Opinion ID: 848649
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: plaintiff's right-of-way may be used as a recreational trail

Text: This Court has held that, where broad language in an easement permits uses not stated, those uses must not impose an additional or increased burden on the servient estate. Crew's Die Casting Corp. v. Davidow, 369 Mich. 541, 546, 120 N.W.2d 238 (1963), quoting Delaney v. Pond, 350 Mich. 685, 687, 86 N.W.2d 816 (1957). Use for recreational travel may include foot travel, bicycles, horses, and recreational vehicles. All have been adjudged to be within the scope of a right-of-way. See WWP, supra. Uses of a right-of-way interfere with the enjoyment of servient estates to varying degrees. With respect to recreational uses, hikers, equestrians, and bicyclists pose little interference. Snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles are more intrusive. But the most intrusive of recreational vehicles is less intrusive than trains. Trains may travel all hours of the day or night. Defendant's argument that the easement is more heavily used as a recreational trail than it was as a railroad misunderstands the scope of the easement. Defendant assumes that trains may run intermittently merely because that had been the custom. However, the easement here put no restrictions on the scheduling of Mineral Range's trains. They could have run incessantly and still been within the scope of the easement. Trains are loud and cause damaging vibration. Snowmobiles and recreational vehicles are less noisy and cause less vibration. Also, they are used on a seasonal basis. Other remedies are available to address problems associated with excessive speed or traffic volume on a recreational trail, such as speed limits and permit requirements. Trains have at least as great a capacity as have recreational vehicles to serve as a means of transportation for lawbreakers. Trains can be boarded or departed from at locations where they must pass slowly. This case involves such a location, in a town near a bridge. A public recreational trail represents no greater safety hazard to adjacent landowners than trains that vagrants ride. Trains do not impose a substantially different burden on adjacent landowners than highways or harbors. Hence, recreational use of the right-of-way here does not substantially increase the burden on plaintiff's estate over its use by a railroad.