Originally Posted by
Detroitnerd
Maybe I should share my experiences with a successful commuter rail system. That might do better than anything I could accomplish by arguing against you.
I spend a fair amount of time commuting between New York City and Ossining, N.Y. Yes, there was a lot of park-and-ride activity at the station. It had a nice, big parking lot, not by our standards, but by the standards of a small Hudson River Valley community. It was near the water, where cool breezes would waft ashore. Sure, the parking lot was full every day, but at night, when the lot was virtually empty, the community would take it over, setting up chairs and holding outdoor jazz concerts. The rail station was really a focal point of the community and it was used well thanks to its intelligent layout.
Don't get me wrong: I once almost got whiplash standing on the platform and being surprised by an express train blasting past at 80 miles per hour. But in the parking lot, surrounded by greenery, it was a nice spot, a central spot, a place everybody was familiar with, and you could have a good time there. It was, in more ways than one, an asset to the community.
Now, you've had scales fall from your eyes when you look at our freeways and see how they could be used for rail travel.
Have you also noticed how monstrously ugly that infrastructure is? Have you noticed how communities don't come down to the expressway for jazz concerts? Have you noticed how they instead erect barrier walls so they don't have to see, smell or hear this fume-belching, droning, monotonous road?
You wouldn't be the first to think of our problems as being merely problems of engineering. That all you have to do is set up a rail in the middle of this right-of-way we have and people can use that because it's more convenient and easy to design. But the aesthetics are awful. You propose using a place that people don't want to be as the very place they should stand around and wait. On that level alone I'd say it's just not a good idea.
Look at a map of Ossining. It's beautiful. You walk down Main Street, the main stem of the town, and it leads down a curving slope with plenty of trees and greenery and drops you right down at the rail station. It's so well-designed. It's a pleasure to stroll to the train. This is how you make transit so that people want to use it.