Why Rails to Trails are Problematic /// HovCity Ebike

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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!

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.

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"

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

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.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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'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.

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.

Wow production quality is incredible on this vid, great job!

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.

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.