Committee hears call to clarify municipalities' authority to maintain legal trails

Mike Covey, executive director of the Vermont Traditions Coalition, told the House Transportation Committee in May that the legislature should make explicit that municipalities have authority to maintain legal trails and may authorize others to do maintenance under municipal authority. "This legislation created a deadline of 07/01/2010 to ensure that unidentified corridors were determined, and 07/01/2015 to assign them a classification and add them to town highway maps," Covey said, citing Act 178 of 02/2006.

The testimony focused on whether towns can clear, maintain or authorize volunteers to maintain legal trails without risking claims for compensation if a court later finds in favor of landowners. Covey said mapping deadlines in Act 178 meant corridors not added by the 2015 deadline reverted to adjacent landowners, and that mapping and classification by municipalities demonstrates legislative intent that towns have authority over those rights of way.

Why it matters: legal trails are mapped public rights of way used for recreation and emergency access across the state; Covey told the committee there are about "547 miles of legal trail in the state," and he gave examples including the fishing access at Berlin Pond that sits on a legal trail. He argued that clarifying municipal authority would allow towns, volunteer trail groups and other community stewards to maintain trails without uncertainty about liability and would support outdoor recreation and public safety, including search-and-rescue access after storms.

Committee members asked for documentary evidence and maps. Committee staff and Agency of Transportation (AOT/VTrans) staff demonstrated that town highway maps are available on the AOT website and that legal trails appear on those maps as dashed lines labeled "LT"; members discussed that if a right of way is not on a mapped town highway list now, it generally no longer exists as a town right of way. The committee heard that the ongoing lawsuit concerns who may maintain a mapped legal trail, not whether the trail is a public right of way.

Discussion only and next steps: members and witnesses repeatedly framed the issue as a question of clarifying statutory language rather than creating new rights. Committee staff said the committee will hear additional witnesses on the topic the next day, including the landowner involved in the case. Several members expressed interest in passing language this session to remove ambiguity and explicitly permit municipalities and authorized volunteers or organizations to do maintenance "under the municipality's authority." No formal action or vote was taken at the meeting.

Ending: The committee will receive two more witnesses on the subject at the next hearing and will decide how to proceed; members signaled intent to consider statutory language that affirms municipal authority for maintenance while recognizing the range of current maintenance practices.