We recently joined friends in exploring unused railroad lines in northern Idaho. This is part of my new research project on the economic and cultural history of a changing West. The “rails to trails” concept has the potential to counter fiscal constraints. The conversion of railroad rights of way to bike trails illustrates creative and helpful political entrepreneurship.

Our experience also prompted new thoughts on constructive politics, a welcome change from the sorry politics of redistribution that has become the norm. As a result, public support for Congress is at a new low; some surveys show a 10 percent approval rating.

The cause for growing dissatisfaction is no mystery; Congress is accurately viewed as an engine of legalized plunder, not an institution improving wellbeing, security, and civic virtue. Government is seen as a vehicle for directing wealth and preferential opportunities. The benefits normally go to two dissimilar groups, the wealthy and people dependent on government transfers for maintaining sustenance and alas, indolence.

These transfers imply commitments imposing liabilities on unborn grandchildren, they’re Ponzi schemes writ large. Such programs ultimately will hit financial reality checks and constrain worthwhile government projects. On our trip we experienced a constructive, low cost alternative to expensive efforts, one with substantial environmental and economic benefits.

This is important for a simple reason; when future tax revenues are consumed by past promises, fewer new opportunities exist. This opens a niche for political entrepreneurs, individuals who conceive of and facilitate value creating rather than tax consuming institutions and arrangements.

We observed an example on the railroad bike trails around Coeur d’Alene. Our base was Harrison, ID, a town that peaked in 1917 with half a dozen sawmills and a population of 2,000.

In the decades around 1900, the region’s economy was based on mining and logging, a legacy with a mixed blessing. Six railroads served Harrison, feeding traffic to the Union Pacific. The prime timber was white pine and mining was primarily for silver.

The railroads moved ore to the smelters and logs to the mills. This required railroad ballast, the bed for railroad tracks. Ballast is usually produced from natural deposits of granite and other rock. Here much came from mine tailings.

Silver mine tailings are made of much nasty stuff, including arsenic and lead, harmful materials, especially to children. The noxious materials of the ballast were augmented by uncovered railcars with ore that naturally released mine dust over many decades.

The spur lines were abandoned as the economy evolved, but their footprints and spillovers remained. These old lines were stranded capital with high environmental costs. What to do?

One possibility would be to dig up and transport the ballast to some repository, perhaps the Butte Pit. This would be exceedingly expensive and dangerous. Political entrepreneurs found a far better alternative. They pulled up the rails and ties, vegetated the slopes, and capped the bed with macadam. These actions contain the toxicity and build great bike trails.

Cyclists now dominate the summer economy of Harrison, much as skiers boost Bozeman’s winter economy. Aside from being perhaps a bit older, the demographics appear similar. The vehicles in the full Lakeview Lodge looked good, some near luxury, all with bikes.

There’s yet another advantage to this creation of political entrepreneurship; it preserves valuable options. Under the “rail banking” provisions in the National Trails System Act of 1983, a line may be conveyed to a local or national trail agency with the right-of-way retained for future railroad use. Hence, if the price of energy rises to the point that rail traffic becomes more attractive, it will be relatively easy to switch back, since the right-of-way remains intact, the ballast in place, and the slopes stable.

The railroad to bike trail conversion is merely one example of political entrepreneurship. As the political process becomes ever more constrained by diminished finances, such activities will be more important—and perhaps Congress will become more entrepreneurial and more respected.