disappointing for hikers and bikers... (Rails to Trails)

[handmade34]

"Today’s Supreme Court ruling is disappointing news for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, rail-trail advocates and trail users around the country. The full opinion, which reverses and remands a lower court ruling...At issue in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust et al. v. United States was whether the federal government retains a reversionary interest in railroad rights-of-way that were created by the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875, after the cessation of railroad activity on the corridor. In today’s 8-to-1 decision, the justices ruled in favor of Marvin Brandt, the Wyoming landowner whose property is crossed by one of these former rail corridors that is part of the Medicine Bow Rail Trail.

It is our belief that the original intent of the 1875 legislation was that these linear public spaces should remain of, and for, the people. Just like our national parks, these former rail corridors are public assets in which we all share and benefit. These federally-granted rights-of-way have played a key role in the nation's rail-trail movement, which has built thousands of miles of hiking, biking, equestrian, skiing and snowmobile pathways across America over the past 25 years.

There are hundreds of federally granted rights-of-way corridors across the country, many of which have been converted into publicly accessible trails. This erosion of protections for these public lands in the Supreme Court not only may block the completion of the Medicine Bow Rail Trail through the former rail corridor, but also threatens existing rail-trails, mainly in the West, that utilize federally-granted rights-of-way and are not railbanked...
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter among the Justices. She wrote in her opinion that the decision "undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now enjoys as means of transportation and recreation."



http://community.railstotrails.org/blogs/trailblog/archive/2014/03/11/Supreme-Court-Hands-Down-Disappointing-Decision-for-Trails-in-U.S_2E00_.aspx

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1173_nlio.pdf

[villager]

1. 8-1, eh? So glad, once again, we have some non-corporate errand runners on our court bench!

Oh wait, we don't.

[HuckleB]

2. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.