length of time required to complete railbanking negotiations. RTC notes that establishing a one-year initial interim trail use negotiating period would promote greater administrative efficiency and reduce burdens on trail use proponents and railroads to file extension requests, and on the Board to review and approve such requests.
Which all seems to make sense and the STB saw it that way too.
NARPO objected to the "good cause" standard starting on the 4th extension and instead wanted an "extraordinary circumstances" standard, but STB rejected that as well.
To accomplish [the goals of the Trails Act], the interest in concluding the Trails Act process within a reasonable amount of time must be balanced against the need to allow parties enough time to complete their negotiations and finalize a Trails Act agreement—and applying a good cause standard of review beginning at the fourth extension request would appropriately effectuate this goal. Applying such a good cause standard should provide sufficient time to allow trail projects that have a reasonable prospect of success to be completed while at the same time taking into account situations where negotiations may extend for many years without any likely or achievable resolution. A good cause standard for extensions that exceed three years in total would provide the Board with more flexibility than an extraordinary circumstances standard but would still require a meaningful case-specific showing of need for any such extensions.
This is all a positive change for the process. I don't know of any such negotiations going on in the DC area (Shepherd Branch?) or any that would, but you never know. If you'd like to comment on this, you have 26 days.
*In its petition, NARPO also requested that the Board require a railroad or trail sponsor negotiating an interim trail use agreement to send notice to landowners adjacent to the right-of-way; and require all entities filing a request for a trail use, or extension thereof, to pay a filing fee.
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