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A large urban park in Charlotte?


dubone

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As an example, there a warehouse burned down there a number of years ago. It was full of the very noxious herbicide paraquat that nobody knew about including the fire dept. It caused a great deal of problems. They would have never known about it except for the fire.

Of course all of this really depends upon the NE LRT actually getting the funding it needs to be built. I doubt this is going to happen anytime soon as they are at the edge of cost effectiveness and given CATS inability to come up with a realistic proposal, I think they are going to have a very hard time getting the Feds to believe them again.

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Unless these rail lines can be located elsewhere, I am not sure this makes for a good place to have a park.

Grant Park in Chicago has rail lines running right through the park and it hasn't affected (IMO) the ability of that park to be all it can be. They have recently covered some of it with the Millenium Park renovations on the side towards Randolph St.

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For a first hand example of this, I recommend going to the Kannapolis train station and sit at the station while a freight train rolls through there. I don't think there will be any doubt on the difficulties of shielding something like this in a park setting. It should be noted that most of these trains are headed for the same corridor that we are discussing here.

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There are far, far more trains per day through Grant Park in Chicago than there would be in Charlotte, though in Chicago they are all electric passenger trains.

The presence of freight trains need not ruin a park. Pullen Park in Raleigh is bisected by the busiest freight line in town, with no sound walls and only a thin and inconsistent row of vegetation to shield the picnic area from the noise. Trains roll through all the time, and yet I've never seen anyone get up and leave in disgust when one rumbles by. More often, they sit and watch, while the kids point and jump up and down exclaming about the choo choo. Interestingly one of Pullen Park's major attractions is a also a scale railroad you can ride, so it fits with the theme. People don't hate trains. Somebody who came to the park to meditate might have their concentration broken... but the simple solution is, don't meditate in that part of the park!

A yard is a a bit of a different animal, it's a bit more unsightly and is wider. But there's no reason the same principle can't apply.

If you relocate the yard, theoretically you don't have to move all of it. I'd guess the maintenence facilities could be relocated pretty easily, while moving much of the switching operations would be expensive, and extremely disruptive since it would require additional trackage along many lines all over town.

So, if the intermodal yard and the maintenence facility were relocated, and some of the yard's lead tracks reconstructed, that would leave a sizeable chunk of land for conversion to TOD and a park. Build a new bridge over the narrowed yard (Parkwood-Dalton connecor, anyone?) to provide connectivity to N Tryon. Build it with wide sidewalks and nice lighing, in conjunction with a streetscape project on Tryon & Parkwood. Maybe that would help?

Just thinking out loud. No idea how much environmental remediation would cost. Probably a lot.

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In looking at this proposal a little more closely, I'd suggest abandoning the idea of relocating that rail yard and the extensive container storage to the west of Brevard Street. I can't see a scenario where Norfolk-Southern would compromise their largest freight yard in the Charlotte Metro (prime location by the way). I also can't see where they would be willing to give up much room on either side of the railyard within the parcels of land bounded by Tryon and Brevard, especially not enough to support a park of this size.

That being said, I think a more realistic option may be to explore the demolition of the industrial yards (albeit that likely support the rail line, I haven't driven the route, so I don't know for sure) that are located on the two blocks to the east of Brevard Street and bounded by Davidson Street. Cross Davidson to the west from Cordelia Park and demo north to Matheson Avenue rather than disrupt the rail corridor. The next question would be bridging the gap between this park space and the additional park space you're suggesting to the north of Matheson (I'll leave that one to the forum)

A nice swatch of green along Davidson in which you could construct mixed-use and TOD along an open green space heading north to the arts district of NoDa might be a nice feature.

Keep in mind, there is a large sub-station (no, not the sandwiches) near the intersection of Matheson and Brevard that would cause additional headache in terms of constructibility and aesthetics were it to remain (more than likely, Duke Power is a stubborn bunch).

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In looking at this proposal a little more closely, I'd suggest abandoning the idea of relocating that rail yard and the extensive container storage to the west of Brevard Street. I can't see a scenario where Norfolk-Southern would compromise their largest freight yard in the Charlotte Metro (prime location by the way).
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Yes, the yard itself is unlikely to move. However, the intermodal facility (where the container storage is) is already planned to be moved to land near the airport, where Norfolk Southern can expand and have a larger operation. Not sure what NS plans on doing with the land, but if / when the Northeast Corridor gets built they will likely sell it off for some sort of TOD.
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That part that is being moved to the airport is the section against Brevard and Parkwood that has all of the trucks. The rail lines are not moving. It might be possible to squeeze some housing in there, but I am not sure how receptive people will be in listening to trains run by their houses all day and all night long.

See this link

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A rail yard is much different than a busy railway, for residents. With a railway, trains rumble by, and you can get used to that. But when cars are being moved back and forth in a yard, and go **CRACCKK** at unpredictable times when assembling new trains, it's very disturbing.

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A rail yard is much different than a busy railway, for residents. With a railway, trains rumble by, and you can get used to that. But when cars are being moved back and forth in a yard, and go **CRACCKK** at unpredictable times when assembling new trains, it's very disturbing.
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I have a friend that lives in a house off Monroe Rd. near the rail line there. Trains routinely roll through there and when they do, you pretty much have to stop conversations if you are on the phone and everything shakes. This house is much better built than what they throw up today. I can imagine there won't be a lot of demand for $250K condos next to the same thing over where this intermodal facility is today. This is a very busy corridor.

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