Reclaiming Existing, Underutilized Infrastructure: Aquatic Options For Transit-Oriented Infill Development

In cities across America, there are various existing assets that were produced to complement the overall system making up total infrastructure. Often, however, rather than utilizing existing forms of transportation infrastructure (e.g. unused rail lines, navigable water), new highways and roads are built to serve areas that can already access existing non-road assets. Better use could be made of existing, viable infrastructure for a lower cost than new highway construction, while leaving far greater areas of land open for development. This would result in significant economic, social, and ecological spillover benefits. The use of such infrastructure for mass transit would provide declining communities with decreased travel times to other places, such as central business districts, since they would provide dedicated rights-of-way. Often, waterside communities are filled with properties that are not economically feasible to develop due to high costs in elevating them above floodplains. A relatively small investment in aquatic-based transit, such as vessels and dock improvements but little property acquisition or right-of-way construction and maintenance, would immediately make these properties worth reclaiming, promoting the infill redevelopment of existing communities rather than furthering detrimental urban sprawl.