TOD = Transit Oriented Development, new scheme on an old model. Still tends to be a developer trying to build something off OPM (other people’s money) and profit off of that. Twin Cities & Lake Superior Railway was a great case of grand intentions and poor follow-through. Surveyors and title people north of Minneapolis are still dealing with the nightmares and legacy issues that this flop created.
Lots of that happened 100-125 years ago and few succeeded. (Interurban, streetcar or a combination of both. The Denver area had both. Denver & Interurban was a wholly owned subsidiary of C&S until it died in 1922, pieces of it in Ft. Collins and Denver lasted little longer)
DPL -Digital Library (DENVER TRAMWAY scenes)
Except for the power plant and car barns, most of these outfits owned no R/W, didn’t acquire real estate property or pay taxes on land. Pretty fair trade-off in most cases.
Cities continue to be careless, reckless and dumb paving over tracks, active or abandoned. (Still have vivid memories of the SP GP-7 or 9 on it’s side, in the middle of the street,in the LA Basin in the 90’s because the local bubbas thought a little-used track was abandoned.