San Francisco: Marshaling Water and Historic Railway Lines for Future Transport

Gregor Macdonald submits: I can never decide which is sadder: the Obama Administration’s token 12-15 billion dollars for national railways, or, the greenblogger, transportblogger, and mainstream media’s belief we’re pursuing a new rail policy. The United States has for years been piled high with unfunded rail projects, just waiting for a green light. But the 12-15 billion allocated so far will, at best, provide nothing more than seed money for mega projects like high-speed rail while neglecting the myriad smaller projects across the country. In the same way the Obama Administration has no energy policy, they have no transport policy. Turning the clock back a few years, however, it’s worth recalling that John Stilgoe’s Train Time was not only well received among his graduate students at Harvard, but was also popular among hedge funds and private equity investors looking to invest in rail. There were reports that investors were scurrying to locate historic rail maps across America, and also Rights of Way deeds, to better quantify emerging opportunities. To this point, I found the first of some historic railway maps for the Bay Area this week, at Calisphere. Here is a section of the 1900 Mill Valley and Mt Tamalpais Railway Co Map and Schedule:Complete Story »