What effect does rail have on sprawl?

Question

Give this question your best shot. Its kind of important to me.

Answer 1

Hmm, well, passenger cars are much more roomy and comfortable than cars or planes or buses so the passengers are more able to sprawl out and relax then any other forms of transportation.

Imagine trying to sprawl out in a subway!

If you are talking urban sprawl, I cant add much to what avio has already said, of course being able to make the commute from urban areas to the city, greatly increases sprawl but roads can be built virtually anywhere while new rr tracks are very seldom built. The sprawl will not necessarily be worse or better because of railroads but railroads can ease the problems cuased by unchecked sprawl and unscrupulous developers that build and build with no thought to the future or the problems they help create.

Answer 2

Historically, urban sprawl is an effect of the transition from rail to the automobile.  Hard to say whether the exponential increase in gasoline prices and the cost of owning a private automobile will tend to reduce sprawl in the future or not, but it is a good bet.

Urban light rail should have a tendency to localize residential areas along rail corridors, reducing sprawl into the open lands in between.

People are unpredictable, and the American love affair with the personal automobile is really, really deeply rooted.  So things may not follow a logical course.  But in European countries, where people are more sensible than Americans, urban rail systems work well, and there is much less sprawl.

Let's hope we see that in this country, too.  A better education system would help.

Answer 3

Immense. The effect can be seen particularly in the growth of suburban London, following the expansion of the Underground lines. Those to the north pushed out into green fields and ended there. Then the houses followed, swallowing those fields up. One line, the Metropolitan Railway, even coined the phrase 'Live in MetroLand'  It brought up land around its lines, and had a subsidiary, Metropolitan Country Estates which built the houses. People moved into them giving the property company profit, they had to travel into town for work so the railway company got the season ticket money.

Answer 4

thats simple, there was no sprawl untill the railroad. same reason the hiways made sprawl as you call it and the same everything known to man has created spawll.  kill the animals, kill the trees , kill the water supply and who is getting rich, not you an i

Answer 5

A good place to look is Japan, where owning a car is expensive, and rail dominates.  A key factor in real estate in Japan is "walking time to _____ station".  Both commercial and residential rents reflect proximity to stations.  

Sprawl is mostly unavoidable if you have population growth.  What rail does, is manage that along the tracks.  You have developments near key stations.  In many countries rail companies are also in the real estate biz, as were the railroads in the US in the 19th century.  The build the tracks, buy land where they want stations, build stations, and commercial/residential buildings near the stations. This is a repeat pattern.

Another place to look at the impact is in the east coast where you have older cities that have been connected by rail for 100+ years.  You may want to look at Connecticut towns that behave as NY City suburbs (Darian. New Caanan,...).

Everywhere I have been rail stations seem to form communities where as the closest thing to a center in the burbs of West Coast are strip malls.

Tough question.

Answer 6

now? none

rail is for long distance commuter or short distance commuter from already established sub-urban areas

in the late 1800's and th eearly 1900 it had a tremendous effect in that it, essentially provided for the existence of the United States west of the Missouri River