A new county-wide plan for “multi-use” trails is heavily geared towards motorized use on state lands and local roads throughout Franklin County.
Franklin County has proposed a new 500-mile “multi-use” recreational trail system that will crisscross the county. The County recently released a draft plan and received public comments through June 14th. The draft plan generated considerable opposition from landowners along the proposed motorized trail routes and from local governments who felt they had not been consulted on the trails slated to be opened through their towns.
Click here to read comments submitted by Protect the Adirondacks.
While county planners claim that the proposed “multi-use” trail system will be “for recreational use by off-road vehicle (ORV), foot, bicycle, horseback, dog sled, and other outdoor activities,” the plan is heavily geared towards motorized uses by All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). Many landowners do not want to see the road where they live opened for ATV riding. Many already feel that illegal ATV riding in rural parts of Franklin County is out of control and they want no part of the County’s plans to stimulate even more ATV riding.
The current draft plan lacks many specifics. For example, the proposed trail system includes an unspecified number of trail miles on lands owned by the State of New York (which in Franklin County include constitutionally protected Forest Preserve) and lands owned by third parties, including the County and the various Towns and Villages. Although any new trail or new type of trail use on Forest Preserve lands will require an amendment to the Unit Management Plan for the affected Forest Preserve unit, the draft plan includes no information regarding this requirement, and there is no indication that the County has consulted with either the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) or Adirondack Park Agency (APA) on the draft plan’s trail siting.
In addition, the draft plan’s description of the trail system as being “located on various County-owned lands, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation owned lands, Adirondack Park Agency owned land, and privately owned parcels” reveals a disturbing ignorance by the County of land ownership within county boundaries. Neither DEC nor APA own land; DEC manages Forest Preserve lands under the oversight of APA in the Adirondack Park and throughout the North Country, but that land is owned by the People of the State of New York and there needs to be careful planning and execution of any development of infrastructure on State-owned lands.
Franklin County has proposed opening town and village roads to ATV and ORV use. The County also proposes new trails on the public Forest Preserve. Franklin County has not reached out to local town governments or state agencies about its plans.
The draft plan includes an extensive long-distance series of trails across the Forest Preserve. Currently, ATV riding is not allowable on the Forest Preserve except on certain routes by persons with disabilities who have medical permits. It seems that there has been little consultation by Franklin County with the DEC or APA, which is odd considering that the current APA Executive Director had previously served as the Chair of the Franklin County Legislature. The County’s proposal doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the high level of public scrutiny that comes with proposed activities that can negatively impact the Forest Preserve.
The trail system also proposes to open to ATV use an unknown number of miles of public roadways owned by the State, County, Towns and Village(s). The proposal indicates that the County would have responsibility for “authority and supervision, potential environmental impacts and public safety issues.” The County also expects that the trail system will be further expanded in the future. The County cannot open to ATV use State or Town or Village roads that are outside of its legal jurisdiction, so we do not see how this is going to work.
Exact details about the trail system are scant at this time. The County is in an early stage of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) review process, after having issued a SEQRA positive declaration because the Franklin County Legislature identified numerous potentially environmental impacts from the proposed trail system. The County’s SEQRA resolutions, and the draft SEQRA “Scoping Document,” containing a general description of the proposed trail system and a few maps, are available on the County’s website.
The plan’s proposal to open to ATV riding State lands and public roads will be the most controversial parts of the proposal. State law limits registration of “off-highway” vehicles to those that do not exceed 70” in width or 1,000 pounds in weight. That essentially narrows registration of permissible off-highway vehicles to those that are considered an All Terrain Vehicle (“ATV”), and does not include larger ORVs such as “side-by-sides” or “utility task vehicles” (“UTVs”) that may only be operated on private lands. (See New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law (“VTL”) § 2281(a).) One major question is why is Franklin County trying to open public roads to the use of ORVs that cannot lawfully be registered for operation?
In addition, past attempts to open public roads to ATV use have been controversial and have resulted in a series of legal challenges. Some municipalities withdrew their local ATV laws or had them annulled after legal challenges by affected property owners who sought to stop aggressive local governments from illegally opening public roads to ATV riding. The Town of Franklin has passed a resolution stating that it “will not approve the use of off-road vehicles on paved roads for which it has jurisdiction within the Township”. The Town of Brighton passed a resolution stating that it “opposes the proposed Franklin County Multi-Use Recreational Trail System.” Other Towns are expected to follow suit.
State law has strict limitations on opening roadways for off-road vehicles. In order for a municipality to designate and post roads and streets under local jurisdiction as open to ATV use, the municipality must document that “it is otherwise impossible for ATVs to gain access to areas or trails adjacent to the” roads and streets that are open for ATV use. The New York Attorney General has written that ATVs are only allowed on designated portions of specific roads where “it is otherwise impossible for ATVs to gain access” to legal off-road riding opportunities. The AG continued that “the Legislature’s clear intent that ATVs be used primarily off-highway.” In 1999, Franklin County lost a court case where it tried to open local roads to ATVs. Many court cases have demonstrated that the municipality must make the statutorily mandated findings based upon specific facts meeting the impossibility standard, or the law will be annulled.
This means that public roads cannot be opened as a trail network in and of themselves, and any local law allowing ATVs on public roads in the absence of an “impossibility” finding is likely subject to legal challenge as being in violation of VTL.
There is some legal ATV access for the public on the Kushaqua Conservation Easement north of Rainbow Lake. On this easement, the state has designated a number of roads where the public can ride an ATV, but the public must trailer their ATV to a parking area to access these trails and cannot ride to the Kushaqua easement on public roads.
ATV riding on public roads is also not very safe. Most rural roads are not built to handle ATV traffic, especially along the shoulders. It is unclear whether the proposed routes will use the roads or the shoulders of roads. More importantly, private and public lands along public roads that are opened to ATVs are susceptible to trespass and ecological damage, which are chronic problems in some rural areas. Communities that have roads opened to ATVs are also vulnerable to liability claims and high insurance rates. ATV accidents and deaths are regularly reported in the local media and national studies show high levels of accidents. ATV safety activists and the manufacturers also advocate against ATV use on roads, citing a lack protection for riders in collisions and their unpredictability of operation at high speeds on paved surfaces.
Franklin County has a lot of work to do if it decides to continue with this plan. The County issued a “positive declaration” under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), which declared that the proposed trail system “will have a significant adverse environmental impact” that requires the preparation of a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) to further evaluate the impacts and means to avoid or mitigate those impacts. The Trail System as a whole, and the proposed use of ORVs on local roads and trails over public lands in particular, has the potential to cause significant adverse impacts to the natural resources of Franklin County.
In the past, we documented and publicized the threats and impacts to the ecological integrity and public enjoyment of the Forest Preserve from the use of motorized recreational vehicles. Publication in 2003 of Rutted and Ruined: ATV Damage on the Adirondack Forest Preserve led to the closing of scores of illegally opened roads on the Forest Preserve by the DEC and APA. The immense damage to the Forest Preserve catalogued at that time showed that ATV use on the Forest Preserve in the 1990s was an experiment that failed.
The Adirondack Park and North Country are notable for being reactive. We seldom as a community are pro-active where we develop plans that can be helpful in shaping the future. At its core, a recreation plan is a good idea as a way to improve the quality of life for residents and visitors, but this plan needs to adhere to the law, and not allow one person’s fun to undermine another person’s quality of life or damage their property. Franklin County has a lot of work to do, and revisions to make, as it moves ahead with its county-wide recreational trail plan.
