David Crossley

We already own the ROW

President, Houston Tomorrow, May 17, 10.

Tagged with transportation, transit, high speed rail, texas triangle, freeways, right of way

This afternoon, TxDOT held a public visioning workshop about Texas passenger and freight rail. I’ve just come out of that and my head is spinning.

Over and over again, the breakout sessions came back to the difficulty of using the old freight rail rights of way for passenger rail, the impossibility of using it for high speed rail, and the extraordinary cost of acquiring right of way along those privately owned rail lines for passenger service.

Yet TxDOT and other public agencies already own all the right of way we use every day to get to our homes and jobs today. This right of way is in streets and highways. In fact, that infrastructure was specifically created, often by TxDOT, to enable the creation of places that we can get to. Why not use it to provide transit service so that huge numbers of us that want to can get around without using cars, thus relieving pressure on the car and truck lanes?

Full story: We already own the right of way that connects our homes and jobs
Source: Chron.com: The List, May 17, 2010

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