As you can tell I was sick recently, hence the voice 😅 Anyway enjoy $60 off the on any Hovsco bike if you use code URBANIST at checkout! www.hovsco.com/?ref=URBANIST
Hello Alan Fisher, I think I have a interesting subject for you to talk about,it’s the Honolulu rail in Oahu,Hawaii,I think you will find this interesting,it’s been delayed for 14 years still under construction since 2009,and 11 Billion Dollars over budget.And how there was already and existing railroad,Hawaiian Railway Society, that had a right of way.
Pyongyang is a great example of transit, cars, and bike infrastructure existing alongside each other in perfect harmony. Pyongyang has a thousand Volvos given to us by Sweden (that'll we never pay them back for after five decades), twelve trolleybus lines, four tram lines, a beautiful two-line metro system, green bike lanes have since been constructed on the major thoroughfares so cyclists don't have to go in the car lanes, and the Korean State Railway has multiple stations in the city that connect to the rest of the country, with the main Pyongyang station being the most famous as it's the one where the city's alarm clock (that plays Where Are You, Dear General? at 6 in the morning every day). It's a shame we're never brought up as a good transit city.
The section on how we're fighting the wrong battles when we pit trains and walking/bikes against each other is really important! One of the best parts about Atlanta's original Beltline concept (and which in theory is still the plan) is that it would be a combined multi-use path WITH a light rail line along it. Giving transportation space for everything EXCEPT cars on old rail paths is good when you have the right of way to pull it off. But primarily the goal should be reduce car right of ways for walkers/bikers/trains. Reminds me a lot of the fights that happen in green energy between wind/solar and nuclear. Folks spend so much time trying to argue for one of those zero carbon electricity production options they wind up completely ignoring how this fight lets CO2 producing plants continue to fill in the gaps left by each of those technologies. We keep up fighting between what ought to be complimentary strategies (walking/biking and trains compliment as well as solar/wind and nuclear) while the actual villain (car dependency and fossil fuels) gets off scot-free!
@@PASH3227 Exactly! And my state's doing the opposite problem, badly and expensively building a new nuclear plant (not an inherent problem with nuclear just a particular problem of how this project is a massive give-a-way to Georgia Power) while cutting it's program for letting home solar users sell back to the grid. Choosing just one of these undermines the advantages of both and lets the gas and coal companies laugh all the way to the bank.
The *GREENS* in Germany shut down all the nuclear power plants, so last year with the energy crisis, they (THE GREEEEENSSSS!!!!) had to fire up the COAL plants again and in fact needed so much extra COAL that they had to screw over PASSENGER TRAINS aka PUBLIC TRANSPORT in order to MAKE WAY FOR MORE COAL TRAINS to the power plants! I almost died of irony following that debacle (I am Dutch) and it's the perfect example of what you're saying lol
@@l3gacyb3ta21 The first stage of the light rail line is the Atlanta Streetcar extension that's currently being planned. There's a bit of NIMBY resistance but the real problem right now is those noting the street car's current failings (because it largely goes around pretty dead parts of downtown) but Mayor Dickens so far still backs the LRT going to the Beltline.
There are so many rails to trails where I live in Chicagoland, and as much as I love bike trails, I wish these rail lines got turned into LRT. Then again, better to have the trails preserve the right of way than to get it chopped up into a billion pieces and disappear from existence. We had a few interurbans whose right of ways just got sold off to adjacent owners and now there's no longer a direct route between some of these cities. Best example I can think of is the route between Aurora and Joliet, two traditional industrial satellite towns with dense downtowns. Half of the right of way got converted to the Virgil Gilman trail. The other half got sold off and would be very expensive to recreate, with buildings, fences, infrastructure, now in the way. You can still see the old right of way on satellite just based on the obvious property lines.
Yeah the Prairie path and similar are all the skeletons of old rail lines. In many cases, they were electrified railways. We want more rail but we love having the trails too
Funny you mention those towns- I grew up in Plainfield and moved away 5 years ago. Those downtowns used to suck... Full of empty buildings and a little urban decay- are they looking a little better now?
Staten Island has a classic case of this twice over. The North shore line has been varyingly abandoned, allowed to wash out into the bay/kill, and built over, while the South Beach Branch was simply sold-off and build over as housing. Neither would be all that ideal for transit anyway(North Shore running right on the coast, a replacement would be better place cut-and-covered under Forest Avenue or Victory Boulevard, the Beach Branch probably better replaced by a bus lane or maybe some trollies), but had they been preserved they could have been useful, even if just as bike paths.
@@F4URGranted I live in Plainfield currently and the downtown has stayed almost completely the same except an extension of the electric park path under the bridge.
Another issue with rail trails is that most do not actually link with places people would actually want to bike to, it reinforces the “cycling as recreation only” paradigm. Lots of rail trails in New England are in rural areas that don’t provide viable transit alternatives or links to commercial areas/jobs, with the only exceptions really being in Boston
Massachusetts resident here... I would assume that rural rail trails are much easier to get approved. They are also a lot less likely to be blocking potential rail transit, which will never be relevant in those areas due to low potential ridership. A lot of them replace 19th century industrial lines, which are as permanently gone as the industries. In these cases, despite being primarily recreational, I would argue that they are an effective transit alternative for at least a few people who choose to use them that way. And they probably keep a few parents from driving their kids around the neighborhood.
@@brianw1620 yes, I was hoping to hear about the Northampton/Hadley/Amherst rail trail and how it began plus the many other connecting town projects. I recall when it started but don't really know the extent of how much it's grown.
I did get that feeling when I was exploring some of Chicago's rails to trails last time I visited. Everyone on it was there for recreation, not because they were commuting to a place of interest using the trail. Some exits off the rail would be hard to do trying to get your bike down the stairs too so a grocery store run would have been difficult.
Bikes are NOT transportation, JUST recreation! Between snowy weather all winter and rainy weather, not to mention hot weather in the summer, there are relatively few days that a bike can be used to commute. I wouldn't want to work next to a stinking bike rider who rode into work on a 90 degree day.
They are planning to convert a recently closed freight line in Mississauga (near Toronto) to a rail trail and it really grinds by gears because it would be a perfect place to run a new GO train service as it goes through residential areas that are very car dependent.
This has happened in the maritimes and now suburbanites say: "I like the bike trails better!" but the rail lines are MORE USEFUL to a city without any!
I actually live not too far from the old OBRY and have been trying to work with Transport Action Ontario and others to try and have the line continue with rail service as opposed to being turned into a trail given the possibilities for both passenger and freight that were never fully realized (honestly haven't been spending as much time on it but Bill 23 caused Peel to delay their 2051 Transportation Master Plan which is a good way to get them to properly study the line instead of just going ahead with a trail). It would be useful to have other help in the fight but am unsure where best efforts are placed on it currently since the TMP is stalled until further notice
The ORBY section in Brampton is more than likely being kept as the city is growing at a rapid rate and it makes sense to keep this line for more transit options Not sure about Mississauga tho 😅
Part of the reason train right of ways are treasured by cyclists is the 1% grade usually used by trains, so they most definitely are sought because they were train right of ways especially for distance travelling.
@@JohnWilson-hb5qc Your response is emotional and stupid. Think critically and make a worthwhile argument rather than acting like you can't understand hypotheticals. There is absolutely no problem with unused rail lines getting converted to trails.
I would gladly ride steeper inclines if it meant not having to worry about some idiot in a car running me over because they were on their phone not paying attention or those people who feel bikes shouldnt be in the roads at all.
Great video!! What you mentioned at 8:05 is HUGE for kids. I grew up in a small exburb in Chicagoland with no transit access, but my subdivision had a small bike trail that ran by most houses in the neighborhood. That was pretty much the only way the kids in my little area built a community by being connected with each other rather than being driven to every playdate (prolly only 1.2 miles away btw)
For someone from the Netherlands this so weird that this isn't the standard. It is just designing that way, without much additional cost. If I look on Streetview there are examples of a fence that can just be removed.
@@lkruijsw The problem is that the people moving into the suburbs in the 50s and 60s specifically wanted not to have this type of neighborhood connectivity. The specifically wanted "privacy" and cul-de-sacs. They actually paid, and still pay extra for _less_ connectivity. Ironically, you lot in Europe lucked out that you did not have the money in the 50s and 60s to make this suburban transition fast enough. By the late 70s, most people had already realized that car dependency is an insane concept and started reversing these things. In the US it was too late. But in Europe, a lot of this stuff was reversed if it was ever started to begin with. Sometimes moving a little slower can actually be an advantage.
@@alc3biades262 I wonder if the extra eyes and ears of passers-by helps catch niggling issues with infrastructure before they lead to disruption, thereby saving money and lives.
The moment this video started I thought this was gonna be a PSA, "every year, 100s of rail lines get converted into trials, however only you can stop this, with just one small donation you too, can stop rails to trails"
Have Sally Struthers appear with a rusted out train car. "For only 5 cents a day, not even the cost of a cup of coffee, you can sponsor a poor dilapidated car like this."
I love that you used Santa Cruz as an example. The nimbys there tried to push the idea of rail banking the branch line exclusively to biking. Luckily, the county is generally supportive of the multi use trail and one day will hopefully have light rail transit next to an awesome bike trail
Santa Cruz is hardly a sure thing; yes, they fought off the a-holes who wanted to rip up the rails, but it isn't funded -- and until they get across the sloughs to Monterey or connection to trains to San Jose, Watsonville isn't exactly a large destination. What Santa Cruz really needs is to rebuild the line to San Jose -- but that is really really expensive.
Great video! Here in Helsinki a former harbour and service rail line was recently transformed into a high speed light rail and cycle route. The project known as Jokeri Light Rail is almost finished and the service is expected to start later this year.
@@seankaiser2505 it's a light rail line. A largely congestion free light rail line in separate right of way or in dedicated street lanes and signal priority. Its generally a faster and much longer route than any of the city's legacy tram lines, but the infrastructure and equipment is built to be cross compatible, making it one of the only under construction narrow gauge tram lines in the world right now
@@seankaiser2505 You know, the legacy trams in Helsinki are just about the slowest in Europe (averaging 14 km/h), so our standard for "high speed" isn't all that staggering 🐌
You should check out the Beltline in Atlanta. It's an old circular rail route that was used to move freight around the city. It's been turned into a mixed use path and is planned to include light rail in the future.
@@NDCincifan - Hit me up when you're in ATL and I'll give you the grand tour. But, the spot to start is at Piedmont Park, specifically at the corner of 10th and Monroe.
the Trails that are built on abandoned rail lines do have a big advantage though: They preserve the right of way. So if you want to rebuild the line at some point in the future, it's better to put a trail on it that to zone in the area
Putting a trail on top of an old right of way is not necessary to preserve it. For example, the PRR Octoraro Branch between Wawa, PA and Chadds Ford, PA for decades. SEPTA maintains ownership of the right of way. It would probably make a great trail, but hopefully it would make a better commuter line one day.
The only problem with this is that so far, no rail right of way that has been converted into a trail has ever been converted back into a rail line. The bike trails are usually super popular so ripping them out and putting a rail line back in is very unpopular and I don't think it would realistically ever happen.
@@GearReview23 a solution might be to just take a bit of the adjacent land, like we do for car infrastructure all the time... Remember "the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy"?
As someone who advocated for the preservation of the Santa Cruz Branch Line, I need to add a couple of important details. First and foremost, it was an absolute pain in the neck for the rail line to be preserved. Santa Cruz Greenway advocated for the removal of the line because they claimed, among other things, that rail was loud and inefficient and that we tried several other operators that fell flat on their faces. Not everyone was fooled, as SCG lost by 73%, but they are still in the troats of the county board of directors of the Regional Transportation Commission to keep any kind of rail and trail from being built. As it turned out, they advocated for the removal of the Santa Cruz Branch Line because almost everyone on the board of Greenway lived right next to the rail line. When a rail line is removed, citizens who live near the line are allowed to either take the land that the rails were formerly on, or they could get paid by the federal government for the line's removal. In addition, the local heritage railroad, Roaring Camp, has wanted for a very long time to use the branch line again for freight service north of the interchange, where the only freight on the branch is taking place. While the rail line is preserved, it is going to take YEARS for any rail to be repaired in the wake of the recent storms, and for any trail to be constructed.
The abandonment of the Reading main line between Quakertown, PA and Bethlehem, PA and its subsequent conversion to a bike path is often given as a reason for non-consideration of Philadelphia to Allentown train service. Another interesting case to look at is the Adirondack Railroad in upstate New York. Here a group a cyclist aggressively petitioned the state to scrap a rail line, even though the railroad had offered some really creative solutions on how the rail line could compliment the bike trail.
Fortunately the majority or the Adirondack Railroad's line was ultimately saved for railroad use, although a key section that was used for passenger transportation to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid has been bulldozed. Unfortunately trail advocates and politicians succeeded in forcing the removal of track from another heritage railroad in the eastern part of the state. "Railbanking" enabling legislation was sold to Congress as a way to preserve truly abandoned railroad rights of way for future re-use for rail-based transit when the demand justified reinstating rail service. It was agreed that in the interim, rights of way of abandoned railroad lines could be used for hike-bike trails, but that if the need arose, construction of rail lines would have priority and the trails would be subject to relocation or removal. For lightly used rail lines and rail lines that were "embargoed" but not abandoned, the Rails to Trails Conservancy promised that they would not advocate for removal of existing rail infrastructure for the purpose of creating recreational trails. However they have since reneged on that promise. In the matter of the Adirondack Railroad dispute, the Rails to Trails Conservancy refused to take a stand for preserving the railroad, claiming that their policy was to have no input on the activities of their local chapters and allied groups. I believe that we need new legislation that stipulates that "rail banking" can only occur if the railroad infrastructure is preserved in place. There are tens of thousands of miles of railroad rights of way in the U.S. which have been devoid of track for many decades and sit unused [except by trespassers]. I believe that construction of recreational trails should be limited to those rights-of-way.
Bingo. I was going to mention the Reading line to the Lehigh Valley if no one else had. I grew up in Bethlehem and rode that train to Philly a few times before it was discontinued in the 80's. Now, getting from Philly to Bethlehem via transit is difficult/clumsy (there is infrequent Greyhound service to Allentown and then you take a LANTA bus to Bethlehem).
I frequently ride on that path. I would guess four times the number of runners/walkers to cyclists. I can't imagine trains getting anywhere near the multiple multimillion dollar homes and multi billion dollar country club in this wealthy area of the state.
As someone from northeast Indiana, any time I travel to Indy I get to enjoy the terrible money pit that is I-69 North. No transit whatsoever, just consistent billions blown on "just one more lane bro." In the past few decades several of the former rail lines to the northern and eastern suburbs have been turned into trails, namely the Monon to Carmel and the Nickel Plate to Fishers and Noblesville. There has been some fantastic development along these new trails, but it begs the question of how regional transit will ever be integrated well. Fantastic discussion, Alan! Keep up the great work, and hope you get to feeling better
I was so sad that they didn't end up building the "blue line" light rail between Fishers and Indy 😭 but I feel torn because the Nickel Plate trail is one of the only places you can ride in Fishers without the constant threat and stress of cars. Ultimately like he said, we just need to make room for both... stick that light rail in the highway median or something 🙃. Ultimately though, it's Indiana... so...
@@een_schildpad I agree, biking on the monon and the nickel plate is lovely, but I really wish we had the opportunity for better transit options that we would've had connecting the downtowns of the Hamilton county cities to Indy.
@@calebstone8260 I couldn't agree more!!! That would be so great for everyone involved. What a missed opportunity it is not to have that 😞 Maybe someday 🤞
I'm from the Netherlands (kinda famous for its cycling infrastructure) and here we also have some rail to trail routes. The closest one I live near is one that crosses the border with Germany, just over 5 miles from my home. It runs from the train station in the Dutch town of Winterswijk into the German city of Bocholt with just a slight detour near the actual border. The distance over the old rail route is about 11 miles. It's mostly used for recreational purposes.
Right and the issue in the states is people try to use rails to trails an excuse to not make city streets safe for cycling. The Netherlands has it all.
There's a very unique rail to trail in Singapore that's the result of the rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore, track that used to go up to Johor Bahru in Malaysia from Tanjong Pagar, but was truncated as a shuttle between Woodlands Checkpoint at the border and Johor Bahru. It's not only a 15-mile hiking trail that has access paths to residential estates and parks, but also a "highway" for wildlife movement for Singapore's unique wildlife in an urban landscape (especially important for a country as small as Singapore). Some context, when Britain gave up its colonies, Singapore was combined with Malaysia as a federation in 1963. But Malaysia would end up kicking Singapore out in 1965. Under the Railway Act 1918, the land that made up the railway was given to the Federated Malay States government from the Straits Settlements for a period of 999 years. Meaning this land was still owned by the Malaysian government. Singapore wanted the land returned to them. After back and forth issues where Malaysia insisted on staying at Tanjong Pagar, Malaysia and Singapore finally agreed to scrap the Railway Act at a leaders' retreat in 2010 (they first did so in 1990, but there was a deadlock), where Malaysia was allowed to remain at Woodlands Train Checkpoint while the rest of the line would be truncated and become a rail trail (called the Rail Corridor). Bukit Timah station remains conserved (as a cafe) including a piece of the trackbed, while Tanjong Pagar station is preserved.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Well I guess to Singapore's gov't, its sovereignty matters more than rail connectivity. It has long felt that the railway that formerly existed, being operated by peninsular Malaysia's railway operator KTM, was undermining its sovereignty, especially as Malaysia has setup its immigration facilities @ the Tanjong Pagar railway station, deep inside Singapore's territory & on the edge of our downtown, rather than along our international borders. & in an act of protest, since the 1990s, Singapore had moved out its immigration facilities frm Tanjong Pagar railway station to Woodlands Train Checkpoint (WTCP) at the international border, & forced passengers on Malaysia-bound trains frm Tanjong Pagar to alight at WTCP for immigration. A conspiracy theory is that Singapore has little incentive to improve rail connectivity to Malaysia (& the former HSR project agreed between the 2 countries might've just been Singapore trying to play nice, while secretly being pessimistic that it would ever take off) as it'd encourage Singaporeans to visit Malaysia more frequently & spend money there (where costs of living are lower) instead of locally, causing an outflow from Singapore's economy. Meanwhile the high commuter demand of Malaysians working in Singapore is likely to be inelastic anyway; because as salaries in Singapore are significantly higher, they're unlikely to be deterred by subpar connectivity across our international borders e.g. frequent traffic jams there, which has also reportedly caused buses that connect WTCP to the nearest MRT (subway/metro) station (which you'll need to get to downtown Singapore from Malaysia, now that this rail to trail thing has already happened) to skip WTCP sometimes. A side effect of this rail to trail thing (which happened on July 1 2011) is that rail cargo into Singapore was also ended, as WTCP, the new terminus for Malaysian trains running into Singapore, was too small to handle cargo (yes, WTCP is all the way out of town at our international border crossing, but public housing has also built up beside it since the 1970s, as people were attracted to move there by the area's connectivity to Malaysia, as there're land/road crossings there too, unless you want to deforest a swamp on the other side of the station). In 2021 the end of rail cargo came back to haunt us as that made Singapore more reliant on road trucks, & during the pandemic, the gov't required truckers to wait a few hrs for PCR tests before they could enter the country, intensifying jams at the border crossing. If rail cargo was still used, fewer drivers & thus tests would've been needed. In the end the gov't had to give truckers more priority for CoViD vaccination to avoid paralysing our economy. To compensate Malaysia for scrapping the Railway Act, Singapore also allocated 6 plots of land in its downtown to be developed by a joint-venture (M+S) between the 2 countries investment companies (Temasek & Khazanah). 2 of them have since been completed - DUO & Marina One - as office-cum-luxury condominium skyscrapers with a smaller shopping mall (plus an Andaz hotel in the former). In hindsight, if the Downtown MRT Line's stage 2 (the western segment) was built a few years later (& after this rail-to-trail thing happened), it could've been built along the rail-to-trail, instead of having to be tunnelled beneath Upp Bt Timah Rd that runs parallel to it, saving money. Unlike other park connectors in the country, this rail-to-trail also has a lower speed limit for bicycles - just 10km/h (~6.2mph) instead of 25kph (~16mph) - probably as its unpaved. You could run even faster than that. There was even a photo circulating online of a speeding ticket/summone that was indeed issued to a cyclist there, a sign that the speed limits there might actually be strictly enforced. Also recently, environmentalists were up in arms over our gov't's long-term plans to replace Clementi forest, which is adjacent to this rail-to-trail, with apartments, to house a growing population. Maybe this will unite the environmentalists with those who've opposed the country's 2013 Population White Paper (due to overcrowding fears), which planned for a 40% population increase to around 7m in 2030, or a population density of ~10000 people/km^2. Opposition lawmakers who'd counter-proposed a watered-down version of the White Paper were quite brashly refuted by our PM as 'irresponsible' I remember. Or maybe the apartments could be built above the rail-to-trail instead (~8-10m wide) to spare the forest from having to be cut down
They definitely shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Next to my house there's an active rail line with a bike path that runs adjacent to it and splits off into multiple different trails along its length. This is a fantastic arrangement that makes it easy for people to get to any of the train stations along the path by bike. To me this sort of idea is the ideal short term goal that we should be aiming for. Public transport and cycling infrastructure are so useful to each other.
Here in rural NJ (A good 2 hours North of you), I live right across the street from a rail right-of-way converted to a walking/biking trail. The whole area is full of them. It's been a long while since I've walked the trails, but I remember being able to find a railroad spike or two along the sides.
Beware of the day when car and truck drivers believe the only place bicycles belong is on "trails," not on roads. Once they believe that, they can easily push us off the roads.
A couple examples come to mind in the Metro Vancouver area, where former interurban rail lines were closed and the tracks removed, now replaced with biking and walking trails: the Arbutus Greenway on the west side of Vancouver, and Railway Ave in Richmond. There's also a disused rail line on the south side of False Creek that has been floated for rehabilitation and a new light rail connection from Granville Island to Olympic Village, but there are no definite plans. Each of these corridors has frequent bus service, but the buses do sometimes get stuck in traffic, so a renewed rail connection would be better, and could probably retain bike paths also. It would likely mean taking some road space from cars, hence the issue described here.
It’s nice to hear you advocating a Rail with trail. So many important rail corridors have been lost here in southeastern Massachusetts to bike trail only. Despite all the phony promises that a bike path can later be torn up, that’s just not going to happen. Most of these rights of way are quite wide, here they’re 60 feet or so, plenty of room for both.
Maybe a good case study for future vre expansion to create an outer ring for the future growth of nova. Between Fredricksburg and Orange, there used to be an abandoned narrow-gauge rail and it kinda falls into the latter catagory
@@applesyrupgaming No the VC got shortened shortly after it got converted from narrow gauge in the 1930s and yes I do know about the W&OD Ether it should be a regional rail line, a high floor LRV, or automated light metro.
@@erikgustafson9319 but that would duplicate the Washington Metro Silver Line that now extends out to Ashburn. What put another rail line in when another has been built to serve the same route?
I’ve been frustrated about this for several weeks now due to two rail-to-trail conversions in Milwaukee that would be PERFECT for a light or heavy rail system (we do not have any outside of a downtown street car). One covers the entire northeast side of the city and goes through or right next to basically every place you’d want to go anywhere near the lakefront, including the HQ of two major employers in the city. The other cuts through the center of the city and basically would connect the main transit hub to the Brewers stadium, the state fair grounds, the national ice center, a locally well known huge botanical garden, and the county zoo.
We really should have gotten the proposed light rail that would have run from Kenosha to Milwaukee along the UP (formerly C&NW) lakeshore route. This would have connected with Metra in Kenosha.
The Bethlehem Branch is easily the worst conversion locally, because the entire line was double-tracked and in a lot of places they have built costly-to-remove linear bridges and platforms across the entire 2-track right of way...
As a Bay Area techie, I am so sorry that we're shipping our a$$hole millionaires to Santa Cruz county to mess with you locals and create this type of nonsense issues. We're not all moneybags a$$faces, I promise! This is just the managerial class running wild. The lowly grunts are normal good people, even in tech.
@@TohaBgood2 lolll no blame to you. It’s an interconnected area. I commute into the Bay Area for work, our local businesses rely on Bay Area tourism. I wish there was better public transit between Santa Cruz and the bay so that traffic was reduced, it’s unbearable.
The compromise in Santa Cruz was actually the result of a fierce debate in the town of whether to tear up the rail line or not. They have fortunately settled for building a trail parallel to the branch and keeping the branch for their battery tram system called "Coast Futura" which may be a Gadgetbahn but is a much better fate for the line than being torn up
So I live in Missouri and the rail-to-trail that we're most famous for is the Katy Trail that goes almost 240 miles east-west across the state and follows the right-of-way of the old MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) railroad. I don't know a whole lot about the history of it, specifically whether it was created to save the right-of-way in case they decide to put a train there again, but if they do, it would be very easy to do that because it goes almost entirely through rural countryside and small towns, but could also easily connect to larger cities like Columbia, Jeff City, and St. Louis. (In fact, it already connects to Columbia via the MKT Trail. And actually the MKT has a lot of those neighborhood connector spurs that were mentioned in the video.) There are some spectacular views along the trail and a good two-thirds of it runs right along the Missouri River. Don't get me wrong, I desperately want more intercity passenger rail in this country. But I won't lie and say I won't be a little disappointed at losing the bike trail if the Katy is ever converted back into a railroad. Still, like I said earlier, it goes almost entirely through rural countryside, so with not much in the way, maybe they could just build another bike trail alongside the hypothetical, future railroad. Here's hoping I guess
I think a classic example of a bad rail trail is the rail to trail line between Quakertown and Allentown. Why don't we have train service between PA's 1st and 3rd largest cities?
The Washington and Old Dominion trail in Virginia is pretty good connecting DC to Leesburg. The Metro silver line now runs along a similar route, so it’s not really taking away from transit opportunities
tbh it takes a lot away because the inherent flaws in freeway median alignments make them objectively worse than a downtown station. Additionally, reactivating it as a grade separated VRE line with trail space parallel would be nice to speed up travel times.
@@applesyrupgaming They could've been similar to the CTA ground-level stations (see Brown or Pink Lines for examples). But it just wasn't "meant" to be.
@@brianhenderson9124 well to be fair virginia at the time wasnt this built up and sprawly but 3 years later wmata went to build the orange line or planned it
My city is working on a rails-to-trails as a default after killing a light rail that it used state funds to buy the right of way. The VB Trail is an example of suburban NIMBYs killing an already half finished light rail and turning it into a bike path
Another issue, highlighted by About Here's most recent video, is that these projects are primarily built for recreation and to a small extent for commuters, but not for loitering, commerce, or general community-building. They can still be great features of a place, but we need more projects that people can use every day many times a day instead of on their days off.
Sports cyclist commenting here. Making everything about "utilitarian use" is something which is kind of absurd. Cycling, walking and other things which occur on these trails is quite useful even if it isn't for "commuters" or "commerce." Cycling and running as a sport should be praised because it is probably better than motorsports or driving to a field/gym. It also exposes people to bicycles who wouldn't normally bicycle and adds them to a group of people who are bicycle friendly (or aren't hostile...like the people who roll coal at cyclists). Racing bikes also help keep the bike industry alive and promote huge amounts of development like proper fitting, saddle comfort, helmet safety and expertise. All these things flow from the sport cycling industry. Please don't hate on sport cyclists.
@@thegeneral333 i absolutely agree and yeah, outdoor recreation space is super important to a healthy & happy community. I gravel bike on the trails where I live, it's just that in a lot of places, it's only the recreational users that are catered for, leaving the more society-changing work of increasing overall ridership neglected.
No W&OD trail? It's a rail trail that runs for 22 miles between Purcellville and Arlington, running through towns along its path. The reason why it was converted from a rail line to a trail is because in the 1960's, VDOT used the rail line's ROW for I-66 in Arlington.
They want to do that in NY, with the Queensway. Highly controversial, and railfans and locals want to see a subway there instead. This one is problematic
Alan, Maybe i gotta switch careers.. I'm an avid cyclist/mtb/crit racer/etc with a materials science and engineering degree from Drexel.. but other than the general act of teaching, the topics in your videos are truly the only thing i get fired up about.. well, that and getting cut off by a cars.. but that's the other side of the same coin 🤣🤣 Love your work. would love to coordinate a local Philly group ride
I dig it. As a big cyclist, one of my favorite things to do was to ride around (especially where I used to live in Union Co. NJ) and find abandoned right-of-ways and go and research what they used to be. There's an astonishing number of them up that way and many of them share a similar story to the railroad you mentioned here: former commuter railroads that absolutely need to be resurrected. The Rahway Valley Railroad, the Central Railroad of NJ, and more. Yet, exclusive talk is on making them rail-to-trails, which is all well and good if there wasn't such an enormous need for robust mass transit in NE NJ. Another recent example of this is the Essex-Hudson Greenway. The state blew $65 million to buy the right-of-way (which has been abandoned for many decades and should have just been seized, but hey, we still live under capitalism and railroad company's profits are still more important than people's lives) and now plans to make a linear park like the High Line, blowing up any potential for light rail connections (but raising property values for already expensive neighborhoods!). There are proposals to expand the Hudson Light Rail down through South-East JC, over Kearny Point (where some movie studios are being constructed), and into the old Central Railroad terminal in Newark but that wouldn't serve the same neighborhoods at all, so it's hardly "good enough." Heard about the expansion of the PATH train to Newark airport and the debate over adding a stop in the South Ward? Pretty enraging stuff that you'd make some hay with.
I actually used the Santa Cruz rail trail to get to school, it was really great! I just wish it extended past the boardwalk to the San Lorenzo river. Definitely a great transit solution!
Many people think there isn't enough room to fit a bike path and rail line beside each other but these right of ways are usually wide enough since they took into account the need to include space for telegraph poles. I don't see any reason why rails need to be removed in order to build a bike path, sure maybe in present day the rails don't serve a purpose but give it 20 years and they will.
I'd be curious about road to farmland conversion. Removal of topsoil and compaction would seem to make that land basically unusable after constructing a road. I'm really interested to see what people are proposing to get around that.
It isn't just about removing the railbed and converting the land back to the farm use. It is more about people walking and biking through your farm and leaving their trash behind. Imagine your back yard becomes a shortcut for the general public to walk to a convenience store. I would imagine that you would not want the foot traffic.
FWIW, I had to be in Iowa and Wisconsin last summer, rode many rails to trails through farmland/repurposed rails, roads, gullies, etc. Both reclamation and trail design were excellent in general. The thing that melted my brain was that some of the rail to trail paths were dead-on straight lines. I did a century out of Des Moines one day, and there was a 60 mile stretch through farms that was perfectly straight. I almost fell asleep at 20+mph on my aero bars.
Should've mentioned the W&OD here in Northern Virginia, had they kept the rails we could've had a third VRE line along a super busy and populated corridor
Bike paths under powerlines would totally transform my town. A light rail would be even better if it connected to local centers but just wide safe bike paths would be fantastic.
Unless the power lines are low hanging, you could also just build the bike path underneath the power lines. That's what Plano does for some of it's trails
The UK is full of "Rails to Trails." They have some of the most beautiful former rail viaducts in the world..... I really enjoy riding my bike with my kids "we keep the bikes in the living room right by the front door." But because of my work "A electrical contractor" I will always need a truck. The UK does a great job of getting the three to coexist --- bikes, cars and rail. Thanks for posting..... Hope you feel better.
@@murphy7801 I have heard the same but I was talking about the "Abandoned" rail infrastructure (tunnels, viaducts and track beds) that has been repurposed into hiking and biking trails.
@@murphy7801 I suspect it depends very much where you are in each country. Lot of investment in London and Paris. France started earlier and has gone faster with new high speed lines, but as I understand it, frequencies and general upkeep on classic lines can be nothing special, especially on lines not radiating from Paris.
We love the Santa Cruz trail here in town, I love that we still have use of the actual train line, it is really beneficial for the city and we actually almost lost it but we saved it this last election 😊
I would also add the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad and the former PRR, nee-Northern Central Line heritage railroad known as Steam into History as other prime examples of good integration of Rails to Trails as both have keep the heritage line in place and allow for bike path expansion and growth.
I'd say it should go a step further, rail infrastructure should be encouraged to support bike infrastructure and vice versa. Being able to commute around on a bike and then just board a train when you need to fast travel from one point to another is an extremely nice thing to have, especially if you don't live a very urbanized area.
Personally i hate the trails such as the Catskill mountain case and lines locally which the trail advocates have harassed rail customers to get them to close shop so the line can be a trail connection. We need to maximize rail for freight and passenger again because car infastructure as you said is killing us.
I love some rail trails. Tompkins County NY turned a bunch of the old rail lines into trails... except the only reason you didn't want to bike on the highways is the explosion of car traffic, and only sometimes. I live in DC and it's the same thing - this could be light rail, but we have WMATA... who doesn't need right of ways because they aren't expanding...
Another important reason why cyclists love rail trails--especially as commuter links--they're flat! Dedicated bike paths that arent rail to trail conversions tend to be way twistier and way hillier, and tend to interact with roadways in much less pleasant ways. They are generally designed for recreation, rather than getting from point to point quickly. Freight rail ROWs, by their nature, are much less steep and avoid sharp curves. Powerlines service roads in particular can be quite hilly, since they're generally cut straight through an area, without much regard to topography. Your other points are totally valid; just wanted to point out that a reason why rail trails tend to work so well is because they largely have the same constraints a commuter cycling corridor does.
I lived in Spain for a few years and they have a program called Vias Verdes (green ways). They converted 3500 km of old, narrow gauge lines into hiking/cycling trails. It’s really quite amazing and they’ve done a good job documenting it. In parallel Spain has developed the largest network of bullet train line in Europe and most cities have expanded their commuter trains. Hard to critique the rails to trails there since the narrow gauge was never coming back and these paths were too narrow for modern lines.
There's a LOT of these around DC. The lines they replaced were useless as freight or passenger lines, so they make for perfect trails. They are turning one of the trails back into rail for the purple line though.
not the one in virginia which actually almost stayed rail had WMATA used their brain or the dickerson power plant be built in VA. The result? WMATA runs trains in the freeway median when we coulda had a VRE line with more rolling stock built for regional rail. It was very much useful as a passenger ROW.
Not true on the Purple Line--they will be upgrading and expanding the Capital Crescent Trail along with construction of the rail line all the way to Silver Spring.
Those rails were only useless because the misapplication of laws have destroyed the railroads ability to operate properly (like they used to). Started with the Firestone thing, then tort law hit it pretty hard, and thats all i remember specifically, but there was alot more.
Good video! Here in Ohio we have the Ohio to Erie trail (goes from Cincinnati to Cleveland and also connecting to Columbus and Dayton) that’s almost completely built on abandoned railroads.
One thing you didn't mention: Here in Chicago: the Bloomingdale trail that ran through both a rich and poor neighborhood radically increased the property values of the houses a few blocks from the trail in the poor neighborhood. Good for people who owned, really bad for all the people who were displaced because of it. Urban trails don't exist in a vacuum, and care should be taken to not lead to displacement. It doesn't help that really good bike infrastructure is rare in Chicago
We're trying to stop a rails to trails project in the Shenendoah Valley in Virginia. While it's maybe a bit far-fetched, I'd love to see good public transit here between our beautiful small town urban areas.
There's another example of the parallel ROW on opposite sides of the river where one is now a trail in Scranton. IIRC the DL&W and Erie both had lines along the Lackawanna River. When the two lines later merged... The nimby problem also popped up in that part of Pennsylvania years ago. There was a long unused rail right of way where the track had been removed but was never formally abandoned that was reactivated. Assorted residents had started using that space as part of their yards and argued that they should have a right to prevent the renewed use of the rail line.
More quality alternatives to cars would be great. I am leaning a bit toward a return to rail over a bike trail, as some rail lines were not necessarily planned with commuting in mind. Also, many of those rail lines back in my hometown didn't go through the safest of neighborhoods to reach the city center. If adding a bike and hike trail people have to feel safe enough to use it, otherwise it might be better (although more expensive) to convert to light rail. Thoughts?
I tagged along with friends who were competing in a LAN in Philly. I rented a bike for the weekend and rode up the Schuylkill river trail a good 5-10 miles and stopped in a neighborhood bar one night. Was pretty blown away by how awesome it was. In general Philly was really pleasant to bike around, coming from Atlanta. Narrow one ways and short blocks felt amazing.
The High Line in NYC is one of the most famous and visited rail trails. They were floating the idea of using it for transit, since the far west side of Manhattan is only served by some slow buses. I remember there was a bit of a fight between people who wanted transit and those who wanted a park. I also remember David Bowie coming down hard on the side of park and doing a lot to push for it.
Damn, that's a good thumbnail... Also, what a great video!!! I'm all for rail & trail as opposed to rails TO trails alone. I get so worried that some of our local rights of way will be replaced with trails, preventing future pax rail. I'll use this if I'm ever involved in a town meeting on the topic...
As a long time bicycling advocate, I am totally in agreement with you on rails to trails. It’s a good idea but it’s a way to end all hope for future transit.
Great video and I think you hit the point well about how trains and bikes have to fight each other as we only get the scraps. For the Rail Park in Philly, the problem over the horizon of course is what to do with the City Branch. What are your thoughts on that? To me the City Branch really needs to have some kind of light rail, busway component
@1:48 The parallel rail lines from Philly to Reading were built in the opposite order that you describe. The Reading Railroad was first in 1839: this was their main line to bring anthracite coal to tidewater. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch was opened in 1884 as retaliation against the Reading's competition for Philadelphia-to-New York traffic.
True rails can't do hills. But at the Santa Fe Rail Trail, bikes don't go over the bridges. So it is up and down -- with a sand trap at the bottom. Big disappointment.
@@robinrussell7965 This is a pet peeve of mine. Many young kids, elderly folks and people with disabilities can't move a bike up a grade of more than 4-5%. If an old rail line is converted into a bike trail, but bridges and crossings are removed and replaced with 10% up-and-downs it makes the trail useless to this huge array of potential users. These folks are also people who are definitely not going to be comfortable sharing a road with cars. If a bike path is made, it should be made appropriate for the wide range of cyclists, not just fit racers and people on ebikes. I've seen some insane 15-20% grades in otherwise flat bike trails. What were the designers thinking? Have they ever tried to ride on the trail they designed?
People are trying to make the "Northern Valley Greenway" out of an unused rail line in Bergen county NJ and I would 100% rather have it be a light rail.
Similar to what you brought up at 7:37, there is a trail known as the North Shore Bike Path from Lake Bluff, IL to Mundelein, IL, runs 8 miles and comes up to Lake Michigan
So glad Santa Cruz is being used as a good example of a Rail-Trail! Passenger rail service through the county will be very important to the required sustainable growth over the next few couple decades. Having lived near the trail it was a very convenient, and safe feeling connection.
My cousins and grandmother both live on a road that is connected to the power line trail in Horsham that you mentioned. I have tons of memories of when we were younger and we would ride our bikes or roller blade up and down the trail to other friends houses that lived in the other connected neighborhoods, and nowadays I definitely think of Horsham as being better connected on a pedestrian level than other suburbs in our area. Awesome video, I currently live in Philadelphia and am from Bucks County so it was really cool to see both the Callowhill rail park and a place where I basically grew up in the same video!
Hey Alan great video I just thought about the one project in San Pedro CA that is making it so they expand a park in to a old right of way that was used to run trolleys but was shut down in 2015 do to waterfront redevelopment. I think that it was a shame because it could have easily been double tracked and could have been used as transit line to Wilmington.
As a rail freak, I'm always bothered when a perfectly good rail line is converted to bike path, even when I know there will never be a train there. But I still recognize that it's a good use of space, even if it hurts. On the other hand, I'm generating terrain in my model train program to convert the Chuck Huckleberry Loop to light rail. My own Trail-To-Rails project on my computer.
Its helpful that the land rights of the corridors stay intact...one day we'll get rid of these hipsters and build things in the USA again. On that day, we'll convert these back to rail lines. Basically, as soon as a serious world conflict happens, it will be "Trails to rails". Then hopefully it will be Trails AND rails after that.
Although rail to trails was a good idea during the massive abandonments, rarely do they ever materialize for that purpose. Cyclists seem to forget that the row was a railroad and lawyer up anytime an operator wants to restore service. A good example would be when the WSOR wanted to restore service from Monroe to Shullsburg, Wisconsin. Cyclists would have lost part of the trail, but it never happened. People forget that bikes can literally can go anywhere, except freeways and interstates, whereas railroad infrastructure is expensive to build. It’s just better to let tracks lay fallow until a new operator and/or business necessitates rail service.
The Atlanta Beltline is the premier rail to trail project in the US. In fact it is projected to be a rail to trail with rail that will circle the entire city. The trail part is getting pretty close to being finished.
Hey Alan. Would love to see a video about converting road infrastructure into bike/walk paths. I live in the Pacific Northwest. We are currently watching a Sound Transit try to replace the interurban rail line that went from Seattle to Tacoma. The tracks got removed in 1930 and turned into a bike path in 1984. It is currently costing $500M a mile to replace. As someone who has worked in transportation most of my life it's hard to see rails get pulled up. The underutilization of most rail corridors gives easy fodder to those who want a trail instead. Keeping the rails intact helps provide future transportation access. We are currently fighting this exact battle in Tacoma where the city owned rail line may be sold to a private operator and parts will likely be abandoned and turned into a trail.
As a rider of recumbent trike, I am fixed to ride rail2trail routes. These can be amazing opportunities for many of us recreationally AND as commuters (I miss my years stationed in the Netherlands). Thank you for sharing this seldom reported perspective of shared travel space with a vision toward our future. Any opportunity to escape the traffic of vehicles (and the inherent dangers of aggressive driving) is something to consider, and welcome in community planning. Cheers
I ride my recumbent bike on the Leelanau trail in Traverse City. I it’s like sitting on my couch, looking at the scenery. And connecting all these trails to other bike, Transportation routes makes an efficient transit bike system. If we could make our cities more bike focused, instead of built around cars, we would have a much better way of getting around. That’s healthy and easier on the Environment
As someone from the UK, there are countless examples of railway lines closed by the Beeching Cuts that have turned into cycle paths. Many of them are quite rural and provide a pleasant walk through the countryside. Some routes that use tunnels make it more convenient to cycle somewhere instead of pedalling up a hill. However, in some cases where plans arise to link one town to another, these paths can deviate from the old alignment due to more recent redevelopment so an entirely new route would have to be devised. Plus, cycling lobby groups kick up a fuss as they say that there'd be nowhere else to cycle through.
YES. I've thought about this topic so many times, especially looking at Manayunk and the Pennypack Trail north of Fox Chase Station and had so many mixed feelings. Glad to see I'm not the only one looking at maps trying to square my competing interests
Thanks, Alan. Please keep the excellent content coming. As I do a fair amount of routine travel on a bike, I would be interested in seeing a video on converting car infrastructure to bike infrastructure. Keep up the good work and get well soon.
In Lyon, France an old freight single track line (ligne de l’est) right of way was turned into a double track express tramway line + a cycle path. I’m glad they did not turn into just a trail or park.
Great video Alan! I did a paper on this topic during my urban planning degree and came to the same conclusion. Rail vs. trail should be decided on a case by case basis, and in any case it's the conversion of road space to trails that we should be thinking about!
I really appreciate thoughts on rails to trails where transit expansion might become possible again (especially in the Philadelphia area). I live very close to the Merchantville trail (part of the future planned "Burlington-Camden trail") but I'd throw that all away in a heartbeat if the idea of the Mt. Holly line somehow got resurrected by either PATCO or NJTranit. One other interesting wrinkle here is that there are a number of successful downtown businesses along the right of way that would be impacted (some likely requiring moving - like the Station cafe or Eclipse brewery). I'd also love to see more transit agencies embrace building trails along railroads. I'd kill for a trail running along the Atlantic City line that would connect Pennsauken, Merchantville, Cooper River Park, Westmont, and Haddonfield. Feel free to steal these thoughts for videos! Thanks again for your work.
I used to live near the 606 in Chicago, and had the same mixed feelings about it. Great trail, but the area could really use the rail service. The northwest side is rapidly being up zoned along the blue line. With Chicago TOD policy, those midrise apartments could be built along the old Humboldt Park branch as well if it still ran the L.
I thought it would have been neat if there was a commuter line that started in Union Station that went up Kingsbury St on the east side of Goose Island then turned onto what's now the 606 and went up the old Dunning line and ended Forest Preserve Dr. Similar to the Rock Island's Beverly Branch.
Over here in the Netherlands, there are a lot of areas where there's a bike trail next to a rail line. I really like those. But truthfully, these long bike corridors only shine if you treat them like a backbone and you connect other useful destinations to them. Cycling is great, but as a cyclist I can attest to the fact that I haven't yet mastered the art of teleportation. I like good infrastructure all the way, not just along some parts of the route.
In massive cities like Philly, sure. But in most mid-size US cities, there simply is no demand or hope for rail expansion anywhere in the near or far future. I think that the vast majority of the time, rail trails are good and should be encouraged. One example you'd like is Cleveland's Red Line - they kept the light rail tracks but built a bike trail that goes along the same right of way. So it effectively acts as a bike and transit corridor at once.
A good example here in Germany of a rails-to-trails project that doesn't have any problems with it is the RS1 Radschnellweg in Essen. In the parts of it where it replaced old rail lines and doesn't just run next to the existing active lines, the line is replaced was just the service line that ran to the Krupp steel mill, which was demolished and replaced with a large park and the ThyssenKrupp global headquarters. The line in that section also parallels two active rail corridors, one about half a mile south and another about 1.5 miles north, so it isn't taking away any needed potential for expanding commuter operations.
i live in Santa Cruz, our rail trail caused a Ton of local controversy last year because a group called greenway was trying to push the project. they wanted to remove the rail entirely and start building a simple path to make the project go faster, he signs and online ads made it extremely confusing for the voter to decide who was being a total dick and who wasn't. one group was advocating for health and efficiency and the other for "saving our trains". both groups wanted to build a trail, just in a different way. the greenway group ended up losing the vote and we are currently building a rail side trail with the future option of lite electric rail.
The Santa Cruz Trail could've also been part of a rail trail problem since there were plans by people supporting the trail to have a portion of the railroad outright removed for the trail but luckily it got lots of attention since it had to do with an agreement between the tourist railroad and local government regarding ownership but also responsibility over properly maintaining it (it unfortunately seems that there's a lot of people in the rails to trails circle that are fine with removing railroads that are still active or viable or just use it as a way to eliminate trains in their area). In upstate New York, the state and a scenic railroad were in a legal battle as the state wanted to take part of their rail line and turn it into a trail. Although the court ruled in favour of the tourist railroad, the state ultimately got their way by threatening to remove funding for the railway and thus more rail was removed for a trail in an area that's already populated with many to begin with I'm currently working to try and stop a local railway line (the former Orangeville Brampton Railway) from becoming yet another victim of rails to trails given such projects are largely a one way conversion in North America especially with how it's usually done in terms of land ownership and corridor preservation alone with the fact that rails returning to trails has become an exception as opposed to norm (along with the fact that in Europe where the concept started it's found to be easier and cheaper to keep the rails instead of removing them)
One of the interesting things Minnesota is doing is that they converted some rails to trails using gravel, so it would be cheaper. This enabled the state/County to own the land. After a few years of funding they are finalizing projects for a light rail system as well as a high speed bus only route. Based on usage of the trails they'll then possibly rebuild after the transit is done being built. Best of both worlds!
The argument against rail-trails that "NIMBY's will oppose converting it back to rails" is specious, and frankly silly. Yes, NIMBY's would oppose converting an existing rail-trail back to rail transit (although I've not heard of any rail transit project being stopped because of an existing rail-trail). Those same NIMBY's would oppose rail transit anyway because light rail would bring the "wrong" people into their community and "muh taxes". Those arguments stopped the Tide Light Rail from expanding on 15 miles of abandoned Norfolk Southern track in Virginia Beach. By the way, any NIMBY's that would oppose converting a rail-trail back to rail track probably opposed the rail-trail in the first place because "muh taxes" and they'd have to slow down where the trail intersects roads. This is also happening in southeastern Virginia, where NIMBY's were strongly opposed to the abandoned Bay Coast Railroad line being converted to the Eastern Shore Rail Trail. Luckily, the ESRT will be built, but it will be unimproved gravel for many years because they are having a lot of trouble getting funding.
@@Joesolo13 okay, I'll bite. Where and when has an actual planned rail transit project been shut down because of an existing rail-trail? And I'm not talking about some dream of a transit fan that never gets seriously discussed. I'm sure all of us have seen some abandoned rail lines and wondered why don't they turn it into active transit. I admit I have done fantasy maps of integrated rail transit system in my state and metro area, and to be honest, almost all of those maps were not feasible, affordable, or practical, and would be mostly unused if actually implemented.
I watched this hoping that a mention of the Santa Cruz project would come up... it's wildly controversial in Santa Cruz County (but then again Santa Cruz counties has some of the most aggressive NIMBYs I've ever seen...and with no such thing as a single family home for less than $1million, they're uhh, 'motivated'). The rail+trail option seemed the most reasonable to me - glad to see I wasn't a complete idiot.
@@obriaind i don't think the concept has been around long enough for it to happen I'm just saying it's much easier to put rails down on an existing trail as opposed to rerouting around some new development
@@evan12697 yeah, it seems like a theoretical idea, but when it comes down to it it’s more likely that the new train line will just end up having to build a fresh ROW from scratch. The better mapped out path for a rail route is surely to take lanes away from a 8 or 10 lane highway.
As you can tell I was sick recently, hence the voice 😅
Anyway enjoy $60 off the on any Hovsco bike if you use code URBANIST at checkout!
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Hello please talk about the purple line
Get well soon Alan.
A face with the voice .
Too many E-A-G-L-E-S and Go Birds chants?
Hello Alan Fisher, I think I have a interesting subject for you to talk about,it’s the Honolulu rail in Oahu,Hawaii,I think you will find this interesting,it’s been delayed for 14 years still under construction since 2009,and 11 Billion Dollars over budget.And how there was already and existing railroad,Hawaiian Railway Society, that had a right of way.
Pyongyang is a great example of transit, cars, and bike infrastructure existing alongside each other in perfect harmony. Pyongyang has a thousand Volvos given to us by Sweden (that'll we never pay them back for after five decades), twelve trolleybus lines, four tram lines, a beautiful two-line metro system, green bike lanes have since been constructed on the major thoroughfares so cyclists don't have to go in the car lanes, and the Korean State Railway has multiple stations in the city that connect to the rest of the country, with the main Pyongyang station being the most famous as it's the one where the city's alarm clock (that plays Where Are You, Dear General? at 6 in the morning every day). It's a shame we're never brought up as a good transit city.
This comment deserves more likes
Im liking for the parody value.
Respected comrade: my guts derailed with laughs.
Imagine how hilarious it would be if this were really Kim typing away in a TH-cam comment section.
Aren’t the trams and all that used ones from former East Germany???
The section on how we're fighting the wrong battles when we pit trains and walking/bikes against each other is really important! One of the best parts about Atlanta's original Beltline concept (and which in theory is still the plan) is that it would be a combined multi-use path WITH a light rail line along it. Giving transportation space for everything EXCEPT cars on old rail paths is good when you have the right of way to pull it off. But primarily the goal should be reduce car right of ways for walkers/bikers/trains.
Reminds me a lot of the fights that happen in green energy between wind/solar and nuclear. Folks spend so much time trying to argue for one of those zero carbon electricity production options they wind up completely ignoring how this fight lets CO2 producing plants continue to fill in the gaps left by each of those technologies. We keep up fighting between what ought to be complimentary strategies (walking/biking and trains compliment as well as solar/wind and nuclear) while the actual villain (car dependency and fossil fuels) gets off scot-free!
Amen!! I love that California is investing in solar but I hate that my state is also shutting down nuclear. We need both to stop using fossil fuels.
@@PASH3227 Exactly! And my state's doing the opposite problem, badly and expensively building a new nuclear plant (not an inherent problem with nuclear just a particular problem of how this project is a massive give-a-way to Georgia Power) while cutting it's program for letting home solar users sell back to the grid. Choosing just one of these undermines the advantages of both and lets the gas and coal companies laugh all the way to the bank.
The *GREENS* in Germany shut down all the nuclear power plants, so last year with the energy crisis, they (THE GREEEEENSSSS!!!!) had to fire up the COAL plants again and in fact needed so much extra COAL that they had to screw over PASSENGER TRAINS aka PUBLIC TRANSPORT in order to MAKE WAY FOR MORE COAL TRAINS to the power plants!
I almost died of irony following that debacle (I am Dutch) and it's the perfect example of what you're saying lol
Oh no! I love the beltline, I wish that this vision existed
@@l3gacyb3ta21 The first stage of the light rail line is the Atlanta Streetcar extension that's currently being planned. There's a bit of NIMBY resistance but the real problem right now is those noting the street car's current failings (because it largely goes around pretty dead parts of downtown) but Mayor Dickens so far still backs the LRT going to the Beltline.
There are so many rails to trails where I live in Chicagoland, and as much as I love bike trails, I wish these rail lines got turned into LRT. Then again, better to have the trails preserve the right of way than to get it chopped up into a billion pieces and disappear from existence. We had a few interurbans whose right of ways just got sold off to adjacent owners and now there's no longer a direct route between some of these cities. Best example I can think of is the route between Aurora and Joliet, two traditional industrial satellite towns with dense downtowns. Half of the right of way got converted to the Virgil Gilman trail. The other half got sold off and would be very expensive to recreate, with buildings, fences, infrastructure, now in the way. You can still see the old right of way on satellite just based on the obvious property lines.
Yeah the Prairie path and similar are all the skeletons of old rail lines. In many cases, they were electrified railways. We want more rail but we love having the trails too
So... You want them to be what they used to be.
Funny you mention those towns- I grew up in Plainfield and moved away 5 years ago. Those downtowns used to suck... Full of empty buildings and a little urban decay- are they looking a little better now?
Staten Island has a classic case of this twice over. The North shore line has been varyingly abandoned, allowed to wash out into the bay/kill, and built over, while the South Beach Branch was simply sold-off and build over as housing.
Neither would be all that ideal for transit anyway(North Shore running right on the coast, a replacement would be better place cut-and-covered under Forest Avenue or Victory Boulevard, the Beach Branch probably better replaced by a bus lane or maybe some trollies), but had they been preserved they could have been useful, even if just as bike paths.
@@F4URGranted I live in Plainfield currently and the downtown has stayed almost completely the same except an extension of the electric park path under the bridge.
Another issue with rail trails is that most do not actually link with places people would actually want to bike to, it reinforces the “cycling as recreation only” paradigm. Lots of rail trails in New England are in rural areas that don’t provide viable transit alternatives or links to commercial areas/jobs, with the only exceptions really being in Boston
Massachusetts resident here... I would assume that rural rail trails are much easier to get approved. They are also a lot less likely to be blocking potential rail transit, which will never be relevant in those areas due to low potential ridership. A lot of them replace 19th century industrial lines, which are as permanently gone as the industries. In these cases, despite being primarily recreational, I would argue that they are an effective transit alternative for at least a few people who choose to use them that way. And they probably keep a few parents from driving their kids around the neighborhood.
@@brianw1620 yes, I was hoping to hear about the Northampton/Hadley/Amherst rail trail and how it began plus the many other connecting town projects. I recall when it started but don't really know the extent of how much it's grown.
I did get that feeling when I was exploring some of Chicago's rails to trails last time I visited. Everyone on it was there for recreation, not because they were commuting to a place of interest using the trail. Some exits off the rail would be hard to do trying to get your bike down the stairs too so a grocery store run would have been difficult.
Transit alternative isn't their purpose. It's just a place to bike and walk. We snowmobile on many in the winter.
Bikes are NOT transportation, JUST recreation! Between snowy weather all winter and rainy weather, not to mention hot weather in the summer, there are relatively few days that a bike can be used to commute. I wouldn't want to work next to a stinking bike rider who rode into work on a 90 degree day.
They are planning to convert a recently closed freight line in Mississauga (near Toronto) to a rail trail and it really grinds by gears because it would be a perfect place to run a new GO train service as it goes through residential areas that are very car dependent.
This has happened in the maritimes and now suburbanites say: "I like the bike trails better!" but the rail lines are MORE USEFUL to a city without any!
I know the one and yes. Sauga planning is legendarily bad.
This the orangeville brampton railway?
I actually live not too far from the old OBRY and have been trying to work with Transport Action Ontario and others to try and have the line continue with rail service as opposed to being turned into a trail given the possibilities for both passenger and freight that were never fully realized (honestly haven't been spending as much time on it but Bill 23 caused Peel to delay their 2051 Transportation Master Plan which is a good way to get them to properly study the line instead of just going ahead with a trail). It would be useful to have other help in the fight but am unsure where best efforts are placed on it currently since the TMP is stalled until further notice
The ORBY section in Brampton is more than likely being kept as the city is growing at a rapid rate and it makes sense to keep this line for more transit options
Not sure about Mississauga tho 😅
Part of the reason train right of ways are treasured by cyclists is the 1% grade usually used by trains, so they most definitely are sought because they were train right of ways especially for distance travelling.
Good for them, they can put a little more effort into pedaling and keep the 1% grades for real transportation.
@@JohnWilson-hb5qc Your response is emotional and stupid. Think critically and make a worthwhile argument rather than acting like you can't understand hypotheticals. There is absolutely no problem with unused rail lines getting converted to trails.
I would gladly ride steeper inclines if it meant not having to worry about some idiot in a car running me over because they were on their phone not paying attention or those people who feel bikes shouldnt be in the roads at all.
@@HrothgarOdubhghaill I have no doubt about that, but over distances it is much more comfortable to ride low inclines.
Great video!!
What you mentioned at 8:05 is HUGE for kids. I grew up in a small exburb in Chicagoland with no transit access, but my subdivision had a small bike trail that ran by most houses in the neighborhood. That was pretty much the only way the kids in my little area built a community by being connected with each other rather than being driven to every playdate (prolly only 1.2 miles away btw)
Prairie Path Gang rise up
For someone from the Netherlands this so weird that this isn't the standard. It is just designing that way, without much additional cost. If I look on Streetview there are examples of a fence that can just be removed.
@@lkruijsw The problem is that the people moving into the suburbs in the 50s and 60s specifically wanted not to have this type of neighborhood connectivity. The specifically wanted "privacy" and cul-de-sacs. They actually paid, and still pay extra for _less_ connectivity.
Ironically, you lot in Europe lucked out that you did not have the money in the 50s and 60s to make this suburban transition fast enough. By the late 70s, most people had already realized that car dependency is an insane concept and started reversing these things. In the US it was too late. But in Europe, a lot of this stuff was reversed if it was ever started to begin with.
Sometimes moving a little slower can actually be an advantage.
This stuff is everywhere in suburban Vancouver. Power lines and nat gas lines usually have walking paths with access to culs de sac nearby.
@@alc3biades262 I wonder if the extra eyes and ears of passers-by helps catch niggling issues with infrastructure before they lead to disruption, thereby saving money and lives.
The moment this video started I thought this was gonna be a PSA, "every year, 100s of rail lines get converted into trials, however only you can stop this, with just one small donation you too, can stop rails to trails"
With just one small donation, you can help stop the infrastructure also funded by donations
Have Sally Struthers appear with a rusted out train car. "For only 5 cents a day, not even the cost of a cup of coffee, you can sponsor a poor dilapidated car like this."
I love that you used Santa Cruz as an example. The nimbys there tried to push the idea of rail banking the branch line exclusively to biking. Luckily, the county is generally supportive of the multi use trail and one day will hopefully have light rail transit next to an awesome bike trail
How would rail transit work there with only one track?
@@pizzajona With American transit frequencies? Easily. Passing tracks. Switzerland does it all the time.
@@MrAronymous do you know what frequencies they support?
@@pizzajona depends on the number of sidings
Santa Cruz is hardly a sure thing; yes, they fought off the a-holes who wanted to rip up the rails, but it isn't funded -- and until they get across the sloughs to Monterey or connection to trains to San Jose, Watsonville isn't exactly a large destination. What Santa Cruz really needs is to rebuild the line to San Jose -- but that is really really expensive.
Great video! Here in Helsinki a former harbour and service rail line was recently transformed into a high speed light rail and cycle route. The project known as Jokeri Light Rail is almost finished and the service is expected to start later this year.
High speed light rail? This feels like the beginning of a "light rail doesn't actually mean anything" joke lol
@@seankaiser2505 it's a light rail line. A largely congestion free light rail line in separate right of way or in dedicated street lanes and signal priority. Its generally a faster and much longer route than any of the city's legacy tram lines, but the infrastructure and equipment is built to be cross compatible, making it one of the only under construction narrow gauge tram lines in the world right now
@@seankaiser2505 You know, the legacy trams in Helsinki are just about the slowest in Europe (averaging 14 km/h), so our standard for "high speed" isn't all that staggering 🐌
You should check out the Beltline in Atlanta. It's an old circular rail route that was used to move freight around the city. It's been turned into a mixed use path and is planned to include light rail in the future.
That would have required he do research for the video. Sometimes he does, but this was clearly just so he could have content to sell a bike.
Places like Marrietta don't want MARTA expansion, they have always voted against it
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv Screw those hicks. We need to expand MARTA in the city first before we expand out to the exurbs.
Yup, the Beltline in Atlanta is definitely on my list for this summer. If you have any suggestions where I should start, let me know.
@@NDCincifan - Hit me up when you're in ATL and I'll give you the grand tour. But, the spot to start is at Piedmont Park, specifically at the corner of 10th and Monroe.
the Trails that are built on abandoned rail lines do have a big advantage though: They preserve the right of way. So if you want to rebuild the line at some point in the future, it's better to put a trail on it that to zone in the area
They're far, far better than it being lost, but they present a barrier to restoration once installed.
Putting a trail on top of an old right of way is not necessary to preserve it. For example, the PRR Octoraro Branch between Wawa, PA and Chadds Ford, PA for decades. SEPTA maintains ownership of the right of way. It would probably make a great trail, but hopefully it would make a better commuter line one day.
The only problem with this is that so far, no rail right of way that has been converted into a trail has ever been converted back into a rail line. The bike trails are usually super popular so ripping them out and putting a rail line back in is very unpopular and I don't think it would realistically ever happen.
Except for the fact that that has only happened once in the US. In practise, once you rail-trail an alignment, it's as good as gone
@@GearReview23 a solution might be to just take a bit of the adjacent land, like we do for car infrastructure all the time...
Remember "the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy"?
As someone who advocated for the preservation of the Santa Cruz Branch Line, I need to add a couple of important details.
First and foremost, it was an absolute pain in the neck for the rail line to be preserved. Santa Cruz Greenway advocated for the removal of the line because they claimed, among other things, that rail was loud and inefficient and that we tried several other operators that fell flat on their faces. Not everyone was fooled, as SCG lost by 73%, but they are still in the troats of the county board of directors of the Regional Transportation Commission to keep any kind of rail and trail from being built. As it turned out, they advocated for the removal of the Santa Cruz Branch Line because almost everyone on the board of Greenway lived right next to the rail line. When a rail line is removed, citizens who live near the line are allowed to either take the land that the rails were formerly on, or they could get paid by the federal government for the line's removal.
In addition, the local heritage railroad, Roaring Camp, has wanted for a very long time to use the branch line again for freight service north of the interchange, where the only freight on the branch is taking place. While the rail line is preserved, it is going to take YEARS for any rail to be repaired in the wake of the recent storms, and for any trail to be constructed.
The abandonment of the Reading main line between Quakertown, PA and Bethlehem, PA and its subsequent conversion to a bike path is often given as a reason for non-consideration of Philadelphia to Allentown train service. Another interesting case to look at is the Adirondack Railroad in upstate New York. Here a group a cyclist aggressively petitioned the state to scrap a rail line, even though the railroad had offered some really creative solutions on how the rail line could compliment the bike trail.
the cyclists should have their cars taken away before they try to do this stuff ngl
Fortunately the majority or the Adirondack Railroad's line was ultimately saved for railroad use, although a key section that was used for passenger transportation to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid has been bulldozed. Unfortunately trail advocates and politicians succeeded in forcing the removal of track from another heritage railroad in the eastern part of the state.
"Railbanking" enabling legislation was sold to Congress as a way to preserve truly abandoned railroad rights of way for future re-use for rail-based transit when the demand justified reinstating rail service. It was agreed that in the interim, rights of way of abandoned railroad lines could be used for hike-bike trails, but that if the need arose, construction of rail lines would have priority and the trails would be subject to relocation or removal.
For lightly used rail lines and rail lines that were "embargoed" but not abandoned, the Rails to Trails Conservancy promised that they would not advocate for removal of existing rail infrastructure for the purpose of creating recreational trails. However they have since reneged on that promise. In the matter of the Adirondack Railroad dispute, the Rails to Trails Conservancy refused to take a stand for preserving the railroad, claiming that their policy was to have no input on the activities of their local chapters and allied groups.
I believe that we need new legislation that stipulates that "rail banking" can only occur if the railroad infrastructure is preserved in place. There are tens of thousands of miles of railroad rights of way in the U.S. which have been devoid of track for many decades and sit unused [except by trespassers]. I believe that construction of recreational trails should be limited to those rights-of-way.
Bingo. I was going to mention the Reading line to the Lehigh Valley if no one else had. I grew up in Bethlehem and rode that train to Philly a few times before it was discontinued in the 80's. Now, getting from Philly to Bethlehem via transit is difficult/clumsy (there is infrequent Greyhound service to Allentown and then you take a LANTA bus to Bethlehem).
I frequently ride on that path. I would guess four times the number of runners/walkers to cyclists. I can't imagine trains getting anywhere near the multiple multimillion dollar homes and multi billion dollar country club in this wealthy area of the state.
Lehigh Valley is starting research to see if it feasible/ has an interest to bring connecting rail to Philly back
As someone from northeast Indiana, any time I travel to Indy I get to enjoy the terrible money pit that is I-69 North. No transit whatsoever, just consistent billions blown on "just one more lane bro."
In the past few decades several of the former rail lines to the northern and eastern suburbs have been turned into trails, namely the Monon to Carmel and the Nickel Plate to Fishers and Noblesville. There has been some fantastic development along these new trails, but it begs the question of how regional transit will ever be integrated well.
Fantastic discussion, Alan! Keep up the great work, and hope you get to feeling better
I was so sad that they didn't end up building the "blue line" light rail between Fishers and Indy 😭 but I feel torn because the Nickel Plate trail is one of the only places you can ride in Fishers without the constant threat and stress of cars. Ultimately like he said, we just need to make room for both... stick that light rail in the highway median or something 🙃. Ultimately though, it's Indiana... so...
@@een_schildpad I agree, biking on the monon and the nickel plate is lovely, but I really wish we had the opportunity for better transit options that we would've had connecting the downtowns of the Hamilton county cities to Indy.
@@calebstone8260 I couldn't agree more!!! That would be so great for everyone involved. What a missed opportunity it is not to have that 😞 Maybe someday 🤞
I'm from the Netherlands (kinda famous for its cycling infrastructure) and here we also have some rail to trail routes. The closest one I live near is one that crosses the border with Germany, just over 5 miles from my home. It runs from the train station in the Dutch town of Winterswijk into the German city of Bocholt with just a slight detour near the actual border. The distance over the old rail route is about 11 miles. It's mostly used for recreational purposes.
Right and the issue in the states is people try to use rails to trails an excuse to not make city streets safe for cycling. The Netherlands has it all.
There's a very unique rail to trail in Singapore that's the result of the rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore, track that used to go up to Johor Bahru in Malaysia from Tanjong Pagar, but was truncated as a shuttle between Woodlands Checkpoint at the border and Johor Bahru. It's not only a 15-mile hiking trail that has access paths to residential estates and parks, but also a "highway" for wildlife movement for Singapore's unique wildlife in an urban landscape (especially important for a country as small as Singapore). Some context, when Britain gave up its colonies, Singapore was combined with Malaysia as a federation in 1963. But Malaysia would end up kicking Singapore out in 1965. Under the Railway Act 1918, the land that made up the railway was given to the Federated Malay States government from the Straits Settlements for a period of 999 years. Meaning this land was still owned by the Malaysian government. Singapore wanted the land returned to them.
After back and forth issues where Malaysia insisted on staying at Tanjong Pagar, Malaysia and Singapore finally agreed to scrap the Railway Act at a leaders' retreat in 2010 (they first did so in 1990, but there was a deadlock), where Malaysia was allowed to remain at Woodlands Train Checkpoint while the rest of the line would be truncated and become a rail trail (called the Rail Corridor). Bukit Timah station remains conserved (as a cafe) including a piece of the trackbed, while Tanjong Pagar station is preserved.
A BIG stupid movement.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Well I guess to Singapore's gov't, its sovereignty matters more than rail connectivity. It has long felt that the railway that formerly existed, being operated by peninsular Malaysia's railway operator KTM, was undermining its sovereignty, especially as Malaysia has setup its immigration facilities @ the Tanjong Pagar railway station, deep inside Singapore's territory & on the edge of our downtown, rather than along our international borders. & in an act of protest, since the 1990s, Singapore had moved out its immigration facilities frm Tanjong Pagar railway station to Woodlands Train Checkpoint (WTCP) at the international border, & forced passengers on Malaysia-bound trains frm Tanjong Pagar to alight at WTCP for immigration.
A conspiracy theory is that Singapore has little incentive to improve rail connectivity to Malaysia (& the former HSR project agreed between the 2 countries might've just been Singapore trying to play nice, while secretly being pessimistic that it would ever take off) as it'd encourage Singaporeans to visit Malaysia more frequently & spend money there (where costs of living are lower) instead of locally, causing an outflow from Singapore's economy. Meanwhile the high commuter demand of Malaysians working in Singapore is likely to be inelastic anyway; because as salaries in Singapore are significantly higher, they're unlikely to be deterred by subpar connectivity across our international borders e.g. frequent traffic jams there, which has also reportedly caused buses that connect WTCP to the nearest MRT (subway/metro) station (which you'll need to get to downtown Singapore from Malaysia, now that this rail to trail thing has already happened) to skip WTCP sometimes.
A side effect of this rail to trail thing (which happened on July 1 2011) is that rail cargo into Singapore was also ended, as WTCP, the new terminus for Malaysian trains running into Singapore, was too small to handle cargo (yes, WTCP is all the way out of town at our international border crossing, but public housing has also built up beside it since the 1970s, as people were attracted to move there by the area's connectivity to Malaysia, as there're land/road crossings there too, unless you want to deforest a swamp on the other side of the station). In 2021 the end of rail cargo came back to haunt us as that made Singapore more reliant on road trucks, & during the pandemic, the gov't required truckers to wait a few hrs for PCR tests before they could enter the country, intensifying jams at the border crossing. If rail cargo was still used, fewer drivers & thus tests would've been needed. In the end the gov't had to give truckers more priority for CoViD vaccination to avoid paralysing our economy.
To compensate Malaysia for scrapping the Railway Act, Singapore also allocated 6 plots of land in its downtown to be developed by a joint-venture (M+S) between the 2 countries investment companies (Temasek & Khazanah). 2 of them have since been completed - DUO & Marina One - as office-cum-luxury condominium skyscrapers with a smaller shopping mall (plus an Andaz hotel in the former). In hindsight, if the Downtown MRT Line's stage 2 (the western segment) was built a few years later (& after this rail-to-trail thing happened), it could've been built along the rail-to-trail, instead of having to be tunnelled beneath Upp Bt Timah Rd that runs parallel to it, saving money. Unlike other park connectors in the country, this rail-to-trail also has a lower speed limit for bicycles - just 10km/h (~6.2mph) instead of 25kph (~16mph) - probably as its unpaved. You could run even faster than that. There was even a photo circulating online of a speeding ticket/summone that was indeed issued to a cyclist there, a sign that the speed limits there might actually be strictly enforced.
Also recently, environmentalists were up in arms over our gov't's long-term plans to replace Clementi forest, which is adjacent to this rail-to-trail, with apartments, to house a growing population. Maybe this will unite the environmentalists with those who've opposed the country's 2013 Population White Paper (due to overcrowding fears), which planned for a 40% population increase to around 7m in 2030, or a population density of ~10000 people/km^2. Opposition lawmakers who'd counter-proposed a watered-down version of the White Paper were quite brashly refuted by our PM as 'irresponsible' I remember. Or maybe the apartments could be built above the rail-to-trail instead (~8-10m wide) to spare the forest from having to be cut down
They definitely shouldn't be mutually exclusive. Next to my house there's an active rail line with a bike path that runs adjacent to it and splits off into multiple different trails along its length. This is a fantastic arrangement that makes it easy for people to get to any of the train stations along the path by bike. To me this sort of idea is the ideal short term goal that we should be aiming for. Public transport and cycling infrastructure are so useful to each other.
Bike paths are great next to both rail lines and roads. The way I see it, the more the better.
Here in rural NJ (A good 2 hours North of you), I live right across the street from a rail right-of-way converted to a walking/biking trail. The whole area is full of them. It's been a long while since I've walked the trails, but I remember being able to find a railroad spike or two along the sides.
Beware of the day when car and truck drivers believe the only place bicycles belong is on "trails," not on roads. Once they believe that, they can easily push us off the roads.
I'd rather have separate bike infrastructure instead of being turned into chunky marinara by a car
A couple examples come to mind in the Metro Vancouver area, where former interurban rail lines were closed and the tracks removed, now replaced with biking and walking trails: the Arbutus Greenway on the west side of Vancouver, and Railway Ave in Richmond. There's also a disused rail line on the south side of False Creek that has been floated for rehabilitation and a new light rail connection from Granville Island to Olympic Village, but there are no definite plans.
Each of these corridors has frequent bus service, but the buses do sometimes get stuck in traffic, so a renewed rail connection would be better, and could probably retain bike paths also. It would likely mean taking some road space from cars, hence the issue described here.
It’s nice to hear you advocating a Rail with trail. So many important rail corridors have been lost here in southeastern Massachusetts to bike trail only. Despite all the phony promises that a bike path can later be torn up, that’s just not going to happen. Most of these rights of way are quite wide, here they’re 60 feet or so, plenty of room for both.
Maybe a good case study for future vre expansion to create an outer ring for the future growth of nova. Between Fredricksburg and Orange, there used to be an abandoned narrow-gauge rail and it kinda falls into the latter catagory
i mean didnt it get destroyed in the civil war, also you're forgetting the most egregious rail trail: the w and od
@@applesyrupgaming No the VC got shortened shortly after it got converted from narrow gauge in the 1930s and yes I do know about the W&OD Ether it should be a regional rail line, a high floor LRV, or automated light metro.
@@erikgustafson9319 i think a grade separated regional rail line would be good for that distance
@@erikgustafson9319 but that would duplicate the Washington Metro Silver Line that now extends out to Ashburn. What put another rail line in when another has been built to serve the same route?
I’ve been frustrated about this for several weeks now due to two rail-to-trail conversions in Milwaukee that would be PERFECT for a light or heavy rail system (we do not have any outside of a downtown street car).
One covers the entire northeast side of the city and goes through or right next to basically every place you’d want to go anywhere near the lakefront, including the HQ of two major employers in the city.
The other cuts through the center of the city and basically would connect the main transit hub to the Brewers stadium, the state fair grounds, the national ice center, a locally well known huge botanical garden, and the county zoo.
We really should have gotten the proposed light rail that would have run from Kenosha to Milwaukee along the UP (formerly C&NW) lakeshore route. This would have connected with Metra in Kenosha.
The Bethlehem Branch is easily the worst conversion locally, because the entire line was double-tracked and in a lot of places they have built costly-to-remove linear bridges and platforms across the entire 2-track right of way...
I’m from Santa Cruz and that rail trail has been so controversial. Tons of money poured into anti rail campaigns.
As a Bay Area techie, I am so sorry that we're shipping our a$$hole millionaires to Santa Cruz county to mess with you locals and create this type of nonsense issues. We're not all moneybags a$$faces, I promise!
This is just the managerial class running wild. The lowly grunts are normal good people, even in tech.
@@TohaBgood2 lolll no blame to you. It’s an interconnected area. I commute into the Bay Area for work, our local businesses rely on Bay Area tourism. I wish there was better public transit between Santa Cruz and the bay so that traffic was reduced, it’s unbearable.
The compromise in Santa Cruz was actually the result of a fierce debate in the town of whether to tear up the rail line or not. They have fortunately settled for building a trail parallel to the branch and keeping the branch for their battery tram system called "Coast Futura" which may be a Gadgetbahn but is a much better fate for the line than being torn up
So I live in Missouri and the rail-to-trail that we're most famous for is the Katy Trail that goes almost 240 miles east-west across the state and follows the right-of-way of the old MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas) railroad. I don't know a whole lot about the history of it, specifically whether it was created to save the right-of-way in case they decide to put a train there again, but if they do, it would be very easy to do that because it goes almost entirely through rural countryside and small towns, but could also easily connect to larger cities like Columbia, Jeff City, and St. Louis. (In fact, it already connects to Columbia via the MKT Trail. And actually the MKT has a lot of those neighborhood connector spurs that were mentioned in the video.) There are some spectacular views along the trail and a good two-thirds of it runs right along the Missouri River. Don't get me wrong, I desperately want more intercity passenger rail in this country. But I won't lie and say I won't be a little disappointed at losing the bike trail if the Katy is ever converted back into a railroad. Still, like I said earlier, it goes almost entirely through rural countryside, so with not much in the way, maybe they could just build another bike trail alongside the hypothetical, future railroad. Here's hoping I guess
Haha, literally ctrl f for the katy trail and found your comment
I think a classic example of a bad rail trail is the rail to trail line between Quakertown and Allentown. Why don't we have train service between PA's 1st and 3rd largest cities?
The Washington and Old Dominion trail in Virginia is pretty good connecting DC to Leesburg. The Metro silver line now runs along a similar route, so it’s not really taking away from transit opportunities
tbh it takes a lot away because the inherent flaws in freeway median alignments make them objectively worse than a downtown station. Additionally, reactivating it as a grade separated VRE line with trail space parallel would be nice to speed up travel times.
@@applesyrupgaming They could've been similar to the CTA ground-level stations (see Brown or Pink Lines for examples). But it just wasn't "meant" to be.
@@brianhenderson9124 well to be fair virginia at the time wasnt this built up and sprawly but 3 years later wmata went to build the orange line or planned it
My city is working on a rails-to-trails as a default after killing a light rail that it used state funds to buy the right of way. The VB Trail is an example of suburban NIMBYs killing an already half finished light rail and turning it into a bike path
Another issue, highlighted by About Here's most recent video, is that these projects are primarily built for recreation and to a small extent for commuters, but not for loitering, commerce, or general community-building. They can still be great features of a place, but we need more projects that people can use every day many times a day instead of on their days off.
Sports cyclist commenting here. Making everything about "utilitarian use" is something which is kind of absurd. Cycling, walking and other things which occur on these trails is quite useful even if it isn't for "commuters" or "commerce." Cycling and running as a sport should be praised because it is probably better than motorsports or driving to a field/gym. It also exposes people to bicycles who wouldn't normally bicycle and adds them to a group of people who are bicycle friendly (or aren't hostile...like the people who roll coal at cyclists). Racing bikes also help keep the bike industry alive and promote huge amounts of development like proper fitting, saddle comfort, helmet safety and expertise. All these things flow from the sport cycling industry. Please don't hate on sport cyclists.
@@thegeneral333 i absolutely agree and yeah, outdoor recreation space is super important to a healthy & happy community. I gravel bike on the trails where I live, it's just that in a lot of places, it's only the recreational users that are catered for, leaving the more society-changing work of increasing overall ridership neglected.
No W&OD trail? It's a rail trail that runs for 22 miles between Purcellville and Arlington, running through towns along its path. The reason why it was converted from a rail line to a trail is because in the 1960's, VDOT used the rail line's ROW for I-66 in Arlington.
Wow production quality is incredible on this vid, great job!
They want to do that in NY, with the Queensway. Highly controversial, and railfans and locals want to see a subway there instead. This one is problematic
I will personally fight Eric Adams to put a subway up there. If he wants a bike path take some parking off Woodhaven.
Alan,
Maybe i gotta switch careers.. I'm an avid cyclist/mtb/crit racer/etc with a materials science and engineering degree from Drexel..
but other than the general act of teaching, the topics in your videos are truly the only thing i get fired up about.. well, that and getting cut off by a cars.. but that's the other side of the same coin 🤣🤣
Love your work.
would love to coordinate a local Philly group ride
I dig it. As a big cyclist, one of my favorite things to do was to ride around (especially where I used to live in Union Co. NJ) and find abandoned right-of-ways and go and research what they used to be. There's an astonishing number of them up that way and many of them share a similar story to the railroad you mentioned here: former commuter railroads that absolutely need to be resurrected. The Rahway Valley Railroad, the Central Railroad of NJ, and more. Yet, exclusive talk is on making them rail-to-trails, which is all well and good if there wasn't such an enormous need for robust mass transit in NE NJ. Another recent example of this is the Essex-Hudson Greenway. The state blew $65 million to buy the right-of-way (which has been abandoned for many decades and should have just been seized, but hey, we still live under capitalism and railroad company's profits are still more important than people's lives) and now plans to make a linear park like the High Line, blowing up any potential for light rail connections (but raising property values for already expensive neighborhoods!). There are proposals to expand the Hudson Light Rail down through South-East JC, over Kearny Point (where some movie studios are being constructed), and into the old Central Railroad terminal in Newark but that wouldn't serve the same neighborhoods at all, so it's hardly "good enough." Heard about the expansion of the PATH train to Newark airport and the debate over adding a stop in the South Ward? Pretty enraging stuff that you'd make some hay with.
I actually used the Santa Cruz rail trail to get to school, it was really great! I just wish it extended past the boardwalk to the San Lorenzo river. Definitely a great transit solution!
Many people think there isn't enough room to fit a bike path and rail line beside each other but these right of ways are usually wide enough since they took into account the need to include space for telegraph poles. I don't see any reason why rails need to be removed in order to build a bike path, sure maybe in present day the rails don't serve a purpose but give it 20 years and they will.
I'd be curious about road to farmland conversion. Removal of topsoil and compaction would seem to make that land basically unusable after constructing a road. I'm really interested to see what people are proposing to get around that.
It isn't just about removing the railbed and converting the land back to the farm use. It is more about people walking and biking through your farm and leaving their trash behind. Imagine your back yard becomes a shortcut for the general public to walk to a convenience store. I would imagine that you would not want the foot traffic.
FWIW, I had to be in Iowa and Wisconsin last summer, rode many rails to trails through farmland/repurposed rails, roads, gullies, etc. Both reclamation and trail design were excellent in general. The thing that melted my brain was that some of the rail to trail paths were dead-on straight lines. I did a century out of Des Moines one day, and there was a 60 mile stretch through farms that was perfectly straight. I almost fell asleep at 20+mph on my aero bars.
Should've mentioned the W&OD here in Northern Virginia, had they kept the rails we could've had a third VRE line along a super busy and populated corridor
Fun Fact: The South Shore line Dyer branch trail is being converted back to railway ROW
I like the idea of burying power lines to make room for separated bike paths. great video Alan!!
Bike paths under powerlines would totally transform my town.
A light rail would be even better if it connected to local centers but just wide safe bike paths would be fantastic.
my city uses power lines right-of-way to built a light rail line on
@@Banom7a Which is pretty much going back to a grade-separated interurban line.
Unless the power lines are low hanging, you could also just build the bike path underneath the power lines. That's what Plano does for some of it's trails
The UK is full of "Rails to Trails." They have some of the most beautiful former rail viaducts in the world..... I really enjoy riding my bike with my kids "we keep the bikes in the living room right by the front door." But because of my work "A electrical contractor" I will always need a truck. The UK does a great job of getting the three to coexist --- bikes, cars and rail. Thanks for posting..... Hope you feel better.
UK rail infra sucks. I used to live there and moved to France. Now realise how bad it is and expensive.
@@murphy7801 I have heard the same but I was talking about the "Abandoned" rail infrastructure (tunnels, viaducts and track beds) that has been repurposed into hiking and biking trails.
@@murphy7801 I suspect it depends very much where you are in each country. Lot of investment in London and Paris. France started earlier and has gone faster with new high speed lines, but as I understand it, frequencies and general upkeep on classic lines can be nothing special, especially on lines not radiating from Paris.
We love the Santa Cruz trail here in town, I love that we still have use of the actual train line, it is really beneficial for the city and we actually almost lost it but we saved it this last election 😊
If the track is gone, the corridor is lost. Congratulations for handing the suburban NIMBYs a VICTORY. :-(
I would also add the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad and the former PRR, nee-Northern Central Line heritage railroad known as Steam into History as other prime examples of good integration of Rails to Trails as both have keep the heritage line in place and allow for bike path expansion and growth.
I'd say it should go a step further, rail infrastructure should be encouraged to support bike infrastructure and vice versa. Being able to commute around on a bike and then just board a train when you need to fast travel from one point to another is an extremely nice thing to have, especially if you don't live a very urbanized area.
Wish that even 1/100 of car infrastructure was removed for bike/rail infrastructure but people freak out when you touch their precious car lanes.
Personally i hate the trails such as the Catskill mountain case and lines locally which the trail advocates have harassed rail customers to get them to close shop so the line can be a trail connection. We need to maximize rail for freight and passenger again because car infastructure as you said is killing us.
I love some rail trails. Tompkins County NY turned a bunch of the old rail lines into trails... except the only reason you didn't want to bike on the highways is the explosion of car traffic, and only sometimes. I live in DC and it's the same thing - this could be light rail, but we have WMATA... who doesn't need right of ways because they aren't expanding...
Hope your feeling well. It sounds like you were under the weather
Another important reason why cyclists love rail trails--especially as commuter links--they're flat! Dedicated bike paths that arent rail to trail conversions tend to be way twistier and way hillier, and tend to interact with roadways in much less pleasant ways. They are generally designed for recreation, rather than getting from point to point quickly. Freight rail ROWs, by their nature, are much less steep and avoid sharp curves. Powerlines service roads in particular can be quite hilly, since they're generally cut straight through an area, without much regard to topography.
Your other points are totally valid; just wanted to point out that a reason why rail trails tend to work so well is because they largely have the same constraints a commuter cycling corridor does.
I lived in Spain for a few years and they have a program called Vias Verdes (green ways). They converted 3500 km of old, narrow gauge lines into hiking/cycling trails. It’s really quite amazing and they’ve done a good job documenting it. In parallel Spain has developed the largest network of bullet train line in Europe and most cities have expanded their commuter trains. Hard to critique the rails to trails there since the narrow gauge was never coming back and these paths were too narrow for modern lines.
Sorry but not correct. They converted old narrow AND broad gauge lines and also FORMER MAIN LINES into "vias verdes", which is an stupiid nonsense.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes ok. But I still find it very enjoyable for cyclists.
There's a LOT of these around DC. The lines they replaced were useless as freight or passenger lines, so they make for perfect trails. They are turning one of the trails back into rail for the purple line though.
not the one in virginia which actually almost stayed rail had WMATA used their brain or the dickerson power plant be built in VA. The result? WMATA runs trains in the freeway median when we coulda had a VRE line with more rolling stock built for regional rail. It was very much useful as a passenger ROW.
Not true on the Purple Line--they will be upgrading and expanding the Capital Crescent Trail along with construction of the rail line all the way to Silver Spring.
@@onorebakasama yes but thus wasnt the purple line, i was talking about stuff in virginia
Those rails were only useless because the misapplication of laws have destroyed the railroads ability to operate properly (like they used to).
Started with the Firestone thing, then tort law hit it pretty hard, and thats all i remember specifically, but there was alot more.
@Apple Syrup Gaming I was referring to the original post (which stated the trail was being turned back into rail), not your comment.
Good video! Here in Ohio we have the Ohio to Erie trail (goes from Cincinnati to Cleveland and also connecting to Columbus and Dayton) that’s almost completely built on abandoned railroads.
I wouldn't say almost completely. The entire(?) northern section is the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail, at least to Massilon.
One thing you didn't mention: Here in Chicago: the Bloomingdale trail that ran through both a rich and poor neighborhood radically increased the property values of the houses a few blocks from the trail in the poor neighborhood.
Good for people who owned, really bad for all the people who were displaced because of it. Urban trails don't exist in a vacuum, and care should be taken to not lead to displacement.
It doesn't help that really good bike infrastructure is rare in Chicago
We're trying to stop a rails to trails project in the Shenendoah Valley in Virginia.
While it's maybe a bit far-fetched, I'd love to see good public transit here between our beautiful small town urban areas.
There's another example of the parallel ROW on opposite sides of the river where one is now a trail in Scranton. IIRC the DL&W and Erie both had lines along the Lackawanna River. When the two lines later merged...
The nimby problem also popped up in that part of Pennsylvania years ago. There was a long unused rail right of way where the track had been removed but was never formally abandoned that was reactivated. Assorted residents had started using that space as part of their yards and argued that they should have a right to prevent the renewed use of the rail line.
More quality alternatives to cars would be great. I am leaning a bit toward a return to rail over a bike trail, as some rail lines were not necessarily planned with commuting in mind. Also, many of those rail lines back in my hometown didn't go through the safest of neighborhoods to reach the city center. If adding a bike and hike trail people have to feel safe enough to use it, otherwise it might be better (although more expensive) to convert to light rail. Thoughts?
I tagged along with friends who were competing in a LAN in Philly. I rented a bike for the weekend and rode up the Schuylkill river trail a good 5-10 miles and stopped in a neighborhood bar one night. Was pretty blown away by how awesome it was. In general Philly was really pleasant to bike around, coming from Atlanta. Narrow one ways and short blocks felt amazing.
The High Line in NYC is one of the most famous and visited rail trails. They were floating the idea of using it for transit, since the far west side of Manhattan is only served by some slow buses. I remember there was a bit of a fight between people who wanted transit and those who wanted a park. I also remember David Bowie coming down hard on the side of park and doing a lot to push for it.
In Shitcago the thugs are already feasting on those using the trails. Robbing people of their valuables and then ride off on their bike, too.
Damn, that's a good thumbnail... Also, what a great video!!! I'm all for rail & trail as opposed to rails TO trails alone. I get so worried that some of our local rights of way will be replaced with trails, preventing future pax rail. I'll use this if I'm ever involved in a town meeting on the topic...
As a long time bicycling advocate, I am totally in agreement with you on rails to trails. It’s a good idea but it’s a way to end all hope for future transit.
That is why most of your pet projects get funding.
Great video and I think you hit the point well about how trains and bikes have to fight each other as we only get the scraps. For the Rail Park in Philly, the problem over the horizon of course is what to do with the City Branch. What are your thoughts on that? To me the City Branch really needs to have some kind of light rail, busway component
@1:48 The parallel rail lines from Philly to Reading were built in the opposite order that you describe. The Reading Railroad was first in 1839: this was their main line to bring anthracite coal to tidewater. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch was opened in 1884 as retaliation against the Reading's competition for Philadelphia-to-New York traffic.
Rails to trails are also fairly flat, direct, and can have good wind protection - something that can't be said for many clean sheet designs.
True rails can't do hills. But at the Santa Fe Rail Trail, bikes don't go over the bridges. So it is up and down -- with a sand trap at the bottom. Big disappointment.
@@robinrussell7965 This is a pet peeve of mine. Many young kids, elderly folks and people with disabilities can't move a bike up a grade of more than 4-5%. If an old rail line is converted into a bike trail, but bridges and crossings are removed and replaced with 10% up-and-downs it makes the trail useless to this huge array of potential users. These folks are also people who are definitely not going to be comfortable sharing a road with cars. If a bike path is made, it should be made appropriate for the wide range of cyclists, not just fit racers and people on ebikes. I've seen some insane 15-20% grades in otherwise flat bike trails. What were the designers thinking? Have they ever tried to ride on the trail they designed?
People are trying to make the "Northern Valley Greenway" out of an unused rail line in Bergen county NJ and I would 100% rather have it be a light rail.
would definitely love to see a video on how we could turn car infrastructure into newer better things
Yeah i second this! Sadly we can’t rebuild on a blank slate in most places, so retrofittable solutions are key.
@@ericlotze7724 3th
Similar to what you brought up at 7:37, there is a trail known as the North Shore Bike Path from Lake Bluff, IL to Mundelein, IL, runs 8 miles and comes up to Lake Michigan
So glad Santa Cruz is being used as a good example of a Rail-Trail! Passenger rail service through the county will be very important to the required sustainable growth over the next few couple decades. Having lived near the trail it was a very convenient, and safe feeling connection.
My cousins and grandmother both live on a road that is connected to the power line trail in Horsham that you mentioned. I have tons of memories of when we were younger and we would ride our bikes or roller blade up and down the trail to other friends houses that lived in the other connected neighborhoods, and nowadays I definitely think of Horsham as being better connected on a pedestrian level than other suburbs in our area. Awesome video, I currently live in Philadelphia and am from Bucks County so it was really cool to see both the Callowhill rail park and a place where I basically grew up in the same video!
Hey Alan great video I just thought about the one project in San Pedro CA that is making it so they expand a park in to a old right of way that was used to run trolleys but was shut down in 2015 do to waterfront redevelopment. I think that it was a shame because it could have easily been double tracked and could have been used as transit line to Wilmington.
As a rail freak, I'm always bothered when a perfectly good rail line is converted to bike path, even when I know there will never be a train there. But I still recognize that it's a good use of space, even if it hurts.
On the other hand, I'm generating terrain in my model train program to convert the Chuck Huckleberry Loop to light rail. My own Trail-To-Rails project on my computer.
Its helpful that the land rights of the corridors stay intact...one day we'll get rid of these hipsters and build things in the USA again. On that day, we'll convert these back to rail lines.
Basically, as soon as a serious world conflict happens, it will be "Trails to rails". Then hopefully it will be Trails AND rails after that.
Although rail to trails was a good idea during the massive abandonments, rarely do they ever materialize for that purpose. Cyclists seem to forget that the row was a railroad and lawyer up anytime an operator wants to restore service. A good example would be when the WSOR wanted to restore service from Monroe to Shullsburg, Wisconsin. Cyclists would have lost part of the trail, but it never happened. People forget that bikes can literally can go anywhere, except freeways and interstates, whereas railroad infrastructure is expensive to build. It’s just better to let tracks lay fallow until a new operator and/or business necessitates rail service.
What we need are stroads to rail/trails
THIS
Love the new on-the-ground format! almost reminds me of a pseudo documentary. hope your voice feels better
The Atlanta Beltline is the premier rail to trail project in the US. In fact it is projected to be a rail to trail with rail that will circle the entire city. The trail part is getting pretty close to being finished.
Hey Alan. Would love to see a video about converting road infrastructure into bike/walk paths.
I live in the Pacific Northwest. We are currently watching a Sound Transit try to replace the interurban rail line that went from Seattle to Tacoma. The tracks got removed in 1930 and turned into a bike path in 1984. It is currently costing $500M a mile to replace. As someone who has worked in transportation most of my life it's hard to see rails get pulled up. The underutilization of most rail corridors gives easy fodder to those who want a trail instead. Keeping the rails intact helps provide future transportation access. We are currently fighting this exact battle in Tacoma where the city owned rail line may be sold to a private operator and parts will likely be abandoned and turned into a trail.
As a rider of recumbent trike, I am fixed to ride rail2trail routes. These can be amazing opportunities for many of us recreationally AND as commuters (I miss my years stationed in the Netherlands).
Thank you for sharing this seldom reported perspective of shared travel space with a vision toward our future. Any opportunity to escape the traffic of vehicles (and the inherent dangers of aggressive driving) is something to consider, and welcome in community planning.
Cheers
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!
I ride my recumbent bike on the Leelanau trail in Traverse City. I it’s like sitting on my couch, looking at the scenery. And connecting all these trails to other bike, Transportation routes makes an efficient transit bike system. If we could make our cities more bike focused, instead of built around cars, we would have a much better way of getting around. That’s healthy and easier on the Environment
@@bladerunner1458 LOLOLOLOLOLOL @ U!!!!! Recreation, NOT transportation!!!!!
As someone from the UK, there are countless examples of railway lines closed by the Beeching Cuts that have turned into cycle paths. Many of them are quite rural and provide a pleasant walk through the countryside. Some routes that use tunnels make it more convenient to cycle somewhere instead of pedalling up a hill.
However, in some cases where plans arise to link one town to another, these paths can deviate from the old alignment due to more recent redevelopment so an entirely new route would have to be devised. Plus, cycling lobby groups kick up a fuss as they say that there'd be nowhere else to cycle through.
YES. I've thought about this topic so many times, especially looking at Manayunk and the Pennypack Trail north of Fox Chase Station and had so many mixed feelings. Glad to see I'm not the only one looking at maps trying to square my competing interests
Thanks, Alan. Please keep the excellent content coming. As I do a fair amount of routine travel on a bike, I would be interested in seeing a video on converting car infrastructure to bike infrastructure. Keep up the good work and get well soon.
In Lyon, France an old freight single track line (ligne de l’est) right of way was turned into a double track express tramway line + a cycle path.
I’m glad they did not turn into just a trail or park.
Great video Alan! I did a paper on this topic during my urban planning degree and came to the same conclusion. Rail vs. trail should be decided on a case by case basis, and in any case it's the conversion of road space to trails that we should be thinking about!
Converting car infrastructure to bike infrastructure, farmland, or just anything else is something I really really really want a video on.
I really appreciate thoughts on rails to trails where transit expansion might become possible again (especially in the Philadelphia area). I live very close to the Merchantville trail (part of the future planned "Burlington-Camden trail") but I'd throw that all away in a heartbeat if the idea of the Mt. Holly line somehow got resurrected by either PATCO or NJTranit. One other interesting wrinkle here is that there are a number of successful downtown businesses along the right of way that would be impacted (some likely requiring moving - like the Station cafe or Eclipse brewery).
I'd also love to see more transit agencies embrace building trails along railroads. I'd kill for a trail running along the Atlantic City line that would connect Pennsauken, Merchantville, Cooper River Park, Westmont, and Haddonfield. Feel free to steal these thoughts for videos! Thanks again for your work.
I used to live near the 606 in Chicago, and had the same mixed feelings about it. Great trail, but the area could really use the rail service. The northwest side is rapidly being up zoned along the blue line. With Chicago TOD policy, those midrise apartments could be built along the old Humboldt Park branch as well if it still ran the L.
I thought it would have been neat if there was a commuter line that started in Union Station that went up Kingsbury St on the east side of Goose Island then turned onto what's now the 606 and went up the old Dunning line and ended Forest Preserve Dr. Similar to the Rock Island's Beverly Branch.
Over here in the Netherlands, there are a lot of areas where there's a bike trail next to a rail line. I really like those. But truthfully, these long bike corridors only shine if you treat them like a backbone and you connect other useful destinations to them. Cycling is great, but as a cyclist I can attest to the fact that I haven't yet mastered the art of teleportation. I like good infrastructure all the way, not just along some parts of the route.
Those side paths connecting neighborhoods is a dope idea and I'd love to see more of that done.
In massive cities like Philly, sure. But in most mid-size US cities, there simply is no demand or hope for rail expansion anywhere in the near or far future. I think that the vast majority of the time, rail trails are good and should be encouraged. One example you'd like is Cleveland's Red Line - they kept the light rail tracks but built a bike trail that goes along the same right of way. So it effectively acts as a bike and transit corridor at once.
A video on transforming car infrastructure to be more bike and transit focused would defo be a good idea for a future video👍. Loving the vids
A good example here in Germany of a rails-to-trails project that doesn't have any problems with it is the RS1 Radschnellweg in Essen. In the parts of it where it replaced old rail lines and doesn't just run next to the existing active lines, the line is replaced was just the service line that ran to the Krupp steel mill, which was demolished and replaced with a large park and the ThyssenKrupp global headquarters. The line in that section also parallels two active rail corridors, one about half a mile south and another about 1.5 miles north, so it isn't taking away any needed potential for expanding commuter operations.
i live in Santa Cruz, our rail trail caused a Ton of local controversy last year because a group called greenway was trying to push the project. they wanted to remove the rail entirely and start building a simple path to make the project go faster, he signs and online ads made it extremely confusing for the voter to decide who was being a total dick and who wasn't. one group was advocating for health and efficiency and the other for "saving our trains". both groups wanted to build a trail, just in a different way. the greenway group ended up losing the vote and we are currently building a rail side trail with the future option of lite electric rail.
Sounds like you're just incredibly biased against dual use, then.
The Santa Cruz Trail could've also been part of a rail trail problem since there were plans by people supporting the trail to have a portion of the railroad outright removed for the trail but luckily it got lots of attention since it had to do with an agreement between the tourist railroad and local government regarding ownership but also responsibility over properly maintaining it (it unfortunately seems that there's a lot of people in the rails to trails circle that are fine with removing railroads that are still active or viable or just use it as a way to eliminate trains in their area). In upstate New York, the state and a scenic railroad were in a legal battle as the state wanted to take part of their rail line and turn it into a trail. Although the court ruled in favour of the tourist railroad, the state ultimately got their way by threatening to remove funding for the railway and thus more rail was removed for a trail in an area that's already populated with many to begin with
I'm currently working to try and stop a local railway line (the former Orangeville Brampton Railway) from becoming yet another victim of rails to trails given such projects are largely a one way conversion in North America especially with how it's usually done in terms of land ownership and corridor preservation alone with the fact that rails returning to trails has become an exception as opposed to norm (along with the fact that in Europe where the concept started it's found to be easier and cheaper to keep the rails instead of removing them)
Ayo? Watching a video before it's posted??
One of the interesting things Minnesota is doing is that they converted some rails to trails using gravel, so it would be cheaper. This enabled the state/County to own the land. After a few years of funding they are finalizing projects for a light rail system as well as a high speed bus only route. Based on usage of the trails they'll then possibly rebuild after the transit is done being built. Best of both worlds!
The argument against rail-trails that "NIMBY's will oppose converting it back to rails" is specious, and frankly silly. Yes, NIMBY's would oppose converting an existing rail-trail back to rail transit (although I've not heard of any rail transit project being stopped because of an existing rail-trail). Those same NIMBY's would oppose rail transit anyway because light rail would bring the "wrong" people into their community and "muh taxes". Those arguments stopped the Tide Light Rail from expanding on 15 miles of abandoned Norfolk Southern track in Virginia Beach. By the way, any NIMBY's that would oppose converting a rail-trail back to rail track probably opposed the rail-trail in the first place because "muh taxes" and they'd have to slow down where the trail intersects roads. This is also happening in southeastern Virginia, where NIMBY's were strongly opposed to the abandoned Bay Coast Railroad line being converted to the Eastern Shore Rail Trail. Luckily, the ESRT will be built, but it will be unimproved gravel for many years because they are having a lot of trouble getting funding.
It's hardly specious, it's happened before, and once it's popular locally there will be even more of a barrier to rail use.
@@Joesolo13 okay, I'll bite. Where and when has an actual planned rail transit project been shut down because of an existing rail-trail? And I'm not talking about some dream of a transit fan that never gets seriously discussed. I'm sure all of us have seen some abandoned rail lines and wondered why don't they turn it into active transit. I admit I have done fantasy maps of integrated rail transit system in my state and metro area, and to be honest, almost all of those maps were not feasible, affordable, or practical, and would be mostly unused if actually implemented.
@@Joesolo13The South Shore line Dyer branch trail is being converted back to railway ROW
I watched this hoping that a mention of the Santa Cruz project would come up... it's wildly controversial in Santa Cruz County (but then again Santa Cruz counties has some of the most aggressive NIMBYs I've ever seen...and with no such thing as a single family home for less than $1million, they're uhh, 'motivated'). The rail+trail option seemed the most reasonable to me - glad to see I wasn't a complete idiot.
I think the best part of rail trails is that the line is still generally preserved and makes it easier to slap rails back down later
When has this ever happened, though?
@@obriaind i don't think the concept has been around long enough for it to happen I'm just saying it's much easier to put rails down on an existing trail as opposed to rerouting around some new development
@@evan12697 yeah, it seems like a theoretical idea, but when it comes down to it it’s more likely that the new train line will just end up having to build a fresh ROW from scratch.
The better mapped out path for a rail route is surely to take lanes away from a 8 or 10 lane highway.
DREAM ON!