Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoiler
I love the idea of pedestrian freeways in dense areas of town. For your plan to succeed, a government entity would have to build it (likely the city by issuing a bond) and it would cost tens of millions of dollars, would very likely look ugly, and would be too hot to use during the day for months of the year. NYC turned existing elevated rail lines into a linear park. San Antonio has done well with sinking walkways below street level instead of elevating them, and having them next to water which creates a cool microclimate in the summer.
But I do have similar dreams about access in that area. My dream is the city buys out the railroad companies and uses all the tracks for mass transit, like light rail, pedestrian greenways and such. There could be a train with stops at the bridge, the Alamodome, Essex.
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Freight railroads sometimes share active ROW with transit or bikeways without having to be totally bought out, just depends on if the railroad has space to spare and is willing to enter into a ground lease with the City or transit authority or whatever. Minneapolis has a lot of bikeways along railroad ROW, and parts of DART share ROW with freight railroads, for example. I believe there's been talk in the past couple of years of using the Union Pacific spur that goes out to that quarry at I10/1604 for light rail or commuter rail. Can't remember if that was shared trackage or shared right of way, but it's a general concept that's been on the table before in SA. Personally I can think of about half a dozen places where it would be neat to run bikeways along shared railroad ROW.