NY seems to use old rail lines whenever possible. Sometimes they want the rail trail to go through a village where there is no old rail line. So, they add bike lanes to the local road or (and this is the cheapest) they put the shared road chevrons painted on the road surface (yeah, like auto drivers really will share the road with bikes when they can't even share the road with other cars). In the city of Kingston, NY, they do have an old rail/trolley line that goes right through the city and they are (right now) converting that to part of the rail trail system. The entire system is not perfect but is a really good first step and I am happy to have it. It is much better than it was without the improvements.