Glassboro, NJ Multi-Purpose Trail

My wandering was on two, non-motorized wheels this past Saturday.  I'm preparing for a duathlon so it was my first bike ride of the season - about 17 miles.  I was pleased with that for my first time out after a long, hard winter.

The trail was part of the Rails-to-Trails system.  In this system, old railroad beds are used to create trails for biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, etc.  Some trails are paved, others have gravel or sand or a number of other surfaces.  According to the Rails-to-Trails website, "there are 19,000 miles of rail-trail throughout the country, and more than 9,000 miles of potential rail-trails waiting to be built."

One of the advocacy programs undertaken by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is supporting the "federal railbanking statute in the U.S. Congress and the courts as an essential tool to preserve unused rail corridors."  This statute, which has opponents,

is a voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail agency to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until some railroad might need the corridor again for rail service. Because a railbanked corridor is not considered abandoned, it can be sold, leased or donated to a trail manager without reverting to adjacent landowners. The railbanking provisions of the National Trails System Act as adopted by Congress in 1983 have preserved 4,431 miles of rail corridors in 33 states that would otherwise have been abandoned.

The opponents of railbanking have actually challenged it in the Supreme Court, and lost.  I don't fully understand the issues around the opposition, but maybe the community and surrounding landowners want more say about their adjacent land and its use?

I rode my bike from a friend's house to the Monroe Township Bikepath, which the Rails-to-Trails site states is 6.36 miles.  (The township website says it's about 1 mile longer.)  This paved trail was mostly wooded and felt rural, with marshes and occasional houses scattered throughout it.   It's also adjacent to a large tomato canning plant.  All of those delicious Jersey tomatoes getting shipped out to the region - or maybe even the country!

If you want to wander on a Rails-to-Trails trail - whether or two legs or two wheels - search here to find a trail near you.