The Auburn City Council voted Monday night to join an effort to create a recreational trail between Lewiston-Auburn and Portland to be built partially along an inactive rail corridor between Auburn and Portland.

The Casco Bay Trail is a proposed 72-mile off-road trail loop connecting Portland, Lewiston, Auburn, Brunswick and Freeport. It would include a section of the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad known as the Berlin subdivision that runs between Danville Junction in Auburn and The Roux Institute in Portland.

Membership on the Casco Bay Trail Board of Supervisors allows the city to have “meaningful input” in the design, construction and maintenance of the trail, Mayor Jeff Harmon said.

The tracks along the Berlin subdivision are still in place and there is no schedule to remove them, Harmon said in an email Tuesday. The tracks will be removed as the trail is developed.

The trail, as planned, will be used for biking and walking, connecting to multiple bus routes and other public transportation, according to the Casco Bay Trail Alliance behind the effort. It is for people who do not or cannot drive, or those who want to drive less.

The Auburn council previously supported a legislative bill to designate the Berlin subdivision as an interim trail.

Opponents of the proposed trail argued that removing the tracks would mean it is unlikely the corridor would ever be used again as a railway. They pushed for a trail to be created alongside the tracks, but that was rejected as too expensive.

Forming a board of supervisors allows the trail group to receive state and federal funding to manage the trail. The agreement was drafted by officials of Auburn, New Gloucester, Pownal, North Yarmouth, Yarmouth, Cumberland, Falmouth and Portland, Harmon said.

Other towns along the proposed loop have not yet joined the board.

The agreement does not commit Auburn to help fund the trail, he said. Should there be a funding request to the city, councilors will have to authorize it.