Throughout the last two decades of the 20th Century, and the first two of the 21st, railroads have been disappearing. Often being torn up and turned into abandoned right-of-way, turned into trails, or just abandoned with rails left in place. I contend that these actions are the antithesis of responsible planning, and these rails need to be reused for other purposes.
The Rails-to-Trails Disaster
Rails-to-Trails is a program where local governments are donated or purchase railroad ROW, and they convert it to trails. It seems like a great idea, but it is actually a horrible idea. Most of the rails-to-trails projects involve removing existing rail infrastructure, and replacing it with a non-permeable surface, usually asphalt or concrete. Both of these surfaces are actually quite bad for your body to walk on, and without proper footwear can cause impact damage to your body. On top of that, these trails rip out millions of dollars in rail infrastructure, including the ties/sleepers, rails, crossings, specialize traffic signals, and bridges. All of these trails should have instead been turned into either regional commuter rail or light rail/streetcar, it would greatly reduce the cost to add rail to the region/city, and it is already near housing and businesses. This reduces the burden to municipalities or transit operators to add higher capacity modes, but also has a built-in customer base, it isn’t being built away from population centers to reduce cost, which also mean that fewer people will need to drive to access the rails. If for some reason rail is not desirable for mass transit at this time, some minor modification to the ROW can be done, without removing the rails, to allow for BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) to use the ROW, until there is demand for rail.
One Mode to Rule Them All (Not)
Too many system focus on running a single mode of non-bus transportation. However, the most successful systems in the world use multiple modes to achieve the goals of serving their populations. London uses subway/metro, heavy rail, light rail, and trams to cover its population, along with regional rail. Tokyo uses bullet trains, subway/metro, heavy rail, light rail, trams, and monorail to cover its people. To meet the transportation needs of a region, multiple systems must be used, in order to best serve the community. Have a lot of hills? Use subways, buses, and/or monorail to ensure reliable service. Have lots of low-lying land? Use trams or light rail to move people around.
Public vs Private Funding
Most of the best systems in the world, London, New York, Tokyo, etc; all started as private enterprises. This seems to be the best way to ensure that systems are build to cover the most number of people, as the private enterprises want to make as much money as possible, with as little out of pocket cost. Some, like Tokyo, are still privately owned and operated. Systems that are started by governments, are usually designed around creating new communities, rather than serving and improving those that are already in existence. Not to say that their goals in creating transit orientated development is bad, just that it alienates tax payers to not be served by the transit systems they are paying for, or still having to drive some distance to reach these routes.
Love ’em or hate ’em, Buses are Good
Buses are often maligned for being the “poor mans transit”. While they are traditionally the cheapest for users, they can be improved greatly to be on par with fixed route transit. The easiest way to do that is to increase service. Move towards multiple vehicles per hour, something similar to what you would get on a fixed-route service. This will help the service to fit into peoples’ lives, and make it more attractive for commuting, as well as being much more reliable to connect with other routes, without long transfer times. Also, if you have a major arterial that has a large number of traffic signals, and also a lot of traffic, consider locating bus transit on adjacent, parallel streets. By removing buses from the arterial, you will usually increase reliability, especially if you prevent normal vehicular traffic from said roadway or at least prevent if from continuing the entire length. Preferring or requiring pre-payment of fares is also a great thing to improve buses. It makes the bus more like a metro service, and drastically increases the speed of embarking and disembarking. Ticket machines on the platforms, as well as accepting NFC payments goes a long way towards increasing the viability of buses.
Don’t skimp because of size
You may not live in a large metropolitan area, or even a metro at all. That doesn’t mean that public transportation shouldn’t be important. It means you have a greater chance of actually being able to keep up with the future, if you start now. If you have disused or abandoned rail lines, push to keep them, and plan for future uses. Get a bus system started, even if you just have one route running at 30 minutes intervals, that can go a long way towards encouraging changes in mentalities. Start a shuttle to the major job centers, shopping districts, etc. If people see the bus in places they are planing to go, and they don’t have to wait an hour or more between them, they are more inclined to try it, and maybe keep using it. You don’t even need 30’+ buses, smaller vehicles are more than capable, and can serve your needs, without a massive capital investment.
However, cities as small as 30,000 people should be working on their own internal light-rail system of some sort. It may seem like a small number of people, it really isn’t and the right system can easily be self-supporting, once you get the infrastructure built.
Conclusion
Public/Mass Transportation will never solve all of a city or regions problems, but we as a people have screwed up continuously in the past, but have the chance to reverse these actions. It will never replace the car for all uses, but anything that encourages less vehicular use, will always be a positive, for people, your community, and the environment.