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RTP Achievement Awards

Award-Winning Trail and Greenway Projects

The Coalition for Recreational Trails selects award winners from projects, programs, and committees nominated by public agencies, trail administrators or other project sponsors. Projects must be completed in order to receive an award. In addition, projects completed before 1998 are ineligible. Project award categories will include:

With regard to the recognition of a state trail program and a trail advisory committee, nominations can be submitted for the program or committee itself, for an individual (for example, the State Trail Administrator or State Recreational Trail Advisory Committee Chair), or for a project (for example, a state trail plan or training program for grant applicants).

The Coalition for Recreational Trails (CRT) each year announces the winners of its "Annual Achievement Awards" in recognition of their outstanding use of Recreational Trails Program (RTP) funds. The award winners are recognized at a special ceremony in Washington, D.C. during the annual celebration for Great Outdoors Week.

The Recreational Trails Program

The Recreational Trails Program (RTP) is an assistance program of the Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). See the RTP website for more information. Federal transportation funds benefit recreation by making funds available to the States to develop and maintain recreational trails and trail-related facilities for both nonmotorized and motorized recreational trail uses. The RTP funds come from the Federal Highway Trust Fund, and represent a portion of the motor fuel excise tax collected from nonhighway recreational fuel use: fuel used for off-highway recreation by snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, off-highway motorcycles, and off-highway light trucks.

The Recreational Trails Program was first created in 1991 as part of the ground-breaking legislation known as ISTEA, and was recently expanded and reauthorized through the 2005 "Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users'' (SAFETEA-LU). The RTP returns a portion of federal gasoline taxes generated by non-highway motorized recreation to the states for trail-related purposes. Under current legislation, the program is scheduled to receive:

To date over 8,000 projects have been funded, creating and enhancing recreational trails for millions of trail enthusiasts across the country. A searchable database of projects funded by the RTP is available online at: www.funoutdoors.info/rtphome.html.

Coalition for Recreational Trails:

The Coalition for Recreational Trails, a national organization representing the nation's major trail interests, has been working since 1992 to build awareness and understanding of the RTP, to support its implementation and to help insure that it receives adequate funding. The awards are part of the Coalition's ongoing effort to promote and celebrate this highly successful program, which has greatly enhanced the quantity and quality of trail experiences available to the public. For more information about CRT and its members, go to: www.funoutdoors.com/coalitions/crt.

Annual achievement awards presented by the Coalition for Recreational Trails:
2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000