Hot Take, they should make the landscapes around the long distance rail corridors protected lands to both preserve the views and beauty of our nature and because they offer long linear corridors that could easily be bought by the government
Obviously the areas around stations and in cities don't need the protecting because those are part of cities and a lot of people live in those sections so the land can't really be preserved easily but like it could be also used as a way to easily create a permanent greenbelt along cities
They also need to add wildlife overpasses. Like, highway overpasses-sized structures in the middle of nowhere so large animals can pass freely beneath without having to know the train schedules.
I agree that would be a genuinely great idea
Nebraska and Iowa have barely any protected lands, imagine if we bought the land surrounding the California Zephyr and restored the historic prairie around it, it would be a generational project and significantly help the natural ecosystem
