page_title: Rails with trails
section_title: Safety
hierarchical_section_title: Rails with trails / Safety
caption_attribution_description: English: Original source caption: Riding alongside a freight train on the La Crosse River State Trail, La Crosse, WI.
context_page_description: Rails with trails are a small subset of rail trails in which a railway right-of-way remains in use by trains yet also has a parallel recreational trail. Hundreds of kilometers of RWTs exist in Canada, Europe, the United States, and Western Australia.
context_section_description: A 1997 study of the feasibility of rails with trails identified a need for guidelines concerning RWT crossings, fencing, setbacks, and other items.  These guidelines were developed in the form of Rails-with-Trails: Lessons Learned, which finds that "well-designed RWTs meet the operational needs of railroads, often providing benefits in the form of reduced trespassing and dumping. A poorly designed RWT will compromise safety and function for both trail users and the railroad."
  A 1996 study of safety on rails with trails in the United States evaluated 37 existing RWTs in 16 states and concluded that "active railroad lines can function with an adjacent pedestrian, horse, and bike path without problem" and RWTs are "no more dangerous than rail-trails alone or next to busy streets."
caption: Bicycle and freight train
exif: {}