By Scott Unger • Of the News-Register • 

Trail decision delayed another week

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Comments

manyhands

watch this video to fall in love with rail-trail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKActHPa-I

As of 2025-2026, there are over 2,400 completed rail-trails in the United States, covering more than 25,000 miles, with at least one in every state.

Empirical studies show that crime rates on these trails are very low.

There are many workarounds for farmers.

Shout out to Gaston farmer Steve Wick in this article who presented an opposing position, saying impacts to farmers could be minimized by shutting down the trail during chemical sprayings.

“I would have no problem farming along the Yamhelas trail right of way,” Wicks said.

manyhands

To watch the video you have to copy and paste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKActHPa-I

into your address bar.

President Musk

My Electric Train on this already existing rail line would benefit more people than the 6-8 bike riders that that have plenty of other places to bike. And keep another down on their luck type crowd from moving in. No need to police it up, the high speed and tax payer funded Electric train would take care of that.

All joking aside, the trail is a neat idea, but it’s another ‘bridge to nowhere’. Who will pay for it versus who will use it? It’s not very utilitarian and has all kinds of unknown costs. Sure the land is already there and paid for, but what about the additional cost associated with it? Such as construction, maintenance, homeless camp abatement, emergency service access and who knows what else. Maybe it would work, Yamhill and Carlton are great little towns worth visiting, but who is going to ride a bicycle from Gaston? Is there a parking lot planned for that at the trail head? It’s the unknown questions such as those as well as the potential impact to independent farmers who boarder the rail line that leads me to think the county isn’t ready to build this trail…at this time anyways. Perhaps in the future it would make more sense. After privately funded impact studies and construction plans are complete. Thanks for reading.

Russ

In case you were wondering what TSP (used in paragraphs four and five) means, it is Transportation System Plan.

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