Explore the 2025 big moments for the trails movement, highlighting wins, challenges, and community connections across America.

Since early 2025, RTC has tracked and reported decisions made by the White House and the US Department of Transportation regarding active transportation and advised trails, walking and biking advocates as they have endured whiplash, grant cancellations, and ongoing uncertainties about frozen federal transportation grants. Congress rescinded $750 million in active transportation Neighborhood Access and Equity grants […]

“From Rails to Trails” is a documentary by filmmaker Dan Protess that airs on PBS.org that explores the origins of America’s trails movement.

Congress passed an amendment to the National Trails Systems Act that enshrined railbanking—preserving railway corridors in perpetuity.

The Committee to Save the Derry Rail Trail Tunnel and RTC celebrated a victory in their lawsuit against the New Hampshire DOT and the FHWA.

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the National Trails System Act (1968), Rails to Trails magazine sat down with Ferster to talk about some of the cases that have shaped the movement—as well as the monumental importance of railbanking, which—born from the National Trails System Act in 1983—has helped facilitate the creation of thousands of miles of rail-trails to date.

Since Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s founding, we have been the nation’s foremost—and in most cases, only—legal advocate for rail-trails in the nonprofit sector. Under the direction of Andrea Ferster, RTC’s general counsel, our legal program has participated in numerous landmark rail-trail cases and supported countless trail managers, trail advocates and their legal counsel across the United States. […]

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) and the national trail community put itself on the front lines to protect and defend trails in 2018. Here are five ways we mobilized in communities this year.

Pete Raynor, central author of Railbanking legislation, was named 2018 Rail-Trail Champion. The 1983 Railbanking Act helped make many trails.

RTC’s put together this little trail-geek cheat sheet so that we can all bone up on our trail and active-transportation policy speak.