It looks like the path you have been using is on private property.

It's a very established foot path (I walk or run through there regularly) but yes it's on private property. The railroad has been getting pretty territorial lately.

RFS 18295 assigned. If received outside of normal business hours, we will investigate this issue on the next business day.

This is private property and it appears that they want to stop people from walking through their active business area. Probably because of the traffic loading and unloading and concerns for safety.

I'm loathe to disagree with our verified official, but the Vermont Agency of Transportation (that's we the people) own the right of way--(Vermont Rail System):"the nation’s first privately owned railroad operating on publically-owned right of way" (from their website: http://www.vermontrailway.com/our_story.html).

Also, Vermont statutes say that "...when railroad operations cease on railroad rights-of-way owned by the state or municipality, the title or interest held by the state or municipality in such rights-of-way shall be retained by the state or municipality for future transportation purposes and such other purposes as are not inconsistent with future transportation purposes; except that such rights-of-way shall not be used by members of the general public without permission of the state or municipality.... (from http://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/05/060/03431).

That this is blocked off shows that "railroad operations" have ceased (and in fact have not had rail traffic for over a decade) and the state or municipality could grant use by members of the general public. I vote to have our verified official please toss this up to our Director of the Department of Public Works for a policy review. This is a heavily-used route from the Pine St. pedestrian catchment area to and from the waterfront area and surrounding businesses.

Issue acknowledged

This is NOT railroad property. If you look at the picture you can see that this is the back side of Curtis Lumber. Therefore it IS private property.

Thanks for weighing in everyone. I called Curtis Lumber who said ghr property belongs to the city. On the south entrance they put up two yellow fences as a way to encourage people to go slow through an active work zone and look both ways. The stone barriers in my picture they said they had nothing to do with. (In fact they guy sounded like he had no idea what I was talking about.) The guy said Curtis Lumber has no problem with people walking on the old tracks as long as they are careful. They did recently have a situation where someone was almost injured because they weren't paying attention when coming through on bike.

Since I took the photo this morning, the barricade has increased in size. I will call Vermont rail systems tomorrow and ask them about it if I don't hear back from the city. Will keep you all updated.

What's the update Russ?

I talked to David who is the Burlington agent responsible for cars and Logistics and such it sounded like. He had no clue that the path have been blocked off, nor did he know if it was Vermont rail that did it, and he does not know if it can be opened back up if they were in fact responsible for the blockage. "These are all good questions i cant answer." He said he was going to talk to someone in operations and have them give me a call.

This is a pretty well established route for people trying to avoid the Maple/Pine intersection. Would be a bummer if it was permanently closed.

Sort of hard to tell from the photo where exactly that blockade is on the tax parcel map. Also interesting to note that there is no actual ROW for the old rail line.

I just spoke with Brian at Vermont Rail Systems. He said that Vermont Rail did indeed erect the Jersey barriers and they have no plans of taking them down anytime soon. He said that it is their property and they do not want to have the liability of people getting hurt. I asked if that had been an issue and he said "not anymore." I pushed and said "then it had been an issue in the past?" and he would not answer, he said he would not comment on that. He said that he was surprised that Curtis Lumber was supportive of people walking there and that he thought they would want to protect their property. He said there was nothing that I could say or no one that I could talk to to help them to change their mind. I expressed my dissapointment bitbhe really didnt seem to care. Perhaps if others call him and ask him to reopen it???

With the Farmer's Market moving to Pine St this summer, it would be so awesome to get this opened back up so people could safely get from the Waterfront Bike Path to Pine St without having to navigate a bunch of sketchy 4 way stops.

Given the history of this particular complaint and the fact that the CIty has no jurisdiction over the railway, this issue is closed