Topeka ? State officials on Friday announced Kansas will have $2 million for recreational trails.

Earlier this week, trail advocates had criticized the state for opting out of the federal recreational trails program. Only two states, Kansas and Florida, had opted out.

But state officials said they opted out to increase flexibility on how they spent federal transportation dollars under the new transportation bill.

If they hadn’t opted out, the state would have gotten about $1.3 million for trails, state officials said.

On Friday, they said the Kansas Department of Transportation and Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism came up with a way to allocate $2 million.

“This will help move ecotourism forward in Kansas,” KDOT Secretary Mike King said.

“One of our highest priorities is to enhance ecotourism in Kansas, which includes developing a good trail system,” said Robin Jennison, secretary of the Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, which manages the trails program. “This level of funding will allow us to make great strides in the number and quality of trails across our state,” he said.

Kansas has more than 650 trails totaling more than 2,100 miles in length. KDWPT manages trails located on state park, wildlife area or state fishing lake properties. The others are managed by local governments or non-governmental organizations.