How does parcel geometry influence use?

This linear landscape is in the process of becoming a park.

It is a robust, local example of the typological experience of a decommissioned North American rail corridor. In some ways it is not unique all, and serves as the Detroit outpost for this national phenomenon. The landscape underscores the typical behavior of rail corridors left to their own devices.

The remnant gesture of a long-removed linear infrastructure creates an easy and clear impression of how this piece of land could transition, with little investment or physical improvements, into a publicly accessible landscape corridor experience.

Cottonwood and rhus line the former rail edges. At moments, the parcel thickens into a mounded landscape of ballast, ideal for BMX stunt riders, and a field of Canadian thistle, a naturally occurring gesture dense enough for a Field Operations rendering. Evidence of animal activity is present in nearly every season. This landscape is special because of its age, and the length of time it has been given to mature; for its length of half a mile, which enables an immersive journey through its various conditions; and for at moments its depth (more than 400 feet at its widest). Other rail corridors and their easements, even in Detroit, are bounded through a regular geometry. The long-removed rail spurs and turn around previously present on site allow for diversions within this railscape, and a layered series of reveals.

For a moment, this place was profound amidst this group of landscapes for how easy it was to reimagine it as a public space. In that sense, it served as a very strong example of the benefits of urban wilderness in Detroit; of less the need to import new materials and plants to a location, and more of working to manage and maintain the vegetation which has already occurred. Even the unimaginative could see it here.

The City recently announced that construction of a bicycle and pedestrian trail will commence here in the Spring of 2021.