As a frequent downtown Durham visitor, I have a feeling the Durham Beltline trail will get so embraced once it’s finished that converting it back into a rail line is off the table for a very long time.
Heck, this is Durham we’re talking about. Because of the legacy of Black Wall Street and redlining leaving a bigger scar on their local psyche than Raleigh, the idea of rightfully treating historically black neighborhoods like historic heritage, in general, is sacrosanct. The whole point of building public transit is to help get more people to places that are worth going to, but if you end up destroying the value of a place in that process… …y’know?
This would be really cool, but I wonder how commuter rail will affect how developers think about selecting sites and projects to invest in. Like if it convinces investors that density (over continued sprawl) is actually worth it, could it end up being a good argument against using the D/S line -simply because it would be “more worth it” to just add more frequent service to the Durham-Garner service that’s in the pipeline now?