Trails are essential to our enjoyment and appreciation of the outdoors. Maine Audubon offers dozens of miles of trails across our eight centers and sanctuaries, allowing visitors to access diverse habitats while diverting traffic from sensitive areas.
But trails take a lot of work. Many people think that the more primitive a trail is, the better, but that’s not always true. Those trails work fine with low use, but with moderate and high levels of use, well-built and maintained trails reduce erosion, permit accessibility, and actually reduce the overall impact on the environment. However, designing appropriate trail networks and making sure they’re built to last takes resources.
To help, Maine Audubon supports “Question 4,” the Maine Trails Bond question, which is on ballots this November. If passed, the bond would inject $30 million toward the design, development, and maintenance of non-motorized, motorized, and multi-use trails statewide.
This bond would be a huge boost for Maine’s trail system. Trails across Maine are experiencing record use, at Maine Audubon properties and everywhere else, and we need funding to help us improve and maintain our trails into the future. With such a demand for trails it’s no surprise that this bond is very popular. At least 520 towns, businesses, and clubs signed a statement of support for the Trails Bond, which was supported in the legislature by both Democrats and Republicans.
Here’s how it would work. If passed, the state’s Bureau of Parks and Lands would administer $30 million over four years in competitive grant funding to towns, organizations, and clubs to support the design, maintenance, or construction of trails. A quarter of the funds would be earmarked for non-motorized trails, a quarter for motorized trails, and the remaining half for multi-use trails, with a particular focus on meeting accessibility and sustainable design standards. The funding could be used to leverage other sources of public or private funding, meaning that even more benefits could follow.
A pulse of funding will really help improve trails, because we’ve learned a lot about what makes a good—and a bad—trail. Many trails in Maine were first made many decades ago, often with little consideration for long-term impacts, minimizing environmental harms, or ensuring access for a broad group of travelers. For example, keeping water off a trail is crucial for reducing erosion and ensuring walkability. Poorly-designed trails don’t shed water appropriately, meaning visitors often walk or ride around puddles, forming new trails and widening the environmental impact. With funding, trails at Gilsland Farm, for example, may be outfitted with new boardwalks that elevate visitors over wet or rocky or root-y areas, or be designed with a slight “crown” so that water sheds appropriately.
New trails can also be designed in ways that limit their impact to wildlife and habitat. Maine Audubon is, of course, sensitive to the fact that any new trail is a trail through wildlife habitat, and we take seriously our responsibility to limit our impacts. We’re aware that impacts are not isolated to the trail you walk or ride on. Research has shown that wildlife impacts should be assessed within 400 ft. buffers (called the “corridor of influence”) on both sides of a trail. Frogs are impacted at 60 feet, birds at 150, bears at 400, for example.
We follow other principles for siting trails as well. Trails should be routed along the edge between different habitat types, rather than through the middle; should be at least 75’ away from streams, ponds, and wetlands; and should avoid rare habitats. Where possible, limit trail density and create some areas without trails for the benefit of wildlife. Trails may be open or closed during specific times to protect wildlife—closed during grassland bird nesting season, for example. Pets, even on leash, are not permitted at Maine Audubon trails in order to reduce disturbance and stress on native wildlife.
Some have questions about the portion of this bond that benefits motorized trails. While motor vehicles are not permitted on Maine Audubon trails, we recognize that motorized trails facilitate outdoor recreation for thousands of Mainers and visitors. We believe that the funding distribution in the Trails Bond—25% for non-motorized trails, 25% for motorized trails, and 50% for multi-use trails—will benefit people with different interests and at the same time reduce impacts to both wildlife and habitat.
We thank all those who have visited Maine Audubon’s trail network and hope that we can make our trails a better place to be—for wildlife and human communities—once the Trails Bond is passed this November.
