https://www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2024-11-13/tunbridge-legal-battle-over-public-trails-could-restrict-access-across-vermont
Vermont Public, By Howard Weiss-Tisman, There’s a legal battle playing out in Tunbridge over who should maintain the so-called legal trails in Vermont.
Legal trails are former public roads, which aren’t used for traffic anymore, but are still open for walking and other recreational uses. The eventual court ruling could have an impact on more than 500 miles of public trails across the state. The fight’s been going on for almost five years. The town has spent almost $40,000 so far defending itself in court. And the whole thing started with a small sign that was pounded into the ground along a public trail that’s less than a mile long. “The sign that I put up was here,” said Tunbridge resident Todd Tyson as he stood along the Orchard Road trail, one of four legal trails in Tunbridge that is open to the public. Tyson is one of the lead organizers of the annual Pedal Power to the People bike tour. The tour takes a different route every year, and back in 2019, Tyson wanted to have the riders go across Orchard Road, which he said bicycle riders have been using for decades.
So Tyson said he was pretty surprised when the property owner called him up to say he didn’t want the bike tour going on the public town trail that crosses his land. “He called and said that I needed to remove that sign at once, and that I had no right to bring our event, or bicycles, through this legal trail,” Tyson said. “He was adamant — that would be a lesser term than some other ones that could be used. He was adamant about this.” Tyson was a little freaked out by how strongly the property owner reacted, so he took the sign down and sent the bicyclists over a different route that year. Read the full story.
