SARANAC LAKE – At a public meeting village Trustee Rich Shapiro hosted last week, several members of the public raised concerns about snowmobile use on a proposed rail trail.

The multi-use trail would replace 34 miles of railroad tracks between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, according to a plan being implemented by the state, which owns the corridor.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has put together a stakeholder group to discuss the design of the trail, but those meetings have been closed to both the press and the public. In what was the public’s first opportunity to have some say on the plan for the rail trail, some of the questions Shapiro fielded were about enforcement of snowmobile laws, including speeding, drunken riding and riding on village streets.

DEC officers patrol snowmobile trails to uphold the laws. Saranac Lake police Chief Charles Potthast Jr. was not at the meeting, but he said his officers could also conduct law enforcement for snowmobilers on the 2.3 miles of corridor that lie in the village.

“We can participate in enforcement as long as it’s within the village limits,” Potthast said. He added that if there’s a collision involving a snowmobile and a car at an intersection, the responsibility lies with the snowmobile driver.

“The onus would be on the person on the snowmobile safely crossing the road,” he said. “(It) would be on the operator of the snowmobile to stop, make sure traffic was clear and then to cross.”

Potthast said he isn’t sure if the state could impose speed limits on the corridor, but he added that snowmobile use on village streets has not been a serious issue in the past.

He noted that according to state law, roadways that are properly signed are open to snowmobile use.

“Every now and again we’ll get somebody who might go off the beaten path, but it’s really not a big issue,” he said. “(It’s) very minimal.”

One person at the meeting wanted to know if the state Department of Transportation would conduct studies to evaluate the impact increased trail usage would have on vehicular traffic in the village, but Shapiro did not have an answer.

DEC spokesman David Winchell said in an email that “snowmobiles have used the corridor for decades and will continue to use the recreational trail in the future. Enforcement and other issues regarding snowmobiles will be the same as it is now. The stakeholder group has not yet discussed enforcement, emergency response, crossings and other issues but plans to do so. When the draft conceptual plan is released for public review it will include answers to these and many other questions.”

So far, Shapiro has said, the Union Depot train station would be snowmobilers’ access point to the corridor in Saranac Lake, since it has parking for vehicles with trailers.