EXISTING TRAIL MAINTENANCE AND VOLUNTEER PATROL CHECKLIST A maintenance plan should establish a routine maintenance schedule, a preventative maintenance and a risk management inspection schedule. Trails must be maintained in a safe and usable condition at all times. All defects in trail surface, rough edges, depressions, uneven pavement, etc., must be corrected immediately by making the require repairs to restore the trail to a safe and usable condition. All potential hazards must be clearly identified and marked to alert users until they can be repaired. Failure to properly operate and maintain the trail may result in an unsafe trail which has the potential to become a liability to the entities involved. As noted earlier, with the development of the first phase of the Bellefonte Central Rail Trail on the PSU Arboretum property in 2005 a maintenance plan and volunteer patrol checklist was developed. We recommend the maintenance plan and volunteer patrol checklist be expanded to address aspects such as trail access points.
POLICY FOR TRAIL CLOSURES Trail users need to be managed during construction and periodic maintenance of trails, and the roads and other facilities they intersect. Trail users must be forewarned of the trail closures, and given reasonable detours, to bypass closed or unfinished sections of the trail. If there is no alternative route then the trail should be closed until work is completed. Best practices for trail construction zones include standard signing at the entrance to the affected segment of trail, including but not limited to information on the dates of closure. Trail sections that are closed must be gated or otherwise blocked and clearly signed as closed to public use.
LIABILITY The material contained herein is general and educational in nature and is not intended to be legal advice. For legal advice on these matters, please seek the aid of a competent attorney in your area. When considering management, operations, maintenance, and security of the proposed trail, it is important to also understand the liability that comes with the trail, and ways to reduce that liability. The following description of liability and insurances is not intended to provide a legal opinion on any issue. It only describes our interpretation of the opportunities and constraints associated with each.
PRIVATE LAND OWNER LIABILITY A primary concern of property owners along the former rail bed is that of liability. Should a private land owner grant an easement for the trail through their property, that land owner may be exposed to liability should an accident occur in that section of trail. Although the Commonwealth’s Recreational Use of Land Statute is in place, it is unclear as to whether a Court will except a defense based on the Statute, and to what degree the land owner’s liability may be reduced. Therefore, we recommend every effort be taken to remove this liability concern from the private property owner. This can be accomplished by having the intergovernmental agency, created by the County and municipalities for managing the trail, accept any liability that the land owner may have by holding the land owner harmless. We recommend this occur, and be documented in the intergovernmental agreement between the parties involved.
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Trail Operation, Maintenance, & Security