Stop Giving Up ROW

[me_little_me]

Okay, I found some more information about the Iron Horse Trail.

The railroad right of way that compromises the trail was abandoned in 1977. It was not rail banked. Two counties purchased the right of way in 1986 and promptly converted it into a trail. There is no evidence that they intended to restore rail service.

I also found an article that mentioned that, much more recently, BART was considering the right of way for enhanced service. Presumably in response to this inquiry, in 2019 the State of California passed a law that said this specifically about the Iron Horse Trail: While there is potential for emerging transportation technologies to be implemented in the corridor, a busway or exclusive mass transit guideway is no longer a best practice or appropriate use of the right-of-way.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/...html?bill_id=201920200AB1025&showamends=false
If the right of way was railbanked, the state legislature could not have foreclosed the reactivation of the right of way for rail. The example you gave isn't what you think it is. It's the opposite. It's a strong argument in favor of railbanking.

I would tend to disagree with you. The state funds BART (along with local and federal) and I'm sure they have at least some input in deciding who is in charge of BART so they can stop BART from reactivating the right-of-way. Money talks. Big money talks louder. If BART were not funded by them, I'd tend to agree with you.

 

[Exvalley]

I would tend to disagree with you. The state funds BART (along with local and federal) and I'm sure they have at least some input in deciding who is in charge of BART so they can stop BART from reactivating the right-of-way. Money talks. Big money talks louder. If BART were not funded by them, I'd tend to agree with you.

Politics would be an issue even if the tracks were still on the ground but had been dormant. What you are saying is not an argument against railbanking. It's an argument against politics.

 

[George Harris]

2) MDOT wanted to restore service on a rail banked line that turned into a recreational path. It happened.

If this is referring to the ex B&O line from Silver Spring to Georgetown, then why don't I see anything but the trail when I look at Google maps? I spent a brief period on the planning of this thing in the late 1980's, and so far as I know very little has happened since. If you can point out to me where and what has been done, I would like to know it. (There was also quite a bit of opposition to the trail also, as a lot of the adjacent landowners did not want the riff-raff wandering along behind their back fence. There was also a country club that tried to claim that when the train quit they became owners of the land, and that even with the rails still there.) This is over 30 years ago, so some of these memories may not be exact, but none the less, no track can be seen on Google.

 

[me_little_me]

Politics would be an issue even if the tracks were still on the ground but had been dormant. What you are saying is not an argument against railbanking. It's an argument against politics.

I am not making an argument re railbanking. I'm disagreeing with your contention that the legislature could not have foreclosed on BART's intention to do railbank restoration if it were railbanked. The COULD foreclose - by using political and financial force.

 

[Exvalley]

I am not making an argument re railbanking. I'm disagreeing with your contention that the legislature could not have foreclosed on BART's intention to do railbank restoration if it were railbanked. The COULD foreclose - by using political and financial force.

My point was that a state legislature has no jurisdiction to un-bank a right of way that has been railbanked.

 

[cirdan]

What are the requirements for a ROW to be railbanked?

I guess there has to be a somewhat tangible prospect that the line could be of use somehow.

And without knowing the details, I am assuming the problem with the Iron Horse Trail is that at the time of abandonment nobody actually foresaw that possibility, or made a credible argument for it.

So to paraphrase (was it Donald Rumsfeld or one of those folks) railbanking only helps with the unknowns that are known but is useless for the unknowns that are unknown.

And situations can totally change in less than a decade, if you consider how many locations there are that were once farmland as far as the eye could see and are now completely filled with housing. So by consequence many a ROW that appeared totally pointless 20 years ago may now have potential as a commuter route.

Maybe it would be better if railbanking was the default option and a credible argument would need to be made to remove the protection?

 

[sttom]

My point was that a state legislature has no jurisdiction to un-bank a right of way that has been railbanked.

According to the advocacy group for rail banking, an agreement with local government is part of the legal framework to rail bank a right of way. Which only came into existence in 1983. Given how in some states, certain local agencies can only come into existence by an act of the respective state legislature, a state could indirectly put the idea of rail banking within a state in question depending on what form the local entity is structured as. And a lot of local entities are organized by legislation that can be changed. Which would be something to be settled in court.

My other contention is that policy and politics don't happen in two separate vacuums. Politics effects what policies go into place and rail banking isn't magically immune to that. And a lot of us are having very clear issues with rail banking and transportation policy more broadly that you're just hand waving away by saying "that's politics not policy". They're related and rail banking is a small part of our very disjointed, ildefined and largely unfunded public transportation policy. So rail banking might work, but it was an after thought to an already unappreciated part of policy, not some central tenant of transit policy. Cause 1983 was just after deregulation and when we were seeing that it was having a lot of unintended consequences and it very much was a the Tylenol to deal with the pain of it all.