Parking Garage at Noble

bikentransit wrote:It's annoying that local governments use SEPTA's budget to build municipal projects. The city is famous for it. Garage definitely needs to be plopped on a train and sent up to Warminster...or further up. The demand is in Bucks County guys, get with the program!

Or maybe SEPTA and DVRPC could try to actually restore abandoned service in Bucks. A great project would be a simple extension of the Warminster Line to Ivyland, which could has land near the Ivybrook office park for a 300 space lot and could promote walking within Ivyland boro. Or maybe faster Doylestown service, Newtown or just leasing parking in nearby office parks like what Septa does at Hatboro. Noble garage could still be built for Abington (discount at garage for residents of Abington) but it certainly isn't the answer to capacity/parking problems in Central/Lower Bucks. It's a shame that DVRPC rejected the Northern Suburbs Transit Solution Study as too low a priority.

25Hz wrote:

Quinn wrote:

25Hz wrote:I'm passing towards Bethayers right now, and suddenly the train is half full.

That must have been quite a shock. Did they suddenly pop into existence, or was it a slow fade in?

I talk to people all the time waiting for their train & all agree service is below what is needed on the reading side, especially doylestown, and west Trenton, as more and more people flock to transit/populations & traffic forces them to seek alternates to driving the whole way.

Oh, you're one of those people...

25Hz wrote:So, the solution, is to move where i would be unable to really leave & do things due to inadequate service, vs transit provide adequate service. Gee, by that logic, we should just all abandon the outer counties and move to the city....! (eyeroll)

Not "all". Just you. Also, your argument is word salad. You can't "leave & do things" in a city? That can't be what you meant.

25Hz wrote:Considering the 4 fold increase in population since the rail line was shuttered and 28 times since the interurban was shuttered, some sort of increase in services to the areas between doylestown and lower bucks is in order. To put in perspective philadelphia's population in that same time has stagnated, and gone down respectively.

Previous rates of growth don't matter nearly as much as what the density is now, especially now that we're at a new inflection point where a lot that we used to know about rates of growth is proving to be no longer true. The construction growth is in the central core, not the fringes, and VMT has been flat or declining since 2005.

Transit is about providing freedom. Specifically, the freedom to arrive at a place of your choosing, at or near a time of your choosing, with whomever you choose. Everything beyond that is implementation details. This is a map of all the places within 60 minutes, by transit and walking up to 15 minutes, of my apartment: note that it's not just about the land area colored in, but what's contained there: the people to meet, the friends to enjoy the company of, the potential jobs to work at, the businesses to patronize, the restaurants to eat at, etc.

http://www.spondee.org/noda/Francisville_isochrone.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And these are the equivalent maps for a randomly selected address in the heart of Newtown Borough, and for Langhorne Station: again, it's not just land area, but what's on the land. Langhorne does pretty well by that measure, although I suspect the algorithm is being slightly unkind to transferring at Jenkintown.

http://www.spondee.org/noda/Newtown_isochrone.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.spondee.org/noda/Langhorne_isochrone.png" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This sort of analysis, by the way, is why I'm against SEPTA spending its own money in places like Noble for parking garages. It does nothing to increase the freedom of transit users. It's not even a good place to park a car as a last-mile option for going outbound. If the proposal were for Willow Grove or Colmar or Warminster, then maybe I'd understand, but it's in a well-situated spot for redevelopment along 611, focused on walkability to and from the station. The stretch of 611 nearest the station is currently the location of a series of rather unfortunate parking craters. If Abington Township really wants to increase the parking capacity of Noble Station, there's plenty of existing spots in private parking lots it can lease from local businesses in a 5 minute walk from the station. Or it can rezone the area and allow private money to build a parking garage in the area, instead of or in addition to walkable TOD. I strongly suspect it has no desire to allow a garage apart from a SEPTA-subsidized one, nor would they get any takers if they did. The private sector has far better uses for its money, and so does SEPTA.

Now, before it gets buried forever, what's this about a yard track?

are there any projects that could reduce travel time between jenkintown and cc?

bikentransit wrote:Garage definitely needs to be plopped on a train and sent up to Warminster

Please not in Warminster without widening Jacksonville Road or programming an “Evacuation Route” sequence into the traffic signals along Jacksonville when peak trains come in.

I made the mistake once of picking someone up at Warminster when a peak train came in. I immediately knew I was in trouble when the train had barely stopped and people were RUNNING for their cars. My “pickupee” wasn’t one of those RUNNING…… It took a LONG time to get out of the lot only to sit on Southbound Jacksonville Road even longer. Being local I was familiar with how to cut thru the neighborhood east of Jacks to get to County Line or I’d still be sitting there.

NOW I stage “offsite” and await a call to pick up people on Park Ave. it has more options to egress quicker.

There’s an option: see if PECo will put the garage on their property; they can build it and collect the profits.

Is there any $ money $ in private construction and ownership of parking garages?

N.E.Pennsy wrote:Is there any $ money $ in private construction and ownership of parking garages?

Not really. The cost of construction of a parking garage is around $36,500 per marginal space, which if you are amortizing over 50 years at 4% interest (conservative and average, respectively), and your operating expenses are in the range of normal, means that you need about $190/month in revenue for every space, just to break even. SEPTA can possibly beat that number because it can cantilever a garage over tracks and yards, saving it the opportunity cost of surface parking spaces (already factored into the $36,500 figure), but that only goes so far, and also brings with it its own costs in design and construction.

My numbers are inflation-adjusted, rounded 2013 dollars from Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking, which I would recommend to everybody here. It's a big book, but it's very readable, and goes into everything you might ever want to know about how parking policy is broken in late 20th/early 21st Century America.

that's a very high number for just the capital cost of contruction. 3 years ago it was $17k and I think SEPTA uses a public construction inflated number of $25k per space though actual costs can vary by site. that doesn't include O&M or opportunity costs. even at $25k that $83 per month in capital alone with no return. it's easier to make money in garages if you are turning spaces over (not unlike a train seat) but generally your point is there isn't money to be made building private garages since the parking portion costs as much as the train'smonthly pass. that is also something to consider when SEPTA proposes to use its capital money to build garages. In order for it to have a positive ROI each space needs to generate at least one new trailpass worth of revenue. the norristown garage SEPTA reports is 45% empty at peak hours which means they'd be losing their shirt if it were a private job. Frankford is 25% empty at peak. SEPTA could issue a systemwide RFP to gauge interest but keep in mind Parkway Corp is subsidizing their new garage on north broad st with apartments! the absurdity of it all is that the cost to park is as much as the cost to buy a new vehicle.

N.E.Pennsy wrote:

bikentransit wrote:Garage definitely needs to be plopped on a train and sent up to Warminster

Please not in Warminster without widening Jacksonville Road or programming an “Evacuation Route” sequence into the traffic signals along Jacksonville when peak trains come in.

I made the mistake once of picking someone up at Warminster when a peak train came in. I immediately knew I was in trouble when the train had barely stopped and people were RUNNING for their cars. My “pickupee” wasn’t one of those RUNNING…… It took a LONG time to get out of the lot only to sit on Southbound Jacksonville Road even longer. Being local I was familiar with how to cut thru the neighborhood east of Jacks to get to County Line or I’d still be sitting there.

NOW I stage “offsite” and await a call to pick up people on Park Ave. it has more options to egress quicker.

There’s an option: see if PECo will put the garage on their property; they can build it and collect the profits.

Is there any $ money $ in private construction and ownership of parking garages?

Well, if you added a train, you would spread out automobile departures. Also, a satellite lot across street road with 1 dollar shuttle or designated walking corridor down park ave could do wonders for exit congestion in that area. As for road widening, not going to happen.