Quote:
Originally Posted by Nova08
It's 8 blocks from the BSL until the branch tunnels under the Art Museum and connects with CSX. An extension past the Whole Foods area is a non starter. There is no room around the Art Museum and associated green space for a BRT to come up to grade. And I'd say the extension to the Navy Yard is light years more important than an 8 block extension to the BSL in this area.
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Maybe I'm misreading, but there's plenty of spots to connect with the main street grid for BRT (although I'd rather see some sort of light rail or connection to BSL), such as 29th street at the Art Museum side and the ramp from the tunnel to Nobel street after passing under Broad. Also, 401 N Broad was originally a freight terminal. The trains would stop at the lower level you see here while the ramp would be used for through service to reading terminal:
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9596...4!8i8192?hl=en
https://hiddencityphila.org/2015/11/...nd-callowhill/
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcgrath618
If you want to incorporate the Boulevard with mass transit, run a subway up its ROW. That was the plan for the loop, and it'd still work just as well. You could do cut-and-cover under the parkway and still allow traffic to move during construction by keeping the outer lanes open.
The City Branch is nothing more than a ditch. It was never intended for passenger use, and its best use now is to be developed upon. Whether that development should be public space (ie. the rail park) or private (ie. this project) is up for debate.
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That "ditch" would be incredibly expensive to build today and a subway under the Ben Franklin parkway would be even more so and redundant to the city branch cut. While the subway under the parkway looks better on paper, It'd be far more realistic to reuse the city branch tunnel in some way. Also, the vine street expressway is in the way of any cut and cover job.