Massachusetts Division of the Federal Highway Administration makes it easier to build rail trails in the Bay State Click on the image to read the document After several years of fits and starts the Massachusetts Division of the Federal Highway Administration has recognized that using the Federal Enhancements funding process to build a rail trail on corridors that were Federally railbanked  is an allowable use of Federal monies Also, if the state or municipalities wish to use eminent domain to create a usable corridor for a trail or to clean out or 'quiet title' where cloudy title or unknown ownership exists, well they've given their blessing to that too. To see how other states' policies are in this regard, go to this website. Since virtually all other Federal Highway offices that oversee these matters allowed for these things, one would wonder why it took so long for the local FHWA office to fall into line here. And you were wondering why it takes soooo long to build rail trails in the Bay State. Here's one less paper barrier to developing rail trails.