Tealracing16,
I won't be the club paying the PE, it could be a larger organization like MSA or DNR. DNR and other government agencies always have consultanting engineers on-call. They can use them for that. As an officer of a club in Illinois, I understand the stresses on a club's finances. Your right to assume that a club can't afford to pay a PE for every trail, but it wasn't the clubs that did this to began with, it was the MSA. Down in Illinois a club couldn't afford the PE but the Region or IASC could afford the PE's. Just get a few PE's with an on-call contract with a rate for looking at each sign, or trail, or something like that. It would cost more than the club would want to spend but less then the larger organizations would think. Again, the clubs didn't do this, the MSA and DNR are doing it and causing the problem based on misguided logic.
I know Illinois hires trail advisors to interact with Regions and clubs throughout the State of Illinois. I'm sure Illinois could afford a few on-call consultants for a few thousand a year to review trail signage like curve ahead, bridge ahead, stop ahead, and stop signs. I would think the other states could do the same thing.
Frnash, pointed out earlier that private roads open to public travel must adhered to the MUTCD. Not hard for a lawyer to make an extension to include trails on private property open to public traffic no matter what the mode of transportation is.