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Meanwhile, along the Delaware....
from here:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local...rail_plan.html
Sep. 22, 2009
Public hearings set on waterfront rail plan
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
As transit planners contemplate a rail line along the Delaware riverfront, they're overlooking the best way to connect it to Center City, says a local architect who has long argued for better riverfront access.
Alan Charles Johnson's solution: Extend SEPTA's Market Street subway 400 feet east from the Second Street station to join a proposed rail line on Columbus Boulevard.
Johnson's unsolicited advice comes on the eve of the first of
two public meetings about proposals for a trolley line along the waterfront and into Center City.
For years, the Delaware River Port Authority, which operates the PATCO High-Speed Line between South Jersey and Center City, has talked about extending rail service along Columbus Boulevard.
In January 2008, the DRPA chose three alternatives to examine. The agency has said it will announce its route selection within 60 days.
The meetings today and next week will be the last opportunities for public input before that route decision is announced.
Two of the proposed plans would connect waterfront rail service to existing PATCO trains at the soon-to-reopen Franklin Square subway station at Seventh and Race Streets. A third - and
more likely - scenario is a PATCO link at Eighth and Market Streets to a new Market Street trolley line from the waterfront.
As currently envisioned, that trolley line would run along the surface of Market Street from the waterfront to City Hall, where it would connect with SEPTA's subway-surface trolley line.
The new service, which would require federal financial help, is probably at least $1 billion and eight to 10 years away, DRPA officials have said.
But Johnson estimated an extension of the Market Street subway could be built to the waterfront for about $200 million.
"The station at Second Street is already there, and it's at the same level as the waterfront," Johnson said.
He said a new trolley line along Market Street would get bogged down in street traffic, while the subway would avoid that.
John Matheussen, DRPA chief executive officer, said DRPA planners had "very preliminarily" considered a Market Street subway link to the waterfront and dismissed it as too expensive and inefficient.
The heavy-rail subway trains would not be compatible with light-rail trolleys, Matheussen said, and the two separate lines would require a passenger transfer station with elevators to link the two.
"We decided that from a standpoint of efficiency, access, and cost, it was not a good alternative," Matheussen said.
The public sessions on the waterfront-transit proposals will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. today at the Friends Meeting House, Fourth and Arch Streets, and at the same times on Sept. 30 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust St.
The proposals are available on the DRPA Web site at
www.patcopaexpansion.com.