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A right of way (also right-of-way) is an easement of way, granted, purchased, or reserved over land for transportation purposes, such as footpaths, highways, railways, canals, as well as for infrastructure equipment such electrical transmission, oil, and gas pipe lines, to enable access to another property or properties. [1] In the case of an easement, it may revert to its original owners if the facility is abandoned. A right of way for access may be restricted to a single grantee.
The term "right of way" is also used to denote the land itself, such as the strips of land along a railroad track on which railroad companies own a right of way easement, or a trail or path.
An easement is a nonpossessory right to use and/or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B". [2] An easement is a property right and type of incorporeal property in itself at common law in most jurisdictions.
Wayleave is the right to access or cross land of another, especially for railways, pipelines, power lines or telecommunications.
Easements are frequently given to permit the laying of communication cables (such as optical fiber) or natural gas pipelines, or to run electric power transmission lines overhead. Communications easement are used for wireless communications towers, cable lines, and other communications services. This is a private easement and the rights granted by the property owner are for the specific use of communications. Such utility easement also includes: storm drain, and sanitary sewer easement.
Easements in English law are certain rights in English land law that a person has over another's land. Rights recognised as easements range from very widespread forms of rights of way, most rights to use service conduits such as telecommunications cables, power supply lines, supply pipes and drains, rights to use communal gardens and rights of light.
This does not generally include highways, which are legally defined in English common law, as "a way over which all members of the public have the right to pass and repass without hindrance", [3] usually accompanied by "at all times"; ownership of the ground is for most purposes irrelevant. Thus a highway encompasses all such ways from the widest trunk roads in public ownership to the narrowest footpath providing unlimited pedestrian access over private land.[ citation needed]
In the United States, railroad rights of way (ROW or R/O/W) are generally considered private property by the respective railroad owners and by applicable state laws. Most U.S. railroads employ their own police forces, who can arrest and prosecute trespassers found on their rights-of-way. Some railroad rights-of-way include recreational rail trails.
In Canada railroad rights of way are regulated by federal law. In October 1880 the building of Canada's first transcontinental rail line, the Canadian Pacific Railway, started. It was built by a consortium contracted by the government, and financed by C$25 million in credit and 25 million acres (100,000 km2) of land. In addition, the government defrayed surveying costs and exempted the railway from property taxes for 20 years. [4]
In the United Kingdom, railway companies received the right to resume land for a right of way by private Acts of Parliament. Resumption means compulsory acquisition of land. [5]
The various designations of railroad right of way are as follows:
Construction of houses/buildings beside railway right-of-way presents a significant safety risk. For example, the Hanoi Department of Tourism in Vietnam ordered the permanent closure of cafes and shops along Hanoi Train Street for safety reasons despite its being a popular destination for foreign tourists in the city. [6]
Eminent domain is the term used in the United States, the Philippines, Liberia — for the power to take private property for the building of canals, railways, pipes lines, etc. [7] This is called "land acquisition" (India, Malaysia, [8] [9] Singapore), "compulsory purchase" (the United Kingdom), "resumption" (Hong Kong and Uganda), "resumption/compulsory acquisition" (Australia, Barbados, New Zealand, Ireland) or "expropriation" (Canada and South Africa). [10] [11]
The most common uses of property taken by eminent domain have been for roads, government buildings and public utilities. Several railroads were given the right of eminent domain to obtain land or easements in order to build rail networks.