Levittown replacement official!!!

[25Hz]

I looks nice, but thats the point. Gotta offset decades of sewer shack memories.

[Tritransit Area]

The thing about Levittown proper, is that while we associate all of the original Levittowns with touching off the wave of postwar suburban sprawl, they were laid out from the beginning to support circulator bus routes and children riding bicycles. The street plans are schematically mini-grids, and completely lack cul-de-sacs; the Levittown design predates a lot of what we "know" about suburbia, including cars being cheap enough to enable universal two-car households. If you started running aggressive feeder bus routes from the station into the Levittown subdivisions, you could cut car ownership rates and boost RRD ridership with a greater degree of financial sustainability than any parking expansion. And you could be more thorough in those accomplishments than you could in any of the sprawlburbs that came later, mimicking Levittown's style. And Levittown still has just enough community identity and cohesion that it could, if it so chose, (*ahem*) raise the funds for supporting the startup of such service.

Handy, then, that this new Levittown Station is being designed from the start with bus bays to accommodate multiple buses simultaneously.

The drawback to having all those buses feeding into Levittown Station, of course, is that you have an increasing number of Levittowners commuting north, not south...

I have been pushing local pols for feeder routes for levittown and bristol for about 9 years now. The locals need to take over at this point with the new station and own their own transit situation. Here in newtown we've been fighting for a better 130, we ended up with 2 routes, one going to the business park, and one straight through town. Unfortunately, when one runs the other does not, being that there is still only hourly service. If they do come up with something, i hope it is more successful than what the 130 turned into.

There was a study done quite a long time ago for some sort of a circulator service for the Newtown area, especially for Newtown Grant and such. The Newtown rushbus, which ran between the Newtown Business Commons and Woodbourne Station, came out of it. I guess not enough funding was available for the Newtown Circulator service...and the idea has all but been forgotten by now.

[Tritransit Area]

Cornwells Heights (Like Levittown) seems like another diamond in the rough with a lot of growth potential on the Trenton Line. Seems like it would have a lot of potential to tap Pennsy residents commuting to NYC and North Jersey if they could get a 1 seat ride that can compete with the drive time up the Jersey Turnpike to Harrison, Secaucus, and Newark.

Has a consulting firm ever done a ridership projection study for Cornwells Heights since the post 2008 real estate collapse to see if the NYC commuting demographic has continued shifting to the poconos and greater Northeast Philadelphia areas?

amtrak studied the market in 2009 or so and concluded it wasn't worth the time penalty to add the stop. nj transit service via jenkintown would be attractive for a lot of people though

Not to be off-topic but NJ Transit looked at extending the Raritan Valley Line not just to West Trenton, but beyond to Jenkintown, stopping along the way at Woodbourne or Langhorne, and Somerton. SEPTA would not have been happy if NJT selected that alternative though. Now back to Levittown, I think it's great that the station is getting a rebuild. However, wouldn't ramps be a cheaper alternative to elevators for the pedestrian overpass? The new station looks nice, almost too nice, but I'm okay with it. At least there will be more parking at a station that really can use it.

That would be fantastic, but with the limited space on the Main Line, it would be challenging for NJT service. Where would they turn a train around in Jenkintown anyway? Is there a way to get from the Lower Platforms at 30th Street to the SEPTA Main Line without going through the tunnel?

[Push&Pull Master]

Cornwells Heights (Like Levittown) seems like another diamond in the rough with a lot of growth potential on the Trenton Line. Seems like it would have a lot of potential to tap Pennsy residents commuting to NYC and North Jersey if they could get a 1 seat ride that can compete with the drive time up the Jersey Turnpike to Harrison, Secaucus, and Newark.

Has a consulting firm ever done a ridership projection study for Cornwells Heights since the post 2008 real estate collapse to see if the NYC commuting demographic has continued shifting to the poconos and greater Northeast Philadelphia areas?

amtrak studied the market in 2009 or so and concluded it wasn't worth the time penalty to add the stop. nj transit service via jenkintown would be attractive for a lot of people though

Not to be off-topic but NJ Transit looked at extending the Raritan Valley Line not just to West Trenton, but beyond to Jenkintown, stopping along the way at Woodbourne or Langhorne, and Somerton. SEPTA would not have been happy if NJT selected that alternative though. Now back to Levittown, I think it's great that the station is getting a rebuild. However, wouldn't ramps be a cheaper alternative to elevators for the pedestrian overpass? The new station looks nice, almost too nice, but I'm okay with it. At least there will be more parking at a station that really can use it.

That would be fantastic, but with the limited space on the Main Line, it would be challenging for NJT service. Where would they turn a train around in Jenkintown anyway? Is there a way to get from the Lower Platforms at 30th Street to the SEPTA Main Line without going through the tunnel?

There's two ways. One way is via the CSX Blue Line connection to Belmont Junction, which eventually connects to the NEC at Zoo and there's also a connection from the Main Line to the NEC near 16th Street Jct in North Philadelphia, but it's a steep curve which means very slow speed along it. Now back to topic, I feel the best connections to Levittown would be bus routes to Newtown/Bucks County Community College, a Levittown shuttle around the development, and a bus route up north to maybe New Hope. All these routes should have timed transfers if they were actually done.

[25Hz]

The NJT-jenkintown thing wouldnt need trains to "turn", as all of NJT trains can be run from either end........ they would simply go back the way they came as is.

Newtown circulatory would be GD fantastic. Cut traffic down for sure.

Back on topic...

I am curious about the parking lot, and the 13 ped xing, and the bus lanes at the station. Would be nice if they released some full sized images so we an actually see the design clearly.

[Head-end View]

25Hz, in railroading the word "turn" when used this way means for a commuter train to reverse direction in a station or at the end of its run. Sometimes the word "spin" is used that way too, as in a dispatcher saying over the radio to a crew: "We'll turn you in the station" or "we'll spin you on the main." Get it?

[25Hz]

25Hz, in railroading the word "turn" when used this way means for a commuter train to reverse direction in a station or at the end of its run. Sometimes the word "spin" is used that way too, as in a dispatcher saying over the radio to a crew: "We'll turn you in the station" or "we'll spin you on the main." Get it?

I'm quite aware. No need to go to 30th to do these moves.

[Suburban Station]

it might be useful to turn at wayne junction

[SCB2525]

Newtown circulatory would be GD fantastic. Cut traffic down for sure.

I doubt it. You should know as well as I do that most people in these parts won't have anything to do with local trips on a bus. I'm about as pro-transit as one can reasonably expect and I wouldn't use such a service to be perfectly honest.

[25Hz]

Newtown circulatory would be GD fantastic. Cut traffic down for sure.

I doubt it. You should know as well as I do that most people in these parts won't have anything to do with local trips on a bus. I'm about as pro-transit as one can reasonably expect and I wouldn't use such a service to be perfectly honest.

I'm not just pro transit, i live car free, so i'd totally use a circulator, especially if it went through my neighborhood & stopped at the shopping centers. Would be nice to get the heavier stuff i can't carry on my bike.

[SCB2525]

Do you consider yourself in the majority or even sizable portion? I certainly wouldn't.

Also regarding NJT "spinning" at Jenkintown; its a bit busy a station to have to change ends and do a brake test during rush hour don't you think? They would have to restore the pocket track south of the station.

[25Hz]

You mean the segment where there is room for 3 tacks between the cat towers? Yea, they would turn there. By that time there would probably be a new station there on the inbound side of the bridge with high level platforms etc. But this is all nothing to do with NEC or levittown replacement.

[AlexC]

ahem. Levittown!

[SCB2525]

But this is all nothing to do with NEC or levittown replacement.

[25Hz]

Yea, i posted a PDF of west trenton line options in the NJT forum. I have no idea how it got brought up in here, wasn't my doing.

Perhaps someone is confused between trenton & west trenton line...... Levittown station is on the Trenton line otherwise known as the northeast corridor.

I'm curious as to what the new ticket office/waiting room will be like inside, and if there will be bathrooms available when the ticket agent is gone for the day. I am getting really tired of having to plan around the lack of sanitary facilities onboard & at stations. Any thought on what we should expect here??