Reasonable Long Term Hopes

bikentransit wrote:Clearfield's attitude reflects the reason why things aren't getting done. That part of Bucks County is swimming in traffic, and investment in at least one of those lines would make a difference, and its not New Hope that needs it. Maybe if certain people stopped having figments of how things can't get done, the region would actually be making progress instead of farting money into the breeze.

Question: to what extent is it the rest of our responsibility to bail Bucks County out of its sprawl addiction? And would restoring rail service to Newtown or New Hope be helpful to that goal in any way? As far as I can tell, there are exactly two traditionally laid out, walkable places along those two lines, capable of generating walk-up traffic in either direction: Newtown itself, and New Hope itself. All the intermediate points are in sprawltopia, reliant on park-and-ride lots for potential ridership. There just aren't the old railroad-oriented suburban towns you have elsewhere in the region, and you'll never convince the townships to change the zoning sufficiently radically to let you build new ones. Why go through the bother on opening new lines and new stations to serve parking lots, when we have the option of intensifying the use of our existing parking lots at existing stations, for much less money? You can maybe argue for another one-station extension to what's now Warminster, but anything more than that seems to be a lot of capital expenditure for not much return on investment. If Bucks County disagrees with that, maybe they ought to put their money where their mouths are and fund the extensions themselves, but that's a political decision on its part.

Now, Pennridge/Quakertown/wherever you're ending that line is a different story. Hatfield, Souderton, Telford, Perkasie, and Quakertown all have respectable main streets and walkable residential areas near their potential station locations; that's the core of your potential ridership, in both directions, before you build a single parking lot. That's a worthwhile investment that can pay economic dividends.

CComMack wrote:

bikentransit wrote:Clearfield's attitude reflects the reason why things aren't getting done. That part of Bucks County is swimming in traffic, and investment in at least one of those lines would make a difference, and its not New Hope that needs it. Maybe if certain people stopped having figments of how things can't get done, the region would actually be making progress instead of farting money into the breeze.

Question: to what extent is it the rest of our responsibility to bail Bucks County out of its sprawl addiction? And would restoring rail service to Newtown or New Hope be helpful to that goal in any way? As far as I can tell, there are exactly two traditionally laid out, walkable places along those two lines, capable of generating walk-up traffic in either direction: Newtown itself, and New Hope itself. All the intermediate points are in sprawltopia, reliant on park-and-ride lots for potential ridership. There just aren't the old railroad-oriented suburban towns you have elsewhere in the region, and you'll never convince the townships to change the zoning sufficiently radically to let you build new ones. Why go through the bother on opening new lines and new stations to serve parking lots, when we have the option of intensifying the use of our existing parking lots at existing stations, for much less money? You can maybe argue for another one-station extension to what's now Warminster, but anything more than that seems to be a lot of capital expenditure for not much return on investment. If Bucks County disagrees with that, maybe they ought to put their money where their mouths are and fund the extensions themselves, but that's a political decision on its part.

Now, Pennridge/Quakertown/wherever you're ending that line is a different story. Hatfield, Souderton, Telford, Perkasie, and Quakertown all have respectable main streets and walkable residential areas near their potential station locations; that's the core of your potential ridership, in both directions, before you build a single parking lot. That's a worthwhile investment that can pay economic dividends.

CComMack, you make a strong point, but I'm going to disagree with you a little just because of what a unique transportation-infrastructure situation many areas of Bucks County present. If you live in Jamison, Richboro, Wrightstown, or Buckingham and want to commute to Philly, the options are markedly limited. I-95 (the main/closest artery to the city) is a substantial distance away (either through Bustleton-Byberry-Woodhaven or the Newtown Bypass) and getting to the Warminster station on cloggy Jacksonville/Street Rds or Langhorne/Woodburne stations on 413 during rush hour also makes the total trip time rather lengthy (it's admittedly not *so* bad for people in Newtown, but further out it is). In the case of the Warminster line, the situation is even worse than that because their parking lot is simply full. I'm surprised that this hasn't been a more public issue that SEPTA has discussed, between the fact that they now have more money and the pressing realty that some people who wish to ride the train out of Warminster after early to mid rush hour simply can't (at least not without getting dropped off or parking illegally).

I agree with you that the New Hope line from Grenoble/Rushland area up to New Hope is a waste given the realty of limited resources. There's too much sprawl and by far not enough people. I also agree with you that Quakertown is a good idea (see the map I made up in the beginning of this post).

But in the case of both Newtown and a short extension of the Warminster line, I can't help but believe that new stations would be extremely competitive. If some of the locations I mentioned above could drive to a train in 5-10 minutes instead of 25-30, and then ride that train for only an hour to reach center city (I have no clue how long a theoretical Newtown train would take, but Warminster takes about 50 min to reach Suburban Station right now), it would trounce I-95 and driving in general as the most convenient and reliable way to get to work in the city (assuming we don't get another SEPTA-killing winter like this one any time soon). Therefore, why would this not be a valuable use of resources?

CComMack wrote:

bikentransit wrote:Clearfield's attitude reflects the reason why things aren't getting done. That part of Bucks County is swimming in traffic, and investment in at least one of those lines would make a difference, and its not New Hope that needs it. Maybe if certain people stopped having figments of how things can't get done, the region would actually be making progress instead of farting money into the breeze.

Question: to what extent is it the rest of our responsibility to bail Bucks County out of its sprawl addiction? And would restoring rail service to Newtown or New Hope be helpful to that goal in any way? As far as I can tell, there are exactly two traditionally laid out, walkable places along those two lines, capable of generating walk-up traffic in either direction: Newtown itself, and New Hope itself. All the intermediate points are in sprawltopia, reliant on park-and-ride lots for potential ridership. There just aren't the old railroad-oriented suburban towns you have elsewhere in the region, and you'll never convince the townships to change the zoning sufficiently radically to let you build new ones. Why go through the bother on opening new lines and new stations to serve parking lots, when we have the option of intensifying the use of our existing parking lots at existing stations, for much less money? You can maybe argue for another one-station extension to what's now Warminster, but anything more than that seems to be a lot of capital expenditure for not much return on investment. If Bucks County disagrees with that, maybe they ought to put their money where their mouths are and fund the extensions themselves, but that's a political decision on its part.

Now, Pennridge/Quakertown/wherever you're ending that line is a different story. Hatfield, Souderton, Telford, Perkasie, and Quakertown all have respectable main streets and walkable residential areas near their potential station locations; that's the core of your potential ridership, in both directions, before you build a single parking lot. That's a worthwhile investment that can pay economic dividends.

I can confirm what you say is true, since I live in Hatfield

It sounds like 2 different trains of thought. If SEPTA expands to Telford do they use the original station for "Main Street" access (nowhere to park) OR a huge parking garage in the fields where 309 crosses over the line? If you are "simply" relieving vehicle traffic then the lot at 309 would be the answer. However, if you fill a 4 or 6 car set at this new lot you might as well express it directly into the City; why stop at every unnecessary station (if Quakertown to Philly) is your commute. As it stands now it really isn't set up as a commuter railroad to relieve vehicle traffic. You depart Lansdale and don't even reach speed and STOP for Pennbrook. You depart Pennbrook and.......

Same with Warminster. Expand to middle of the 4 Industrial Parks for foot access to business; or a parking lot (garage) at Almshouse Rd. Same with all the stops; I've seen the same inbound train set (#4215) cross County Line Road (in front of my car) only to see it again at Easton Rd. At Roslyn and Jenkintown. If I can pace #4215 between Warminster and Jenkintown IN MY CAR; how can vehicle traffic be that bad? That is where the parking garage at Jenkintown comes to mind.....

Vehicle traffic isn't as terrible along the railroad west of County Line partly because ITS ALONG THE RAILROAD. It's served by all the stations in between. I'd love to see you EAST of there, beyond where you can get the train and make similar time. At lets say 7:30,come off Bristol onto Jacksonville westbound across Street Road and see if you have just as care free and easy a drive. I'd be amazed if you make it through the light at Street Rd in under 3 cycles.

Better yet, at the same time of day do me a favor and commute from Richboro/Holland to Neshaminy Falls station via Bustleton and Bristol roads and let me know how unwarranted Newtown service is.

I'm also rather annoyed at the deference of need for these services with the assertion that these townships should lie in the bed they made with respect to sprawl. First off, Newtown itself fits your description of a town "worthy" of train service in that it indeed does have a fairly respectable, walkable main street type downtown, as does Southampton to a lesser extent. Those areas in between were still largely rural-suburban at the time of service elimination and their boom in population stemmed from the same suburban sprawl boom that afflicted countless other not-already-established areas within the entire Philadelphia metro area. Is Quakertown service warranted before Newtown? Yes. Then again, Newtown doesn't have the benefit of being an active freight corridor to preserve the right-of-way (in a realistic manor, not a trail that is really a nail in the coffin anyway).

A station at bristol rd might work...? Up till mearns rd there's no real nearby road access for a station, and even then you have no space. Along mearns you could put a small flag stop station, but not sure how practical that is...

Based on anecdotes from people who lived in the area before diesel service was ended, a lot of folks did actually ride these lines, and new hope stretch specifically was hard hit by the building and widening of roads, bypasses, etc back in the post-war era. People migrated to the cities, or moved closer, ending the big block of regular passengers. Going part way would help with traffic, and perhaps in "GO transit" style they could have light, practical, seasonal service vs regular commuter service.

Quakertown is nice, but people along the newtown branch do work in philly and along other rail lines.

Perhaps what is really needed is some kind of congestion pricing and truck axle load limits both timed and fixed, targeting specific routes during certain times of day, this combined with increases in service and moderate expansion on the RDG side might do a lot of good, and not just in reducing traffic, but increased air quality, and less physical stress on roads, reducing the cost of maintaining them. Adjusting bus routes wouldn't hurt either.

No one thing is going to fix this region's broken transportation systems, it needs to be a multifaceted approach that improves mobility and requires smart planning, from zoning to public outreach, long, medium, and short term goals that are realistic and practical. This isn't 1960 anymore, things need to change, and people need to start getting into the mindset that what they do affects the rest of the region. We are, in effect, one large community, and its time to have our transit and transport policies and laws reflect that.

so, back to the plan. what about developing a plan that studies expenses and potential ridership related to expanding each line (west chester, pville, quakertown, newtown, etc) as a whole so there is a fair discussion of what the potential options are, the cost, and then we can develop a reasonable long term list.

Yea, we really need an exact line by line itemized cost projection, with alternatives for each line such as station types, how far the extensions actually go, if there are extension phases, etc........ Plus ACCURATE ridership estimates based on surveys and real people, as well as real world things that affect rider numbers, traffic congestion near station, parking availability, zone assignment, etc.......

Landsdale, jenkintown, and doylestown substation replacement, i think would do wonders for RDG side on time performance as well as overall reliability.

If newtown were, at some point, to get service back, we'd need to figure out what should be done at the diamond with the west trenton line, if a wye is practical, or a transfer station, or whatever, as well as signaling and what it'd mean for the west trenton line endpoint times from center city. but, one thing at a time. One final thought on that, is the substation at bethayres, could it provide power to a segment of the newtown line, or would the newtown line need a seperate substation fed in parallel from fox chase?

As long as all the big business decisions are passed through the SEPTA board of directors, you can stop wishing and drop this whole thread.

SEPTA is run as a political system, and not a business. Furthermore, the railroad is just a piece of the whole pie, with 2 votes per county for the entire transit Authority. It's a political institution that was forced to run a commuter rail system in a transit agency from a big railroad that sucked all the money from the infrastructure and equipment assets before handing it over to SEPTA.

The policy makers on the Board are lawyers, accountants, and politicians.......NOT railroaders and CERTAINLY NOT pie-in-sky railfans.

Your only chance of getting your voice heard for RR expansion, is to gather some facts, grab a group of similar-minded commuters, and go to the SEPTA capital funding public meeting next month and voice your wish list to the people in control of spending the money. Stop wasting your time dreaming on blogs. Wouldn't hurt to get in the ear of your Congressmen and state representatives. Alyson Schwartz has been pretty good at earmarking money for pork projects in her district which includes pieces of Montco and Bucks.

NorthPennLimited wrote:As long as all the big business decisions are passed through the SEPTA board of directors, you can stop wishing and drop this whole thread.

SEPTA is run as a political system, and not a business. Furthermore, the railroad is just a piece of the whole pie, with 2 votes per county for the entire transit Authority. It's a political institution that was forced to run a commuter rail system in a transit agency from a big railroad that sucked all the money from the infrastructure and equipment assets before handing it over to SEPTA.

The policy makers on the Board are lawyers, accountants, and politicians.......NOT railroaders and CERTAINLY NOT pie-in-sky railfans.

Your only chance of getting your voice heard for RR expansion, is to gather some facts, grab a group of similar-minded commuters, and go to the SEPTA capital funding public meeting next month and voice your wish list to the people in control of spending the money. Stop wasting your time dreaming on blogs. Wouldn't hurt to get in the ear of your Congressmen and state representatives. Alyson Schwartz has been pretty good at earmarking money for pork projects in her district which includes pieces of Montco and Bucks.

Umm...I think that's been tried, and hasn't gotten us anywhere. In fact, DVARP tried to keep these services from getting cut in the first place, and that went nowhere.

Well this might change things for SEPTA.......?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off ... ortation-i" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Specifically....... http://prntscr.com/2w6zgy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not so pie in the sky after all, it seems.......

25Hz wrote:Well this might change things for SEPTA.......?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off ... ortation-i" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Specifically....... http://prntscr.com/2w6zgy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not so pie in the sky after all, it seems.......

I'll believe it when the shovels hit the ground and the projects start. Remember that phrase "shovel ready jobs/projects" for the stimulus?

So, having actually been to the SEPTA Capital Plan Open House today...

SEPTA is laser-focused right now on keeping bridges from going for a swim, replacing most of the railroad fleet and all of the trolleys, and generally fixing or replacing everything that's on the verge of breaking, which after years of deferred maintenance is damn near everything.

They are very cognizant that they got a big funding boost last fall by pointing out that everything was falling apart and the entire system was endangered, which was true. They do not want to be taking the money that was to keep them alive, and use it for optional expansions.

So all the expansionistas here need to forget about SEPTA for now, and try to get earmarked funding from the Feds or the state. Because SEPTA has bigger things on its plate for the next five years.

I was at the board meeting today. SEPTA really has a vision and they have much what they want to do. But they are very on the ball with what needs to be DONE. INSTEAD JUST WISHING AND ETC. I really feel glad for them because they will have the funding to do what they need to do to help the system improve. It is amazing to know that they can.

I was speaking with the man in charge of the rail car purchase plan (well im not so sure he is the main guy...they had boards of different things , he was sitting in the area of the rail car purchase board)...Anyway i spoke with him along with two other attendees and we was asking him questions. It was very interesting and some questions he answered that we discussed here on rr.net

Bi-Level Purchase:
He said within 4 years purchase and they are going mostly after NJ TRANSIT Design due to the fact they are similar territory. Also saying the option to seat 141 or 170 passengers via 2 seats or 3 seats. He also said if they can get on the back order of NJTransit Multi-Level order then they would do so.

Push-Pull
Guest standing next to me was they looking into the SIEMENS new "SPRINTER" . He answered yes, but also that other options are being looked at also. But he did say the fact that it was built in the USA that it made it better. And also that the push-pull would most likely be available before the bi-level coaches.

City & Suburban Trolleys:
I asked was they looking to articulated trolley cars or just regular singles. He told me they are looking at articulated trolley''s to move more people. I spoke about the tunnel having tight turns and twists and he said everything is going to be on the table and test concluded to get the right car. I also asked was they sticking with regular poles or pantos. Pantos looks to be favored because of the more currents it gets. I also brought up about the signal systems and the block system if articulated trolleys was operating how would the signal read that its just one whole trolley and not another trolley trying to run the signal. Answer was they signal system has to be fixed and modified for such a thing...and he spoke about the capacity esp. @40th st he said we move alot of trolleys in the tunnel within 60secs.

Silverliner 4's
They would like to get replacements soon. But i was told they hope to get more years out of them within 5-7 years. He also said their is a overhaul program coming this year i believe.

City Hall Station
I asked what was the biggest obstacle to renovating this station ?....It's alot of things. The gentlemen told me the biggest things was figuring what was beneath City Hall , where to drill and dig. They have to get Insurance to make sure everything stands in place. Mess one beam up and everything is leaning. He also said that Its such a old structure that everything is just ALOT to do. He also said they want to make a new subway space for the BSL through the station since it doesn't go straight. He said the West End of City Hall is the craziest. But also said that there are alot of walkways that was shutdown years ago so they have to know what they are digging and demolishing. Also plans for Elevators through out the station.

Just my two cents. It was a very interesting day and i enjoyed speaking with the SEPTA people. I learned somethings, and they was very friendly and down to earth. I can tell you this , they want to see this come to fruition and i do not blame them.

Wow SEPTA finally got its act together
Maybe deferring was part of their plan to get more funding which they eventually got