The Mexico City Metropolitan Area in Mexico has grown beyond the original confines of the Federal District and sprawled into surrounding cities located in Mexico State. This transition from a large but centralized city to a sprawling megalopolis means that the challenge of providing services, including adequate transportation options, to the population is growing exponentially. In response to the growing population of commuters, the government has invested in various mass transit projects to increase travel efficiency. The development of a commuter rail system capable of transporting hundreds of thousands of suburban commuters is a priority project that has spanned three Mexican presidencies with continued support. Since its opening in 2008, this suburban electric rail system, the Ferrocarril Suburbano, has been serving commuters between the Mexico City greater metropolitan area and municipalities in the northwest, greatly reducing passenger travel time and curtailing emissions. The project has been sponsored at all levels of government—federal, state, and local—and includes a public–private partnership. Apart from the project's uniqueness in its working collaboration between the different levels of government, as well as the successful concession process and the partnership with the concessionaire, it is also distinctive because it is the first commuter rail project of its kind in Mexico that uses existing rail infrastructure. This study examines the project's development, financing, and concession process.
The paralleling of existing rail lines in excess right-of-way (R/W) and/or the re-use of corridors first used by railroad companies has long been a method for acquiring linear corridors for other transportation uses. The practice of re-using rail alignments is a logical one given that railroads steered development patterns in the United States prior to the highway era and the corridors that served the railroads also effectively serve existing population centers. The long period of railroad consolidation since the end of World War II resulted in the abandonment and loss of many rail corridors that would now have been extremely valuable for transportation development. Preserving former rail corridors is beneficial to transportation planners at the local and state level, as they can be employed for new transportation uses or multiuse recreational trails.
This paper discusses the findings of a multifaceted research project that examined issues associated with acquisition, preservation, and re-use of abandoned rail corridors in Texas. The paper summarizes the legal and policy review that analyzed Texas, Federal, and other state abandonment policies to determine what, if any, changes would be necessary for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to take advantage of future opportunities to acquire and preserve these corridors. The paper also reviews results that identified and documented past Texas rail abandonments and identification of potential uses for existing/prospective abandoned corridors. The paper concludes with an overview of the findings of this study which noted that as the state’s population continues to grow, preserving all potential transportation corridors for rail or alternative uses will grow in importance.
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