The questions always asked?
What is the current status of the Yamhelas Westsider Trail (YWT)? and Is it defunct?
To get to the answers requires looking back a few years and a story.
Yamhill County, following a 1971 State Transportation Plan that included a Bikeway Transportation Plan, adopted a Comprehensive Transportation Plan in 1974 following a major planning effort to chart the future for the community and follow through with a strong commitment to implementation. It is important to consider the forethought our county officials and county citizens gave to addressing the changes beginning to take place in the county and the visionary decisions and planning shown by county officials when they were considering the future of transportation in Yamhill County. They saw it important to project their thinking out 20 to 50 years to what would be best for not just transportation but for the livability of its residents.
The county and the country were experiencing dramatic economic and social changes. They were in a world recession, interest rates were high, house construction deeply impacted and high unemployment with lumber mills facing layoffs and closures. Trucks were taking over freight needs, planes and cars were replacing people’s travel needs. Trucks were now becoming an important means of getting grain and lumber to port in Portland. Small towns were being isolated not only by highways bypassing them, but railroads giving up the spur lines that had been part of their economic lifeline.
In 1984 Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) abandoned their line north from Carlton to Scoggins Creek north of Gaston. It was at this time that the county considered acquiring and converting the line between Carlton and Yamhill to trail, the same section selected for the first phase of the YWT. In 1991 SP abandoned close to 3 miles of rail line south toward McMinnville. It was this year that the Intermodal Surface Compliance Transportation Efficiency Act (ISCTEA) gave funding and support to what had become known as Rails to Trails, a 1960’s movement to prevent the permanent loss of thousands of miles of rail corridor. It was at this point the first of what would become the early inclusion of support and planning for what would become the YWT project.
In 1991 the County formed the Yamhill County Bikeway Task Force to develop County Bikeway Master Plan, which was to be a section of the Transportation Systems Plan (TSP) of 1996, they looked back to the1974 Plan viewing it as visionary, anticipating the linkage of transportation and land use. They recognized that included in the Plan was a thoughtful discussion of issues which are as meaningful and relevant then as they would be in 1996. The 1974 Plan had encouraged creating a Bikeway Pedestrian Plan that recognized that bicycle and pedestrian ways as an element of the transportation systems are most probably found in urban areas or between closely situated urban areas such as Sheridan and Willamina.
While considerable public interest was being expressed in increasing bicycle use it did not appear then that bicycle or pedestrian traffic was heavy. However, the lack of safe and convenient facilities was a likely deterrent to such traffic in the county and that the county must look ahead to the increasing demand for alternative modes of transportation to the automobile.” The advisory group charged with the task was laying the groundwork for what was to become the YWT.
Between the time of the previous 1974 Plan and the 1996 Plan the SP south of Carlton to north of Gaston had been abandoned with track and bridges taken out. The County adopted in the 1996 County TSP policy objective of pursuing the conversion of abandoned rail lines to trails that connect with the County’s trail/bikeway system. Then in 2012 the County updated its TSP to specifically include the YWT. It was a project consistent with the policy objectives provided in the 2003 Yamhill County Parks and Open space Master Plan, as well as the 2009 Yamhill County Agri- Business Economic and Community Development Plan, which indicated the need for transportation infrastructure and amenities, such as trails, to further support agri-tourism economic development efforts. The project is also identified in the 2009 Carlton TSP as a priority pedestrian and bicycle improvement project.
It is after the purchase of the 12.48-mile section from 3 miles south of Carlton to South of Gaston in November 2017 that the Story takes a sharp turn. On May 18,2018 the County amended the TSP to acknowledge the purchase and to implement plans to develop the Carlton to Yamhill section of that purchase. December 20,2018 opponents of the trail petitioned the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) for judicial review of that amendment decision citing 5 issues, each to be decided independently to make the appeal complete. Each decision allows for a response from both the parties, the County and the opponents. The last decision was sent to the County on December 30, 2020. That decision LUBA stated: “We are not convinced that the Trail is prohibited by farm impact standards as a matter of law.” LUBA sent the appeal back to the county for response to a fix to the remaining issues around appropriate buffer for spraying chemicals and they noted specifically that the County could gain LUBA approval if they addressed these remaining issues. The Master Plan was to be the primary avenue to that end. In that same month the first phase of the 3 phase Master Plan was presented to the County for Commissioner approval.
The 2020 elections had replaced an incumbent board member who had been supportive of the Trail. When this newly composed board met in January 2021, they voted 2 to 1 not to approve continuing with the Master Plan process or to respond to the LUBA issues. This essentially halted the appeal process, halted the efforts and progress made over the decades and halted actual trail development.
This leaves us to the question at this letter’s beginning and the answer. Rather than characterize the Trail as “defunct’ as is often done, a “hiatus” may be the preferred word. The actions of the current board do not, however, halt the efforts to continue promotion of a trail or trails in Yamhill County. Remember the 1974 Trail Task Force first envisioned a trail between Sheridan and Willamina, the idea of a YWT wasn’t considered until much later when the railroad was abandoned.
The Trail has become a highly politicized issue, one that can be addressed with advocacy and action. The YWT could return with a future Board of Commissioners simply requesting that the land use permit be considered again and take the whole record into account when looking at the conditions of approval. To get to that position will be up to the voters of Yamhill County and how important they view the value that a recreational trail system could bring to their community and that of greater Yamhill County.
Written by Wayne Wiebke
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