Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
I'm usually happy to see old rail corridors proposed for transit or trails, but every rail line we remove from the map is another set of businesses that have to turn to trucking to meet their needs. The railroads already unload a bunch of shipping containers and congest the expressways and local streets with thousands of drayage trucks, only to put the containers back onto trains at a different yard across town. CREATE will help this to some extent but there will still be plenty of "rubber tire interchange" after CREATE is finished.
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Not only that, but once a rail line in a densely built urban environment like Chicago is removed, its gone forever. There's no way residents would allow the construction of any new freight lines in their backyards. While adaptive reuse as parks (ala the 606) are great, it would seem really prudent for the city/county/state to preserve as much remaining freight rail ROWs in the Chicago area as possible for the possibility of use in the years down the line.