This is not the trail you advocated for.

The Northern Virginia Daily reported yesterday that the folks proposing a rail-with-trail project released their own assessment.

And as we expected, they're not building the Shenandoah Rail Trail that we've advocated for to local and state lawmakers and that the General Assembly set aside funding to make happen. According to the rail-with-trail report, the shared-use, continuous, almost 50-mile trail that we've envisioned does NOT fit in the existing right-of-way alongside an active rail-line.

Regardless, we're going to spend the next few days reviewing the report with community leaders and experts so we can be prepared to respond to any questions.

And, VDOT is currently doing its own side-by-side impartial assessment of both projects that we expect to be far more informative than this report released today. So stay tuned, and keep helping us build a broad base of support for the Shenandoah Rail Trail. We've seen the signups roll in, so it's working!

And keep in mind:

All nine towns and three counties united years ago to work towards a Shenandoah Rail Trail after decades of failed attempts to bring back rail. They did this because the Shenandoah Rail Trail is our best bet of ensuring this shuttered resource can once again serve our communities. It cannot be discounted that twelve localities agree rail isn’t coming back and that they WANT a trail.