Abstract
The disappearance of kilometers of railways that once structured their surrounding territory has become an alarming issue in the last decades. These days, several disused railway infrastructures have been converted into non-motorized transport infrastructures. Meanwhile, most of the railway nodes have been abandoned or reused without consideration of the linear infrastructure. This paper argues that former railway nodes can have potential in their surrounding environment and as part of a non-motorized transport axis, i.e., to again be nodes of the former linear infrastructure. Accordingly, the objective of the paper is to analyze the potential of disused railway nodes, focusing on the possibilities they could offer in the area, and defining future approaches for more sustainable development. For that purpose, relations between former railway nodes and their surrounding environment are studied considering transport and land use in the non-motorized influence areas. Existing node/place models were adapted and a multiaxial model was created to measure the balance between transport and land use and typify the defined area. The proposed methodology was applied in a case study, classifying node areas in different development typologies that will be related to different future approaches.
Highlights
The disappearance of many kilometers of railway lines has become an alarming issue in the last decades
This paper focuses on the relations between former railway stations and their surrounding territory in order to define the potential for more sustainable development of node areas
The node/place and NCU models proposed for transit-oriented development (TOD) development were adapted for nodes of non-motorized transport infrastructures in order to manage their balance between transport and land use and to propose suitable future general approaches
Summary
The disappearance of many kilometers of railway lines has become an alarming issue in the last decades. The system, formed by a linear element (the railway) and the functional nodes created around it (stations), made a model of suburban mobility possible and wove a network of movement and activity that connected urban centers with the rest of the territory. From this point of view, railway stations are understood as node/place geographic entities comprising two partly contradictory natures [1,2]. They are access points of a network and their role is to connect people with destinations. They are part of a segment of the city that consists of infrastructures, buildings, or open areas, and become destinations themselves [3,4]
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