The costs of rail-trail and multiuse trail maintenance are not well documented as a discipline—thus making it very difficult to compare practices for gaining cost savings and efficiencies. The purpose of this table is to quickly give a general sense of the routine maintenance cost per mile of various types of multiuse trails in different regions of the United States. With this information, the viewer can gain an understanding of the wide range of costs, help determine what a new project’s costs will be, or make some general comparisons to their existing trail.
This table is a continuation of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s (RTC’s) 2015 study, “Maintenance Practices and Costs of Rail-Trails,” which looked at 200 trails across the country. While very useful in determining standard maintenance tasks and their frequency, the 117-question study showed that trail maintenance costs are not readily available.
If you are a trail manager and you would like to share your data with RTC, please contact Northeast Regional Director, Tom Sexton (tom@railstotrailsconservancy.org).
