Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

$93 Million for Virginia Trails

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

A newly opened hiking/mountain biking trail outside of Missoula, Montana, in land protected by conservation easements.

The Bacon Family has just returned from a nine-day hiking trip to Montana. We were not surprised that the trails at Glacier National Park, with its rivers and lakes and snow-capped peaks, were world-class spectacular. But we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the trails around Missoula, where we enjoyed two days of walking around the city’s highly walkable downtown and hiking the hills all around. Virginia has nothing resembling the Glacier National Park, a natural wonder that simply cannot be replicated (unless you have a few hundred-million years to work on it), but we do have college towns set in the mountains like Missoula (home to University of Montana). Blacksburg, Lexington and Harrisonburg come to mind.

What Missoula has done — setting aside land with conservation easements, and investing in hiking trails — can be replicated. Indeed, Virginia’s new budget contains $93 million for multi-use trails, eight times the previous year’s General Fund commitment of $10 million, according to the Virginia Bicycling Federation.

The VBF account is not clear about what the final budget compromise will contain. The House version would have earmarked money to complete the Eastern Shore Trail, the Shenandoah Valley Rail Trail, and the Fall Line Trail in Central Virginia, adding 135 miles of new paved trail in different parts of the state. The Senate version would have established an Office of Trails to award funds based on competitive applications.

Whatever the final outcome, more trails will make a big improvement to Virginia’s quality of life.

The wonderful thing about hiking and mountain biking is that they can be enjoyed by people of all ages. In our trips to Utah and Montana this year, we saw a lot of gray hairs and white hairs on the trails. We also saw a lot of families with kids. People don’t need to lay out a lot of money for golf clubs, scuba tanks, or country-club memberships or other expensive gear — just hiking shoes and a backpack. In a word, hiking and biking are for everyone.

State government is flush with revenue right now. If we’ve got to spend most of it rather than give it back to the taxpayers, I can think of few priorities more worthy. I’m one taxpayer who intends to take full advantage of the investment.

— JAB

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17 responses to “$93 Million for Virginia Trails”

  1. David Wojick Avatar
    David Wojick

    More trails is fine, but I have for decades been actively involved in two major trail issues in Virginia that need to always be addressed:
    1. Horses
    2. Wilderness

    Hikers do not like horses so they try to keep them off of the trails. I notice you mention hikers and bikers but not horses. People who cannot walk long distances or bike can still ride. Plus when you ride you can look around at the beauty. (I was founding president of the VA chapter of Back Country Horsemen of America. We fight for horses on trails.)

    In VA there is a huge difference between the Shenandoah National Park and the million or so acres of National Forest. Two thirds of the 500 miles or so of Park trails are closed to horses. It is almost impossible to do a loop ride. This is very wrong.

    The National Forest is almost completely open to horses and we maintain trails as volunteers to keep it that way. I have a chainsaw scabbard on my saddle horn.

    I wonder about your paved trails because paving is dangerous for horse and rider. Steel shoes slip on paving, especially on hills.

    Horses are allowed in wilderness areas, which I seem to remember exceed 500,000 acres in VA. However chainsaws are not allowed so it is impossible to keep trails open in our oak forests, including for hikers. This makes extensive wilderness areas a bad plan.

    1. David Wojick Avatar
      David Wojick

      That may be more like 50,000 acres of wilderness. Zeros are hard to remember. Still a lot.

      1. David Wojick Avatar
        David Wojick

        VA now has 87,000 acres of federal wilderness areas.
        https://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR94/lartab7.htm

        Oregon has over 2 million! If people cannot hike it what good is it?

        1. Jack Lucas Avatar
          Jack Lucas

          Mr. Wojick, people can still hike into wilderness areas albeit there are not supposed to be permanent trails (with only minimal exceptions.) The primary purpose of the Wilderness Act is to preserve areas where man’s presence is only in passing. From the Dept of Justice web site regarding the Wilderness Act of 1964: Mindful of our “increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization,” Congress passed the 1964 Wilderness Act in order to preserve and protect certain lands “in their natural condition” and thus “secure for present and future generations the benefits of wilderness.” 11 U.S.C. § 1131(a). The Act recognized the value of preserving “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Id. at § 1131(c). Congress therefore directed that designated wilderness areas “shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness.” Id. at 1131(a).
          https://www.justice.gov/enrd/wilderness-act-1964

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      I would be fine with horses if the owners would just clean up after their pet… jk… sorta…

  2. Randy Huffman Avatar
    Randy Huffman

    Thanks Jim, David makes some good points, which I don’t know anything about but assume are valid. Personally, I don’t have any issues with horses, bikes or dogs under the watch of their owner, and love to hike. I don’t know how you keep trails open without chain saws after storms. I am adjacent to a subdivision trail which I help maintain, and it is definitely work and a challenge after storms, and I am only talking about a few miles……

    In Charlottesville there is a pretty good trail building program with a few organizations, and the City/County doing what they can. Property issues are undoubtedly a major issue when a trail tries to wind around for a long way.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Nobody likes horse poop or dog poop!

      1. David Wojick Avatar
        David Wojick

        Exactly, especially city people who have no concept of outdoor animals.

        1. Randy Huffman Avatar
          Randy Huffman

          Really. Tell that to the herd of deer in my backyard every night eating my plants and pooping everywhere. We all like to see foxes, but they poop too and eat animals. I love birds, but how many times have we had to clean up bird droppings from our cars, outdoor furniture, etc.

          Don’t get me wrong, my dog goes in someone’s yard or on the trail, I pick it up or push it into the woods. I guess not so easy when on a horse, so do understand that point….

    2. David Wojick Avatar
      David Wojick

      The Wilderness Act bars “mechanized equipment” which I suspect meant dirt bikes and ATVs but it got interpreted as including chainsaws. Imagine removing a 30 inch oak falling over the length of a trail, not across it, with hand saws. Effectively impossible.

      And if it is in a narrow canyon full of what is lovingly called shin tangle there is no going around, especially not with a pack.

      1. Jack Lucas Avatar
        Jack Lucas

        Mr. Wojick, the Wilderness Act does prohibit chainsaws. If a person can’t remove the downfall using a handsaw or an axe, the trail needs to go around the downfall. The entire idea behind the Wilderness Act is to have portions of the US where the only impact of man is footprints or hoofprints of horses or mules.

  3. James McCarthy Avatar
    James McCarthy

    Proportions are vital in evaluating public policy matters. Preservation is one such an important public policy. At nearly $11 per resident (and unknown number of folks to benefit), the proportion seems exaggerated while visitors to these pages express concerns about measures to mitigate inflation.

  4. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    If you could get the horse poop off the trails, I don’t think hikers and bikers would have a problem. In Montana, the horses tended to have dedicated trails — for that very reason, I suspect.

    1. David Wojick Avatar
      David Wojick

      You mean two trails side by side? That is what we need in Shenandoah Park. We cannot make loops because they mean following one branch of a river to the top of the Blue Ridge, following the ridge and descending along another branch back to the starting point.

      The ridge trail is the Appalachian Trail where horses are barred. All we need is a simple horse trail in parallel. We would be happy to build it at no cost. It would have to cross the Skyline Drive as the AT does, many times. Ironic that cars are allowed along the ridge but not horses.

      Personally I prefer horse poop to bicycles. Poop will not knock you down.

  5. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The final number is $93 million for trails. There is $37.5 million in HB 29 (the caboose bill) and $55.5 million in HB 30 (the biennial bill) for trails. There are no earmarks for specific trails. The funding is to establish a State Trails Office and there is an emphasis on regional trails. From a quick study of the history of the funding, it is apparent it developed by the budget committees during the budget development process. The additional funding was not included in Governor Northam’s introduced budget nor was it in Governor Youngkin’s “Day One” budget priorities. Somebody was doing some heavy duty lobbying in the General Assembly. One important factor seems to have been a report on the importance of trails that was published in January. It was referred to in the language of the budget amendments.

    https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2022/RD87/PDF

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    How about spending some for light fare or free mass transit leaving from intercity bus stops to the ranger’s office at nearby parks? One run in the AM and one in the PM.

    Metal detectors are additional.

  7. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    We have a nearby trail loop.

    Tip. Walk loops anticlockwise. Runners (Americans in general) overwhelming run circular trails clockwise. Don’t ask me why. But my spouse can atest that the ratio of runners approaching us as opposed to overtaking us is well above 3:1.

    None of the #%*$&@ announce.

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