Over on the Discord (I promise we’re looking into alternatives too) /u/PyropusSquantscale recently asked for examples of Wicked Problems you might see in a Solarpunk setting. These are problems in planning and policy that are difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. Problems with no single solution.

I’m not sure if I am hit the requirements with this one but I think it might shape up into a proper campaign someday so I’m transcribing it here.

For these issues, I think scarcity is a pretty critical element and for that I tend to default to land because even in a post-scarcity utopian future, nobody’s stretching the continents to make them any bigger.

This one was inspired by a photobash I’ve been working on for the opening of a FA campaign I hope to publish soon.

A railroad company once owned a right-of-way to build tracks, 30 miles long and twenty feet wide, it crosses hundreds of properties and even divides two lakes by building causeways straight across them. The sort of thing you can’t build anymore because environmental protections block this kind of work for good reason, and because all those landowners (stewards/caretakers in FA) will raise holy hell if you try to cut a strip out of their land and clearcut and level it.

So folks in our solarpunk future want to interlink these towns and villages with a train like they had back in the old days. The right-of-way and the long, clear, nearly-level, perfect-for-trains swath of land is still open. The tracks are still there. But the right-of-way is owned by the state and it was turned into a much-loved bike path now.

Reopening train service means cutting the trees back, fixing up the tracks, and most importantly, that people can’t ride bikes here anymore. And, of course, big, loud vehicles will once again be traveling through everyone’s backyard.

The abutters are already organizing to stop it, and they’re couching their protests in terms of protecting the bike path and environment because they know NIMBY isn’t the most sympathetic argument. They also have a lot of supporters from the towns and surrounding areas who legitimately love the path as it is.

On the other side you have people in five towns who want light rail service so they can travel reliably and ship goods to and from the outside world.

And in this corner, a surprise third contestant: a watershed protection trust for one of the lakes is concerned about the causeway the train will travel across - they’re afraid brake pad debris, fluids, etc will enter the environment and of course the watershed their well water comes from. They’re also concerned that the causeway will need repairs before it can return to service, and that these will violate the shoreline protection act and could disturb an endangered species someone conveniently discovered nearby

If you need more complexity, turn your eyes to the towns themselves. Trains need stations and the historical ones with good locations have been repurposed while the line was inactive. One is a town information stand and chamber of commerce location (easy to reclaim because it’s still owned by the town), one is a restaurant who’s operator absolutely loves it in its current form, one burned down and got replaced by apartments people have built their whole lives in, etc. And the railway turntable at the end is now the centerpiece of a popular public park.

Add in a larger society that has moved away from cars, past societal crumbles where the roads went unmaintained for so long you might as well rebuild from scratch, and a dense local population that really needs a way to reach (and trade goods with) the outside world and I think we’ve got a fairly tangled situation for a group of agreement agency mediators to try and resolve.