"The experience of every city I've looked at is that the space around the rail trail is considered really desirable as a place to live," he said. The addition of a park or walking trail does more than simply improve an immediate space, according to Dr Roberts. "So rail corridors tend to be very smooth gradients, very gentle hills, smooth curves and they don't have a lot of intersections with streets." University of New South Wales research associate Lee Roberts. "Often what happens is when a rail line is abandoned, it kind of reverts to private ownership and is usually broken up into small pieces and just gets absorbed into nearby properties. "Because of changes in the way people move trade, or because of changes in city character, there ended up being a lot of abandoned rail lines," he said. Lee Roberts, a research associate with the University of New South Wales City Futures Research Centre, said repurposing rail lines was then seen as a great opportunity, particularly in growing cities. The origin of rail trails dates back to the 1960s in the UK and the US, when many thousands of kilometres of train lines - both freight and passenger - were no longer in use. Rail trails have a 'natural relationship' with cycling, walking paths
This infrastructure left over from the rail heyday can shape the way people move around in sometimes subtle ways.Īnd experts say the practice of converting former train routes into parks and paths will play an increasingly important role in keeping people healthy and happy as cities grow and grapple with issues like climate change. ( Reuters: Mike Segar)Ĭloser to home, you might have gone for a weekend cycle through the bush or commuted to your job on a former railway corridor converted into a path. New York's High Line, a 2.3-kilometre linear park, was created in the footprint of the former New York Central Railroad.
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