Philadelphia Transportation Thread

[kilbride102]

Any news on the potential strike? Leave it to SETPA to ruin what should be an opportunity to shine.

[pwp]

I heard that they won't be striking on Sunday. So that's a good thing.

Also, I pulled this info from the DVRPC's website on approved projects from stimulus funding:

SEPTA intends to extend into the remaining stations, the fiber optic cable that currently runs in the tunnels. This is to facilitate the Smart Stations and Smart Card technology.

This was discussed a few months back, great to see progress being made. I for one am ecstatic that SEPTA is finally getting on the ball for electronic fare processing.

[volguus zildrohar]

The fare system upgrade became news earlier last year before all the stimulus business. Funny, SEPTA was among the first large systems to use electronic farecards and...look where they are now.

[hammersklavier]

New SEPTA report came out. Peruse at your leisure.

http://www.septa.org/inside/reports/...d_Internet.pdf

[Muji]

An interesting note from SEPTA's proposed capital budget. It looks like they've allotted $319 Mil. after FY 2014 for new trolley cars and restoration of light rail/trolley service on Routes 23 and 56, in addition to another $300 million to replace the rest of the trolley fleet that will be 30 years old in 2 years. This is definitely good news to me since the last time I heard, SEPTA had announced no existing plans for restoring trolley service to the 23 and 56. I just really wish they'd put this on the fast-track.

[pwp]

Originally Posted by Muji

An interesting note from SEPTA's proposed capital budget. It looks like they've allotted $319 Mil. after FY 2014 for new trolley cars and restoration of light rail/trolley service on Routes 23 and 56, in addition to another $300 million to replace the rest of the trolley fleet that will be 30 years old in 2 years. This is definitely good news to me since the last time I heard, SEPTA had announced no existing plans for restoring trolley service to the 23 and 56. I just really wish they'd put this on the fast-track.

What route does the 23 and 56 take generally?

[theWatusi]

They also allotted $2.2bn for "new starts" for fy 2016-2021

[theWatusi]

Originally Posted by pwp

What route does the 23 and 56 take generally?

[pwp]

Originally Posted by theWatusi

Nice, thx! Trolley running up Germantown Ave.

[theWatusi]

10-4

[CentralGrad258]

Don't know if I should be happy or not. On the one hand, SEPTA is planning to restore the 23 trolley, and I'm all for that. On the other hand, the capital outlay isn't scheduled until 2014 and who knows when/if it'll get done. It's good to see them planning service extension, but it's so far on the horizon that it's hard to get excited.

[Pavlov's Dog]

A couple of questions from an outsider who's only been in Philadelphia a couple of times.

1. Is there any form of metropolitan regional government with real power above the county level in either Penn or Jersey?

2. Do the rail, subway or trolley tunnels in Central City have vacant capacity? How about the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden. Many of the suggestions presented here seem to think they do.

3. In the Franklin Square area: Would it been difficult or expensive for the Ridge avenue extension to continue into the Patco Speedline tunnels and continue on to 15/16th and perhaps an extension to Rittenhouse Square. Could some of the NJ Transit proposed expansion go into the commuter rail tunnel instead and on to the 30th Ave Station?

4. It seems like the area of North Philadelphia where the Broad St Subway meets multiple commuter rail lines, Amtrak and New Jersey transit would be an ideal regional center and yet the area seems very low-rise and underbuilt.

Please excuse my ignorance in advance.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by Pavlov's Dog

A couple of questions from an outsider who's only been in Philadelphia a couple of times.

1. Is there any form of metropolitan regional government with real power above the county level in either Penn or Jersey?

Nope.

2. Do the rail, subway or trolley tunnels in Central City have vacant capacity? How about the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden. Many of the suggestions presented here seem to think they do.

The MFL's at saturation point, but as for the other tunnels: You bet they do. There's even an unused tunnel in the area of 10th and Arch.

3. In the Franklin Square area: Would it been difficult or expensive for the Ridge avenue extension to continue into the Patco Speedline tunnels and continue on to 15/16th and perhaps an extension to Rittenhouse Square. Could some of the NJ Transit proposed expansion go into the commuter rail tunnel instead and on to the 30th Ave Station?

The PATCO came along long after the BSL. Originally the Broad-Ridge spur and the Bridge subway connected into the same tunnel and both ran to 15th/16th. The current Spur 8th/Mkt station was built in the '60s, when the formation of the Speedline (which runs with a different fare system) necessitated the separation of the two.

4. It seems like the area of North Philadelphia where the Broad St Subway meets multiple commuter rail lines, Amtrak and New Jersey transit would be an ideal regional center and yet the area seems very low-rise and underbuilt.

Please excuse my ignorance in advance.

That because it is a very good idea.

Hey, Wats, CG, don't get carried away. Remember there was a trolley appropriation in last year's budget, as well as the ones for the year before that and then the year before that one, etc. Until and unless there's a real community demand for trolley restoration, like say a bunch of Chestnut Hillers marching into 1234 Market with a petition with, oh say, 50k signees, the current SEPTA management ain't going to restore trolley service on those lines.

[volguus zildrohar]

1) You'll never see it - at least on this side of the river and the reason is that Harrisburg likes to power play entirely too much. Right now the state is grappling with various issues related to the manifold local governments that exist in the commonwealth (there are 67 counties but 501 school districts and only Illinois has more municipal governments) so they would never even consider another type of regional government to exist in this state, particularly in the Philadelphia region.

2) The Broad Street Subway as built should be able to handle the capacity of at least three additional branches. I don't want to sound authoritative on something I can't provide you with hard figures for but I do know there's a lot of spare capacity between what exists today and what should have been built 60 years ago.

3) PATCO, as hammer said, is a separate bag of cats run by a different agency than ioperates the city subways and trolleys. The tail tracks that extend past 15th/16th always come up as an extension alternative when people who don't actually make the decisions talk about expanding rail transit in the city. It's a shame the people who do make the decisions don't always seem on the same page.

Also, I'm not sure what you refer to by NJT's transit expansion into the commuter tunnel. The CC tunnel is really only accessible to and by SEPTA trains. Trains off the national network technically can access it but why would they? The tunnel serves regional commuter stations and only connects to the national network on one side. Even if SEPTA were amenable to the idea NJT just aims to connect its riders to nodes in out of state places (namely here and NYC) and 30th Street Station does that.

4) The area around North Philadelphia station used to be a regional hub. Those stations weren't located so close to each other by accident. The issue is the surrounding area. It once was among the places to be in Philadelphia but it took the long economic slide like many other parts of the city. There is excellent existing transit infrastructure but no reason for anyone to use it unless they lvie there.

[pwp]

For those interested in BSL's potential expansion to the Naval Yard, check out Plan Philly's recent article as it's mentioned there.

http://www.planphilly.com/node/8556

[pwp]

This is precisely the reason why I started this thread. It seems that there is such little actionable concern for future improvements within the City especially as it relates to transit. From the PBJ today (http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...13/daily3.html).

The federal stimulus package triggered Paul Levy, executive director at Center City District, to evaluate what projects could benefit from the funds being funneled from Washington. “Because of a lack of planning and focus on infrastructure ... we have nothing shovel ready,” Levy said in an interview prior to the event. “We need to do more serious infrastructure planning for downtown.”

[CentralGrad258]

Originally Posted by pwp

This is precisely the reason why I started this thread. It seems that there is such little actionable concern for future improvements within the City especially as it relates to transit. From the PBJ today (http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelp...13/daily3.html).

From the PlanPhilly piece:

There was another piece of news that got Bolender’s attention. “Extending the subway down there – boy, talk about a great infrastructure project,” she said. “It’s such a resource down there, even more than any of us could imagine.”

The Broad Street subway extension is “a very real project,” Seltzer said, with “very realistic numbers.” Two new subway stops within the Yard would cost in the neighborhood of $370 million, according to a recently completed feasibility study.

This has always been the most logical transit project for the city. What are the steps that need to be done in order to make it transit ready? Seems like the stimulus bill was a huge missed opportunity. Instead of nibbling around on the edges, here was a chance to really make a substantial impact with huge economic potential for the city. Sigh, Philly has a way of really frustrating you sometimes.

[pwp]

Originally Posted by CentralGrad258

From the PlanPhilly piece:

This has always been the most logical transit project for the city. What are the steps that need to be done in order to make it transit ready? Seems like the stimulus bill was a huge missed opportunity. Instead of nibbling around on the edges, here was a chance to really make a substantial impact with huge economic potential for the city. Sigh, Philly has a way of really frustrating you sometimes.

Yup! So frustrating isn't it? Plan Philly had an interesting piece on the Naval Yard and BSL extension. Check it out when you can!

[volguus zildrohar]

The Daily News ran a feature today, "Rethinking Philadelphia", which featured several articles envisioning future aspects of the city, transit among them. That particular article featured two maps developed by Penn grad students working with the studio Philadelphia Futures 2040. They offer some interesting ideas - BRT, converting the core of the Regional Rail system into a more frequent mid-distance metrorail system. The idea of neighborhood metro centers, as hubs of transit and development for particular neighborhoods, seems uniquely thought out.

[hammersklavier]

I think making service along the inner reaches of the R routes is a good idea (hourly headway from Doylestown / half-hourly Lansdale / quarter-hourly Glenside or Jenkintown, for instance) although I disagree with the map--R6 needs to go all the way to Norristown, there's an important transit node there.

Hubs are a smart idea but will probably be difficult to implement.