New Hampshire Rail Trail User Counting Network
If You Don’t Count, You Don’t Count! Having good data on how many people use New Hampshire’s rail trails is critical to demonstrating their economic value, as well as planning for trail amenities.
Many of our New Hampshire rail trail organizations conduct periodic user counts, either independently or in cooperation with their regional planning commissions; but these counts can be sporadic, and there is currently no good system for centralizing and sharing the data.
To address this data gap, Rockingham Planning Commission worked with Congressman Chris Pappas’ office and partners from the nine regional planning commissions to secure a Congressional Community Project Funding (CPF) appropriation of $250,000 to establish the NH Rail Trail User Counting Network.
The grant will fund an initial network of 67 permanent counting stations on 35 trails around the state, covering all nine planning regions. A long term goal will be to build out this initial network to eventually include counters on all rail trails across the state.
RPC staff are working to get a timeline on which funds will be available, projecting summer 2027 for procuring and installing equipment. Many thanks to Congressman Pappas and his staff for their partnership on this and other rail trail projects around New Hampshire!
For questions contact Scott Bogle at Rockingham Planning Commission at sbogle@therpc.org.