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[Senator Martine Gulick]: Say it say it loud.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: You're you're live. You're back.
[Chair Richard Westman]: So this is Senate Transportation. We are going live again. It is the February 17, and we are here to talk about s two sixty one and one of the sponsors, senator Gulick.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Thank you, chair Westman. The seventeenth was my birthday, so I appreciate you bringing that up. Did she
[Chair Richard Westman]: oh, it was the seventeenth. I'm sorry. We're Friday. We're the twentieth now. I'm just a few days behind, and and happy birthday.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you for having me in chair Westman and committee. This is a bill that I will go over fairly quickly. It came to me from some of my wonderful constituents this summer, and I immediately went to my friend and colleague, senator, Harrison, to talk about what we could do to be helpful. The genesis of this bill
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Give me the number.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Is 26260. 261. 1. Thank you. Yeah. S 261. The this bill is coming from a group of folks who would really like to ultimately create a bike path that would go from the West Bank Of The Connecticut River from the Massachusetts border all the way to Canada. So it would be this incredible bike path that would drop folks in from all over the world to come in and and use and enjoy and see the beautiful scenery in Vermont. The folks who brought this to me worked on a Burlington bike path about fifty five years ago and were obviously very successful with senator Sanders in getting that going. And the bike path, which is a stone's throw from my house, has obviously been a huge success and brings a lot of folks into Chitney County and Grand Isle. And so that this bill, as you can see, it's I hate to use the word simple, but it's fairly simple. It adds a a definition to 12 ESA fifty seven ninety two. It just adds railroad property, railroad rights of way, utility corridors to which public access is permitted. So it's really giving it's taking away some of the liability that railroads would have so that you could build a bike path near a railroad. Massachusetts and Maine both have this. It's called their rails to trails law, and it's been successful, so I wanted to bring it to you all.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: What is this? I don't know. Go ahead. What section is this? Need to ahead. This definition section about what is 5792, I guess. What was getting in the way of doing the right path that this fixes?
[Senator Martine Gulick]: It makes it so the railroads wouldn't be liable if something were to happen on that land.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: So like this land means there's these other things where there's not liability and it's adding up the Right. List
[Senator Martine Gulick]: of
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Yeah.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: And I did bring the Massachusetts. It's just one pay it's a one pager that they that they use. If you wanted to read what they have in writing, it's actually kinda helpful. Gives you a good context of of how it would give how it would help the railroads be able to promote this kind of multimodal transportation.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: It is just live though.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Yeah. Sorry, go ahead Wendy. No, no, just wanted
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: to address that because this language, the way that they drafted it was they added a category to lands that are where people have trails along their property and as long as they don't ask for a fee to go on it then they're exempt from liability. So it's that part of the statute.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Yeah. That's helpful. Thank you. Do
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: they have to do a lease still? Do you know? The railroad? Or With with the whoever does it like that.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: With there's there's a lot more that would need to happen.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First step is just
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: just the first step. Indemnifies.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: The railroad with liability. Right. Yeah. Right. Because because they'll because liability is is a major barrier.
[Chair Richard Westman]: Yeah. Got it.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: So it would be the first in many steps in a long process, but it would help get things started. I this is a little different. I always thought that we should have a rail trail up the interstate.
[Chair Richard Westman]: You go to Colorado and you go through Glenwood Canyon and and going west from Denver, driving through the the trail runs right along the interstate. I always thought that, you know, like in '89 when you're above Royalton, there's nothing prettier and Right. You know, we own all the land.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Right.
[Chair Richard Westman]: So, anyways Yeah.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: We can do that too.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Yeah. That's right. Great. Yeah.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Is this like the one that we've heard about going up along with the New Hampshire border?
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Along the Connecticut River, Massachusetts to Canada.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: We were both interested in doing this and heard from different folks. So, I've heard from people in Massachusetts and there are rail trails. In Northampton, is a rail trail that's by an active rail road. The hard part is when it's an active rail road. Because then there's obviously safety. But this is intended to allow that be one step forward.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: It's easier when you're using a former railroad that's not used anymore. Massachusetts has done a ton of that, but this is for the active, like you said, for the active railroads.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: And then the Loyola Valley Rail Trail.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Mhmm. They get it. We Yeah. Exactly.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Definitely supported.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: Okay. And there's a Windsor Windsor has reached out to you specifically. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Would we have to deal with, utilities at all?
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: Probably. It it it would not be easy, but
[Chair Richard Westman]: it would be worth it. That's what I would say. Okay. Agree. You know, in the course of the course of and we may not with crossover get to this, in the course of our discussions with the rail division, when we come in on the budget, we can bring up the whole issue.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: K? Yeah. And I wonder if it helps with any of the existing rail trail. Yes. We have, like, the Cross Vermont Trail, which people should talk to because they know orientation, and that's what's happening.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: You mean the Swanson to the Saint Jay?
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: No. That's that's the little more. Cross Vermont Trail is a different trail, and sometimes it's just on, like, Route 2. Sometimes it goes on a rail trail, like, by my house, it's on a rail trail.
[Senator Martine Gulick]: Okay.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: But they have you can get from New York to New Hampshire.
[Senator Wendy Harrison]: Cool. And then once you're to New Hampshire, they have pine trails because they got rid of their rails.
[Senator Andrew Perchlik]: Right?
[Chair Richard Westman]: Mhmm. Yeah. Well, we will, when the rail division comes in, we'll highlight that question then.