Lackawanna Cutoff Passenger Service Restoration

CJVRR- Bringing large corporations to the Scranton area would put it on the map and increase house values in the area.
Using your logic..why do people commute from Washington to NY on the NEC? or Philly to NYC on the NEC? jobs..meetings..thats why if Corporations moved to scranton it would be needed

about who did the study..it does make a difference..big time..if RAILPACE or TRAINS magazine did a survey on rail service to scranton..then its going to be 1 sided..if its done by the Scranton times tribune..it would reflect a more accurate reading.
its like the cigerette companys doing "health studies" all those years..doesn't cause cancer..haha..yea right..like i'll believe their studies..blahh

and that pork issue..how much "pork" was used in the morris county region to put up traffic lights..road widening etc..how does that money help the rest of the state..pork pork pork..

Nothing is firm on stops but Scranton, Moscow, Gouldsboro, Tobyhanna, Mt. Pocono, Cresco and Stroudsburg are good candidates as well as Delware Water Gap. In Jersey, Blairstown and "Andover" are most mentioned. Then Dover and Newark and Hoboken.

A colleague told me that some huge financial center is being built in Stroudsburg to serve as a backup if Wall Street gets wiped out by terrorists. I'm not making that up, though I haven't confirmed it myself!

Now were getting into the nitty gritty of numbers.

Henry6 wrote;

Consider the cost of maintaining the highway over that five years plus just the cost of pollution damage over that period, without figuring the increasing cost of fuel, etc

You are correct with your numbers assesment and the number of vehicles annually removed from the roadway, but you can not equate that directly to maintenance costs. As stated in the report there will still be an excess of volume (at least 200 cars per lane per hour) for the capacity. So maintenance costs will be nearly the same (although slightly reduced as per your analysis) for the roadway.

CJPat,

You are somewhat correct about the accuracy. I do not know how they determined the volumes, but when coming up with existing traffic volumes the Consultant should have counted in a manner to determine the capacity needed, not getting through the constriction. Counts are typically done in the middle of the week, on normal traffic days, i.e., no rain, snow, when school is in session and not during the summer. This should have been done over a few weeks worth of time.

You can also determine the need through census data. Everyone's employer (at least in NJ) has provided the NJDOT with numbers to show zip codes in which we live and work. If PA does the same thing you can determine the demand, both for roadway travel and rail travel. So as I said earlier, if the Bridge Commission is using NJT's projected volumes, how can the BC's report be slanted? Its not a competition between them, they are trying to determine their future needs. Now if it was a report done by Martz that would be different. Even if the 300 cars per peak hour doubled to 600 the highway still would not have enough capacity.

Tube counters are much more accurate and can determine the number of axles, vehicle type, length, weight, etc. now. Video cameras are also used for traffic counts and give the most accurate volume per vehicle numbers. As far as projecting future trends and growth, the report used census data provided to them by the local Counties. Would they not know fairly well how they are going to grow? It is not data from the 1970s or 1980's and it would be highly

So even if the accuracy was totally off and the volume of people using the service jumped to 5,000 people is spending $350,000,000 worth it?

I have found ridership projections for Metro North Service to Port Jervis and the Pascack Valley Lines as determined by Metro North;

Metro-North projects the Port Jervis and Pascack Valley lines, which have 2,721 riders now, will carry 5,700 riders in 2010 and 7,166 in 2020 – a cumulative increase of 163 percent.

So if they can't even muster 10,000 riders on those lines through a much more densely populated area by 2020 how can anyone realistically think they will get 5,000 on a line in the Poconos.

Monroe County Population was 138,700 in 2000, Wayne County, 47,722, Pike 46,302.

Orange County New York Population is 340,000 and Rockland is 293,000.

Chris

If we can't draw conclusions from statistics, why spend the money for these surveys? This survey is lacking a lot of information needed to draw conclusions for putting money into highway opereations as well as for putting money into a rail operation. It, in effect, is self serving...and in my opinion more self serving than most surveys of any kind I have ever seen...like Hi and Lois comic strip the other morning when the young kid declares "100% of the teen agers surveyed..." then confessed to asking only his older brother!

About the financial center for Stroudsburg: that is only a planners and chamber of commerce wish at the moment. There are some who think it might be a good location for such a center but no one is committed to build it and no one is committed to occupy it. Incidently, Scranton area interests tried the same promotion years ago with very lukewarm results; I think J.C. Penny built a call and accounting center there maybe 20 or so years ago, but no one else. The Scranton area has become a large warehousing and distribution area and NS and CP are busy offloading lots of trailers and containers with needs to expand their plants.

The real truth to this rail matter is simple: NJ can't build any more highways for reasons that have been stated. Northeast Pennsylvania is growing both as a bedroom adjunct to the New York Metropolitan area and in its own right. People will want to and will have to move inter- and intra- the region. Thie highway system is inadequate; congestion and pollution are major concerns of urban planners. NJ and PA recognize these problems and are working on the solutions. Rail has to be part of the solution. The economies of rail are well known. After the statistics are crunched, as in any business decision, there has to be someone with the intestinal fortitude take the numbers, the problems, and the solutions, and make a gut decision in the end. Call it the Field of Dreams syndrome, but the Downeaster, Keystone Service, MidTown Direct, LA and other new commuter services, as well as other Amtrak services in the Northwest and Midwest have proven that when built they will come. That means $350,000,000 for the Cut Off is a good deal in my gut!

After the major differences in the potential ridership numbers of the MOM line and the various routes, i think its safe to say that ANY ridership projection is a crapshoot - have two or three different companies do the same projections, then split the difference between the three of them

we're all forgetting that in the future 5-10 years gas prices will rise dramatically do to worldwide demands and upcoming shortages..oil will run out within 100 years..so we need to have alterntatives available to move masses of people..
cjvrr-you might be correct in the shortterm..but the longterm the scranton service will be a HUGE help..think 50 years from now..who woulda thought in 1880 how beneficial these lines woujld be today? or even the structures in use..starrucca and others..think longterm..think about the year 2100..2150..

The next time you are in your car in the dead of the winter doing three 360's before sinking into the ditch on I-380, then you'll wish you had passenger rail.

F3A wrote:The next time you are in your car in the dead of the winter doing three 360's before sinking into the ditch on I-380, then you'll wish you had passenger rail.

When did that happen to you?

F3A wrote:The next time you are in your car in the dead of the winter doing three 360's before sinking into the ditch on I-380, then you'll wish you had passenger rail.

Its not just i380. RT.80 is the same way weather its snow or rain. Working for a pd i hear the state police requesting fd and bls all the time for anything west of exit 40 in both directions.

lensovet wrote:i think you have a valid point, namely that a) more frequent service would be necessary and b) it needs to be at least relatively fast. but we must also remember that any sort of service will probably be some sort of express, with at most 3-5 stops in NJ (or at least i hope – otherwise it's going to be unbearably slow). my guess for logical stops would be dover, morristown, (possibly) summit, newark broad, hoboken.
consider this: current travel time hoboken->dover, with only two stops (newark broad and denville) is 1h 15m. travel time between dover and hackettstown is 40 min; my guess is that non-stop this would go to 20-25 min. if we take your half-hour estimate (i think 45 min would be more fair, no?), that total comes to just over two hours. i think two hours in a train is better than possibly an hour and a half on the bus, though that estimate is extremely generous and assumes that the bus is always moving at or above the speed limit.

The 1h 15m. travel time to Dover is not 2 stops only. It is via Boonton Line. They show the Boonton Line Mount Olive and Hackettstown trains on the M&E timetable for the convenience of only having to carry one timetable around. My guess is that the travel time nonstop to Dover is a lot shorter.

M&Eman wrote:

lensovet wrote:i think you have a valid point, namely that a) more frequent service would be necessary and b) it needs to be at least relatively fast. but we must also remember that any sort of service will probably be some sort of express, with at most 3-5 stops in NJ (or at least i hope – otherwise it's going to be unbearably slow). my guess for logical stops would be dover, morristown, (possibly) summit, newark broad, hoboken.
consider this: current travel time hoboken->dover, with only two stops (newark broad and denville) is 1h 15m. travel time between dover and hackettstown is 40 min; my guess is that non-stop this would go to 20-25 min. if we take your half-hour estimate (i think 45 min would be more fair, no?), that total comes to just over two hours. i think two hours in a train is better than possibly an hour and a half on the bus, though that estimate is extremely generous and assumes that the bus is always moving at or above the speed limit.

The 1h 15m. travel time to Dover is not 2 stops only. It is via Boonton Line. They show the Boonton Line Mount Olive and Hackettstown trains on the M&E timetable for the convenience of only having to carry one timetable around. My guess is that the travel time nonstop to Dover is a lot shorter.

it's 23-24 miles from MSU to Dover. It's 36 minutes from Hoboken to MSU w/ stops at Newark and Bay Street. An express from Hoboken to Dover via the M-B stopping only in Newark would probably take about an hour.

I took the M-B line yesterday to Dover..its an hour with all stops..i would say 40 min express

northjerseybuff wrote:I took the M-B line yesterday to Dover..its an hour with all stops..i would say 40 min express

Where is this mythical local M-B train from Hoboken to Dover that only takes an hour?

I don't see anything close to that on the schedule.

Yes, the WORMS can't even beat the MoTown Line to Dover.


Fastest time I've seen on the Boonton Line is 1:15, on the MoTown 1:10