Quote:
Originally Posted by Vince_
Will this be totally blocking the city branch tunnel? Last I heard they were putting a park portion cap over the tunnel. It's such a no brainer to use that tunnel for mass transit.
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The tunnel connects nothing with nothing, that's the problem, it was never designed for transit in the first place, it was freight only servicing the Callowhill industrial strip.
The best solution would be a tie-in with the BSL which is cost prohibitive, or to come to grade at Broad Street which isn't ideal. Street running downtown would be slow and expensive to lay track and hang wire. The other option is BRT which is about the only feasible usage for the tunnel. The problem is, again it doesn't go anywhere. It terminates at Callowhill and Broad St, so you still need to route on city streets downtown, turning it into a regular, slow bus with just a short stretch in the tunnel. It's really not worth the investment to convert the tunnel for what would essentially be a mile or two of BRT parallel to the parkway.
If money was no object, I'd love a heavy-rail spur of the BSL, but that's never going to happen, ever. I mean, the city will become depopulated by some kind of cataclysm and the human race will die out and Philly will never expand its mass transit infrastructure. What was built out in the last century is all we're ever getting.