Active:
Inflation: 3%
Growth: 3%/yr
Ramp-up: 2 yrs
60% out-of-town
Sales tax: 4.25%
● Modified
Breakeven year
(municipal revenue)
—
10-year return on
construction cost
—
municipal tax revenue
10-year economic
impact
—
local economy (w/ multiplier)
Jobs supported
(mature year)
—
annual FTEs at full capacity
Cumulative investment vs. return — 20-year projection
Year-by-year with ramp-up, visitor growth, and maintenance inflation applied
Property value impact
Calculating…
Annual benefit breakdown
Mature year
Cumulative muni revenue
At milestones vs. municipal cost
Annual visitors
Ramp-up (light) + growth (dark)
Sources: Singletracks.com contractor survey, April 2026 (professional singletrack) · NJDOT TAP 2024 cost guidelines (paved path) · FHWA HERS typical costs per lane mile, 2012 dollars, flat terrain / large urbanized areas, not inflated (roads) · volunteer range is an unverified estimate — see README §10
Year-by-year detail (first 15 years)
= ramp-up phase · ✓ = breakeven year · scroll for more
| Yr | Visitors | Maint. | Cumul. Cost | Cumul. Muni Rev. | Cumul. Econ. Impact | Net (vs. muni cost) |
|---|
Data sources & methodology notes
Full documentation: every input, formula, source and limitation is written up in the README on GitHub. The links below go to the studies and data sets behind the figures.
Visitor spending: TPL/IMBA Economic Benefits of Mountain Biking (2025), 50-study meta-analysis. Conservative $103/trip = Duluth, MN; moderate $175/trip = regional avg; optimistic $416/trip = TPL national avg.
Property value premiums: Crompton & Nicholls (2019); NAR Field Guide (2020; not located online). Typical: 3–5%. Indianapolis Cultural Trail: assessed value of 1,747 parcels within 500 ft rose $1.01B (148%), 2008–2014 (IU Public Policy Institute (2015)). That is a mean of about $580K per parcel, but 25 large commercial properties account for 68% of the rise, so it is not a typical home. The study compared segments only against their surrounding Census tracts (no control group) and notes part of the rise is recovery from the recession, so it is not a pure trail effect.
Trail build & maintenance costs: Singletracks.com contractor survey (Apr 2026): $60K–$80K per mile professionally built. American Trails (quoting a 2007 Milwaukee County trails plan): $1,200–$2,525 per mile per year routine maintenance for paved and mixed-surface trails; the Singletracks survey suggests budgeting 5% of build cost per year for singletrack (about $3,000–$4,000 at $60K–$80K). Other published construction figures run lower: the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors toolkit, "Developing Trail Systems" (pp. 61–68) puts typical natural-surface singletrack at $15,000–$40,000 per mile (construction only), and under $5,000 per mile with copious skilled volunteers. Road and path costs: FHWA Highway Economic Requirements System typical costs per lane mile (2012 dollars, not inflated; new alignment, normal cost, multiplied by lane count; read from the FHWA page and from Carnegie, Rutgers/NJDOT (2019), Tables 15–16) and NJDOT Transportation Alternatives Program 2024 cost guidelines ($150/ft, 10-ft asphalt path). Jobs: annual economic impact ÷ $87,500 per job. The divisor is the median of 20 site-level output-per-job ratios that we computed from the site tables in the TPL/IMBA report (Economic Benefits of Mountain Biking, 2025); the report does not state it. The sites range from $75,000 to $128,000, so the job count is an estimate. Details in the README.
Local vs. out-of-town: Out-of-town visitors bring new money — full multiplier applied. Local visitors recirculate existing spending — multiplier = 1.0. Per Savolt (2017) Duluth study and Buning & Lamont (2021).
Grants: RTP (Recreational Trails Program) up to 80% · RAISE · CMAQ · state programs. Grant % reduces municipal capital contribution for ROI and breakeven calculations.
Units & currency: All research benchmarks are USD/imperial. Metric and foreign-currency displays are conversions for directional reference only. Exchange rates fetched daily from fawazahmed0/currency-api (jsdelivr CDN); fallback rates used if unavailable.
Breakeven: Year when cumulative municipal tax revenue ≥ municipal share of construction cost. Maintenance excluded from breakeven denominator.
This tool is for planning and advocacy. Validate assumptions with local data before formal presentation.
Not linked: the NAR Field Guide could not be located online, so its figure is not independently checked here; the 3–5% range rests on the linked Crompton & Nicholls review. The README lists every source, linked or not.
Visitor spending: TPL/IMBA Economic Benefits of Mountain Biking (2025), 50-study meta-analysis. Conservative $103/trip = Duluth, MN; moderate $175/trip = regional avg; optimistic $416/trip = TPL national avg.
Property value premiums: Crompton & Nicholls (2019); NAR Field Guide (2020; not located online). Typical: 3–5%. Indianapolis Cultural Trail: assessed value of 1,747 parcels within 500 ft rose $1.01B (148%), 2008–2014 (IU Public Policy Institute (2015)). That is a mean of about $580K per parcel, but 25 large commercial properties account for 68% of the rise, so it is not a typical home. The study compared segments only against their surrounding Census tracts (no control group) and notes part of the rise is recovery from the recession, so it is not a pure trail effect.
Trail build & maintenance costs: Singletracks.com contractor survey (Apr 2026): $60K–$80K per mile professionally built. American Trails (quoting a 2007 Milwaukee County trails plan): $1,200–$2,525 per mile per year routine maintenance for paved and mixed-surface trails; the Singletracks survey suggests budgeting 5% of build cost per year for singletrack (about $3,000–$4,000 at $60K–$80K). Other published construction figures run lower: the San Luis Valley Great Outdoors toolkit, "Developing Trail Systems" (pp. 61–68) puts typical natural-surface singletrack at $15,000–$40,000 per mile (construction only), and under $5,000 per mile with copious skilled volunteers. Road and path costs: FHWA Highway Economic Requirements System typical costs per lane mile (2012 dollars, not inflated; new alignment, normal cost, multiplied by lane count; read from the FHWA page and from Carnegie, Rutgers/NJDOT (2019), Tables 15–16) and NJDOT Transportation Alternatives Program 2024 cost guidelines ($150/ft, 10-ft asphalt path). Jobs: annual economic impact ÷ $87,500 per job. The divisor is the median of 20 site-level output-per-job ratios that we computed from the site tables in the TPL/IMBA report (Economic Benefits of Mountain Biking, 2025); the report does not state it. The sites range from $75,000 to $128,000, so the job count is an estimate. Details in the README.
Local vs. out-of-town: Out-of-town visitors bring new money — full multiplier applied. Local visitors recirculate existing spending — multiplier = 1.0. Per Savolt (2017) Duluth study and Buning & Lamont (2021).
Grants: RTP (Recreational Trails Program) up to 80% · RAISE · CMAQ · state programs. Grant % reduces municipal capital contribution for ROI and breakeven calculations.
Units & currency: All research benchmarks are USD/imperial. Metric and foreign-currency displays are conversions for directional reference only. Exchange rates fetched daily from fawazahmed0/currency-api (jsdelivr CDN); fallback rates used if unavailable.
Breakeven: Year when cumulative municipal tax revenue ≥ municipal share of construction cost. Maintenance excluded from breakeven denominator.
This tool is for planning and advocacy. Validate assumptions with local data before formal presentation.
Not linked: the NAR Field Guide could not be located online, so its figure is not independently checked here; the 3–5% range rests on the linked Crompton & Nicholls review. The README lists every source, linked or not.
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