Mass Transit Rail Line

I've been thinking about how you get development back into the core of the city. I have been increasingly concerned that the rising cost of energy will make those with financial means to gravitate towards the two employment poles, downtown and the Germantown Pkwy/Hwy 64 Corridor. People with less means will be forced to commute longer distances and fall further down the economic ladder. Data shows that commutes to work for people living in Frayser, Whitehaven and most of the city inside 240 have doubled since 1990. This is eroding the tax base and decimating these areas.

So how do we get development back into the city. I have recently heard about the light rail system in Charlotte. They have completed the first 9.6 mile stretch of the line in November 2007. So far it has exceeded ridership projections, but more importantly, it has raised the values of properties along the line and encourages new retail and residential development. This first 9 mile stretch cost $463 million. I believe a mass transit rail line could be done here for much less.

If you look at the orange line on the map above, that is an old abandoned rail line that still has tracks for most of its length. It runs from east side of Binghampton north and then west all the way to Second Street. It goes by neighborhoods such as Hollywood-Springdale, Hyde Park, and New Chicago. These neighborhoods have seen better days and lost significant populations over the past 20 years. There is also substantial open space along the line for development. An express bus line could run from downtown to the Second Street Station.

Take a look at the blue line. That runs from the Dupoint plant out by Fite Rd just off of Hwy 51. This train line is currently used and links to the main rail line by the Dupoint Plant running north. I'm not sure how much traffic it has, but I don't think it is so much that a communter train couldn't run on this line. There is plenty of open space to build links of parallel tracks so that traffic wouldn't be delayed. There are a couple of nice resources already along this line. One is the Nike Plant and the other is Davey Crockett Golf Course. If you could get commuters from Millington and Tipton county to park their cars at the Fite Road Station and ride the train into the city, make a connection and go on to downtown, I believe that would be a benefit to the city and the commuters. The train line would also great assist people in Raleigh and Frayser who work at Fed Ex. Hope on the train and then catch an express bus from Central Station to the airport.

The last line is the purple line. I believe this is a high used rail line, but I think there is enough space to build a parallel commuter rail. This line could run straight out towards Bartlett. A Station could be built by Covington Pike. People could get from Bartlett to downtown quickly for work or leisure without need of their car for less than the cost of parking your car. This line would cost the most but have a lot of potential, especially since it would provide high speed public transport to large neighborhoods south of Jackson Avenue.

You may be asking what about South Memphis. Unfortunately, I couldn't find too many unused or low use train lines with much open space around them for development. Perhaps, bus service could be shifted to the southern part of city. But we’ve got to do something and I believe the return on a relatively small investment would be great for these areas and city as a whole. Basically, build a transit skeleton and the city grow around it. It worked with all those roads to nowhere in the county a generation ago.