rail trail

The state Attorney General announced Friday that a section of the popular trail in Andover would be open to the public while the legal dispute over a one-mile stretch continues.

A landowner recently placed heavy concrete barriers in the path because he says his ability to use it has been thwarted.

A federal judge ordered the state to follow its original tunnel design last year, after a group of rail trail advocates sued over a proposed redesign they considered unsafe.

The state’s new proposal scraps a planned tunnel under a main highway access road. Cyclists say the design is unsafe and threatens a historic rail corridor.

Railroad proponents are pushing back on a proposal to remove existing train tracks near Laconia to make way for a long-planned rail trail…