Reported by Brad Penner, STATEWIDE Correspondent

[Jana McGuire, Statewide Host] As summer turns to fall, a lot of us like to get out to enjoy the changing colors and the cool, crisp autumn days. One way to do that is to walk, or jog, or bike on one of Nebraska's trails. Trails are becoming more common in towns across the state, and they're quickly spreading into rural areas as well but not everyone is happy about it. Brad Penner looked into the controversy over trails. Brad?

[Brad Penner, Statewide Correspondent] Jana, Nebraska is moving towards a time when the state may be connected by a network of trails. It's happened slowly, but it's a movement that's picking up speed. The Federal Rails to Trails Act helped get it started. The act encourages the conversion of abandoned rail lines to recreational trails. But in nearly every case, local landowners have fought new trails. They haven't won many battles, but they haven't given up. A trail planned for southeast Nebraska is being challenged in court right now. We found out why some see trails as an opportunity, and others consider them an intrusion.

On a summer day in the city, trails are a blur of exercisers in action.

[Glenn Johnson, Lower Platte South NRD] You see a lot of joggers, walkers, bicyclists and of every age, family groups. It's a real mixture of folks.

On rural trails, the pace slows down.

[Rick Kaan, Trail Supporter] We're out here in the middle of the prairies. The only thing you hear is an occasional bird chirp, maybe a slight breeze and maybe a cow calling for his calf.

When Nebraska was young, trails were the interstate highways of America. Then the railroad came. Now some of the rails are turning back into trails.

[David Burwell, Rails to Trails Conservancy] It's exploded here in Nebraska. 12 years ago there were no Rails to Trails projects. There are now nine open trails in Nebraska with 19 additional projects underway, so there's about 60 miles of open trail and about 500 miles of additional projects underway.

The biggest project is the 320-mile Cowboy Trail. When it's finished, it will be the longest continuous trail in the country stretching through the scenic cattle country of northern Nebraska.

[John Hitt, State Trails Coordinator] What you're talking about here is a trail that's going to extend from Norfolk to Merriman. It's going to go through various communities along the way. It will give those communities an opportunity to be a part of that trail. They can connect dirt trails to this particular trail. They can utilize existing park resources to provide support for the trail.

The Cowboy Trail began like most Rail to Trail projects. The Chicago and Northwestern Rail line between Norfolk and Chadron became unprofitable. The railroad wanted to abandon the tracks. In December of 1993 the Rails to Trails Conservancy stepped in to buy the railroad corridor and eventually donated it to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Most of the money for developing the trail will come from federal grants. It's a process that's taking place all across the state.

[Hitt] Trail development is a wonderful opportunity for non-profits and public agencies to come together to develop trails. The non-profits can provide funding as well as volunteer labor and equipment to help with the trail and so there's -- they develop a sense of ownership when they do that.

Over the summer work began on the Oak Creek Trail between Valparaiso and Brainard, northwest of Lincoln. Graders leveled a path where a railroad once traveled.

[Andy Bailey, Lower South Platte NRD] The overall cost for this project, which again is roughly 12 miles, is right at $275,000. Now that includes not only the surfacing of the trail but also decking and railing for six bridges that are in locations along the trail.

Limestone shavings were hauled in to build a smooth surface for hikers and bikers. Smoothing over the hard feelings of local landowners might not be as easy.

You don't see this as the best use of this land?

[Bill Schneider, Trail Opponent] The trail? No. Definitely not. Probably the worst.

For some, the Oak Creek Trail is stolen property. Bill Schneider's story is typical of many who have owned land along abandoned rail lines. They claim that the railroad land should belong to them because of a contract made when the railroads were built.

[Schneider] And under the terms of their agreement with the landowners, if the railroad were not built or ever abandoned, it would revert back to the current landowner. However, the Federal Rails to Trails Law changed that.

[Bailey] So what this rail banking law does, it allows the railroad when they want to abandon the line to go ahead and abandon it and sell that property off but still maintain the rights to it. The main purpose for that is the government is afraid to lose some of these natural corridors that have been here for many years for the railroad. To go out and try to find a new railroad corridor now would be astronomical as far as cost goes.

Schneider and other landowners fought the trail in court on several issues, but ultimately they lost, and now he faces a trail running through his property.

[Schneider] 200 yards to the garage. About 300 to the house probably.

You can barely see Schneider's home from the trail. He moved to this acreage seven years ago. He wanted privacy, and he's afraid the trail will change that.

[Schneider] It gives people access to your property that nobody else -- nobody has control over it. There's no sheriff patrol cars going up and down here. Once they get in here, they can do anything they want.

Schneider believes his home is now an inviting target for vandalism and other crime.

Do you know for sure that the people who were messing with your tractor came in from this way?

[Schneider] We know who -- have a pretty good idea who it was, and they've come in that way again when we were home.

David Potter knows all about the controversy surrounding the Oak Creek Trail.

[David Potter, Lower South Platte NRD] In through this it diagonally crosses our property here. And east of this particular spot is an area that we could have opened up the right of way and farmed it connecting both sides.

Potter's family opposed the trail. He spent the summer working for the Lower Platte South NRD, the organization that's developing the trail.

[Potter] Well, I felt like from the very beginning I was caught right in the middle. Here I've been going to school to learn all the benefits of this, but yet I can see some of the problems from adjacent landowners and from my family in particular. And so if I can help mend fences and create a natural -- you know, a smooth line or a smooth trail then that's what I want to do.

Potter surveyed local landowners to find out their concerns.

[Potter] Well, in the responses that I've received in the adjacent landowner survey, it seems like a majority of the respondents have -- or foresee problems relating to trespassing, harassment of animals, some noise that's caused from trail users.

[Johnson] It's been that way in every other state and on every other trail that's been proposed. It's concerns about what you don't know, what's going to happen, concerns about the future.

Glenn Johnson of the NRD says they'll do what they can to ease the fears of local landowners.

[Johnson] Obviously there's a concern about people coming off the trail, off the corridor and trespassing. Fences, signage all are a big thing that can be done. Fences make really good neighbors.

[Kaan] There's always a potential for trespassing, but it's not the case. The statistics show that trail users use the trail. You're more likely to have vandalism in somebody driving a car on a county road than a bicyclist traveling through. My experience is people who use trails actually would be more likely to pick up a piece of trash than to leave some.

Rick Kaan is an enthusiastic supporter of trails. He organized the Friends of the White River Trail. They bought an abandoned rail line in the northwest corner of Nebraska. They hope that someday it will become the White River Trail running from Harrison to Crawford, maybe even connecting with the Cowboy Trail at Chadron. The trail would be another attraction for the area. That's important to Kaan because he believes tourism must grow for the area to thrive.

[Kaan] We're doing that out here. This is an unspoiled area. The vistas are large and clean. We have -- with the fossil beds and the Prehistoric Prairies Visitor Center here, we have a tremendous potential for quality vacations of nature and education.

Kaan sees trails as a way to give urban visitors access to rural Nebraska, to unspoiled scenery, and undisturbed history.

[Kaan] This is the ghost town of Andrews, and it's on the list of ghost towns in America. When the railroad first came through here, this was the hub of the community and probably the region. They loaded a lot of livestock in this area. The corrals were sitting right down below us here, and the cattle were loaded here.

This trail connects us with the past, but it leads to the future. For now, Kaan hopes that future includes more visitors spending money in the area, but eventually the future might mean giving the trail back to the rails.

[Kaan] We know that probably in the future some day we'll have alternative forms of mass transportation, and this allows these corridors to be preserved for generations, maybe 75 or 150 years from now to be able to have access to a pre-scribed corridor to the west.

Trails are viewed as alternative transportation by the federal government. Money for trail development comes from what is known as the ISTEA Fund. ISTEA stands for Intermodal Surface Transportation Enhancement Act. 10% of the federal gas tax goes into the fund. A portion of that money is used for trails. That's another thing that bothers trail opponents like Bill Schneider.

[Schneider] You know, after they were able to acquire the land, these trails people, then they said my God, how are we going to be able to afford to build a trail? So then they got a federal law through that says you cannot use 10% of the federal gas tax to build highways. You have to use it for off the highway things like this on the idea that it will divert some commuters and things like that off the highways, and they feel it's a good use of tax dollars.

Trail supporters argue that Nebraska ought to get its share of those federal tax dollars.

[Johnson] It's challenging sometimes juggling all of the paperwork and the grants and meeting all the requirements to qualify for those funds, but it's certainly funds that are available, and if they aren't used for this particular project, they'll go to another project.

Trails are places to exercise and explore. Trails give animals the cover they need to survive, and trails lead to new business in small towns. For some, they're a treasured resource to be enjoyed and expanded. For others, trails are a government land grab, something that at best, can only be tolerated.

[Potter] There's a lot of people, it was very easy to get on the band wagon to be against it. And I'm not saying that really around here the opinion has changed drastically, but I think people are more to the sense well, you can't beat it, join it.

Do you think you'll use the trail personally?

[Schneider] Oh, I guess as long as it's costing me money, I think we probably would.

But you just don't like it being right here?

[Schneider] Well, that's right, not in my backyard (laughing).

Reporting for Statewide, I'm Brad Penner.