Ownership of the LV and EL ROW North of Mortimer Junction

As a point of curiosity, would anyone happen to know who owns the present day right of ways of both the Erie/Erie Lackawanna and the Lehigh Valley northbound from the present day configuration of what is/was known as Mortimer Junction. This right of way leads into downtown Rochester.

The second part of your question is easy: Mortimer Junction no longer exists. All switches and crossings were removed. CSX and the LA&L run parallel until the LA&L turns South down the former LV. There is no remaining sign of the Erie ROW south of the junction except for two curb cuts along Jefferson road. Those will disappear once the planned reconstruction of Jefferson Road begins.

North of the junction, there is a hiking/biking trail that shifts between the two a couple of times. There are power lines along both. Once both ROWs enter the UofR property, they are in use by the college until you come to the bridges over the road and the Genesee River. North of the UofR, the LV is a trail along the river up to the subway entrance. I have not ridden along it since the I-490 bridge construction began, so I don't know what it looks like now in that area.

After crossing the river, the Erie ROW becomes the Greenway trail, until it vanishes at the site of the recent housing/retail development on West bank of the river.

Here's an aerial view of the former junction from Microsoft's Live Search Maps site:

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&c ... &encType=1

Hope this helps.

Hope this helps.

Oops, sorry I mis-read your post. You didn't ask what the junction looks like. Anyway, to be brief the most of the current owners are:

UofR
City of Rochester (LV north of UofR)
Genesee Valley Greenway (New York State) - Erie north of UofR
Lehigh Valley - Town of Brighton, I believe.

apratt wrote:Oops, sorry I mis-read your post. You didn't ask what the junction looks like. Anyway, to be brief the most of the current owners are:

UofR
City of Rochester (LV north of UofR)
Genesee Valley Greenway (New York State) - Erie north of UofR
Lehigh Valley - Town of Brighton, I believe.

Okay. Thanks for answering the question. I live within a mile or two of that location so I am well aware of how it looks today . My initial question was to gather information gauge the feasibility of a transit solution for the city of Rochester and into the two largest universities in this area (RIT and UR) seeing as the right of ways come close to or run through the campuses.

I was also kind of hoping that it would fall under LA&L ownership.

Luther,
you probably already know this..
but perhaps not everyone does:

There is already a group in Rochester that is attempting to build some new light-rail in the region..(or at least explore the feasability of it)
and I believe UofR and RIT are/were part of their plans..
I dont know how active they are anymore..
havent heard anything new about them in a few years.

took me awhile to find them via google, but here they are:

http://www.ggw.org/rrtc/

(hey..there is that Penn Central font again!)

Scot

A lot of people go to U of R
A lot of people go to RIT
I'd bet very few people go from U of R to RIT or vice versa

Said line would have little value unless tied in with a much larger system. And a much larger system would require much larger input of our money - I mean "tax dollars". No, wait, I had it right the first time.

The RRTC has been rather quiet in the last year or so. I have not heard or seen anything from them about bringing back usable transit to this city. In my opinion buses just don't cut it.

scottychaos wrote:Luther,
you probably already know this..
but perhaps not everyone does:

There is already a group in Rochester that is attempting to build some new light-rail in the region..(or at least explore the feasability of it)
and I believe UofR and RIT are/were part of their plans..
I dont know how active they are anymore..
havent heard anything new about them in a few years.

took me awhile to find them via google, but here they are:

http://www.ggw.org/rrtc/

(hey..there is that Penn Central font again!)

Scot

BR&P wrote:A lot of people go to U of R
A lot of people go to RIT
I'd bet very few people go from U of R to RIT or vice versa

Said line would have little value unless tied in with a much larger system. And a much larger system would require much larger input of our money - I mean "tax dollars". No, wait, I had it right the first time.

Good points, my thought is the system would not simply be a intercollegiate system. A small system like that would be pointless unless both universities had strong ties to one another as in the became one with two campuses, in which case, they'd be paying for bulk of the construction, upkeep, etc.

A larger system that got people into the city itself could do some good for this city though.

Hey Scot, do you like my web site design? :-) I made that site and drew the maps for RRTC many years ago. Unfortunately, the city largely ignored their findings after spending a lot of money on an engineering and feasibility report. There is also another group that was advocating trolleys as a tourist attraction versus a transit solution, Rochester Trolley Rail. A recent search shows their site seems to have evaporated.

Going even further back, I have a copy of a report from 1972 from the Rochester-Genesee Regional Transit Authority that explores the question of a rapid transit or light rail route from Charlotte to City Hall to RIT to Riverton and Avon! Rising gas prices were a concern... a dramatic photo shows pump prices of 38 and 41 cents! The report draws no real conclusions, but is full of 1970s optimism and Buck Rogers-isms about rapid transit and what a utopian society it will create.

Going even farther back, the city council looked at ways to expand the moribund Rochester Subway in the early 1950s. Plans called for abandoning the electrification and old trolley cars and replacing with Budd RDC's. This would also allow expansion over other rail routes- including the LV and Erie to Henrietta, the PRR to the Airport, and the B&O to Charlotte. This map explains the proposed 1952 expansions (that were quickly dropped and forgotten):

http://railroad.net/articles/railfannin ... sb_map.gif

Luther, if access to the RRTC maps or this 1972 report helps you, I can arrange to have them sent to you. Sorry for wandering off the original topic of Luther's post. There seems to be a historical context for a Henrietta-to-Rochester link and even a Henrietta-Charlotte link.

-otto-

According to county records, the ROW's north of Moritmer Jct are owned by either the UofR or the Town of Brighton.

Otto,
I thought that looked a lot like your style!
especially that font..
but I didnt see your name on it anywhere, so I didnt mention it..

nice page!

Scot

scottychaos wrote:but I didnt see your name on it anywhere, so I didnt mention it..

You need to scroll down further!

Eh, I was just bustin on ya. It was a fun project! Making all those photo illustrations of trolleys in Rochester was fun, too!

-otto-

The problem is bigger than just the two colleges. U of R and RIT do have very large contracts for busing each. But, the problem in trying to build anything and involving both are where are they going to go to? RIT and U of R both have their busing go to and from Marketplace Mall and that neigborhood. U of R has its Arts locations near Eastman Theatre district of downtown. RIT has the INN and Conferance center by I90 on Rt. 15. So do you use start and end points near the RIT INN and end in downtown. and how does this system get used by the rest of the population for the betterment of the entire population? Add another dimension: Nazarath, MCC and St. John Fisher. Fisher college, and Naz also have sizable busing contracts. Do you make a North South route and an East West route to include everything with a common hub? The LAL ROW and the Westshore ROW might offer some options for this but still its a system that should work for the entire population rather than the colleges. Total daily ridership on the RIT shuttle daily is usually only 700 people, with the bus being at capacity (28 people) only two or three times a day, the number is based on personal observation. Uof R also has the added Strong hospital facility that might increase ridership. The big thing about it all is that RTS has done an absolutely horrible job in servicing and routing.

One of the problems with resurrecting the 1972 plan is that a good piece of the trackage that existed then is gone now, in particular, the subway and the Lehigh/Erie out to Jefferson Rd.