I have only read of this trail here on this forum, honestly I cannot even tell you which state it is in, or where geographically it is in the U.S, not from disinterest, more from it being "far away" and not likely a place I would go to simply because of the distances involved.
that said, this discussion made me think of the rail trail that I have ridden on a few times near Montreal, called Le Petit Train du Nord. A train line that went north from Montreal up into the hilly area called The Laurentians, after the Laurentian mountains. Was a rail line that was used up until the 70s, maybe 80 ish, was abandoned due to the new large highway going up to the north, with cottage country and ski hills.
Was made into a trail in the early 90s and I recall cross country skiing on it a few times, but hadnt biked on it until a few years ago. Much more interesting to bike on than ski.
Last fall I decided to finally ride the whole thing, use the shuttle bus service to get me and my bike up to the top (town of Mount Laurier) and bike about 200km 125mi back to where I had left my car just north of Montreal where the shuttle starts from.
*Ok, now to the subject at hand! Apparently at some point they had tried doing a day fee to use the trail, but stopped doing this a number of years ago, probably due to the concerns brought up here--logistics of collecting a fee, reduced usage etc.
My take on it, especially when I biked on it a few septembers ago for some day rides (my first time on it) is that especially closer to Montreal, day use can be rather good (as it was the days I did day rides) and its completely logical that users will be like myself, wife and friend in that we bought a coffee and a muffin at trail side coffee shops set up in the old train stations.
When I did the whole thing as many tourists do, going up by shuttle, there will always be less volume compared to day rides, but then most people will use B+Bs along the way back towards Montreal, and there is a good info system of what services are available, list of B+Bs, hotels etc. My take on it is that dropping the day fee came from realizing that it is better for people to come use the thing, and therefore spend money in the various places when they are there.
Interestingly enough, when I got off the shuttle with the other 7 or 8 people (it was a cold and then unfortunately rainy weekend, so probably why not so many) there was an official from one of the towns there saying hello, I understood that he was involved in the rail trail also, and we spoke a bit about the costs involved in maintaining the trail. The upper part of the trail, for about 90-100km, is paved, most of it afterwards is crushed stone, and he told me that many of the municipalities up north that put out the money to pave it still havent gotten their money back--and unfortunately there are many sections that could do with repaving now but they cannot afford to do it.
I can attest that there are many sections that have had tree roots that have raised up hundreds of those frost heave things, but to the credit of the trail organisers, they have put orange spray painted circles around them as well as arrows warning you of upcoming bad sections. This was very much appreciated and I can see how it must be frustrating for them not to be able to afford repaving, and I wonder if it wouild be better to stick to crushed stone to avoid the frost heave issue.
bottom line it must come down to balancing out maintenance fees VS how much you figure people will spend while using the trail in the various municipalities VS promoting a good outdoor activity VS trying to promote tourism in general in smaller communities that dont get the skiers or whatever.
In my case of doing the whole trail in two days, I spend $70 on the shuttle, bought a coffee or two before I started, at the end of the day I bought groceries for supper and breakfast (I camped out on the trail, no one was around as it was cold) and the second day I stopped for hot drinks or whatever a few times, so probably spent $25 tops. I drove my car about an hour each way to get to where the shuttle leaves from, so spent gas on that, so all told, I put maybe $120 into the economy that weekend.
The $70 to the shuttle service is to a family run operation, they are hand in hand with B+Bs and hotels to attract people from out of province to do usually 3 or 4 day "vacations", they can organize your accomodations, carry your bags from B+B to B+B. They tend to promote about 50km per day and so make it attractive to folks who are not hard core bikers, but more to come and see the beauty of the area, especially in the fall with the leaves. It's great that there has been a good set of accommodations available to people, so you know where they are, where and what services are available in the small towns along the way, so you can plan out however you want to do this rail trail trip.
I am not privy to exactly how much money is brought into this region, and or how separate regions do compared to others (like I said, I am fairly confident that the places within "day ride" areas do a lot better with people driving their car to a parking lot,riding for a few hours or more, then driving back home), but it does seem to me that NOT having a day fee is the way to go, simply from encouraging people to come ride, and hopefully come back.
well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.