Railroad Forums 

  • What would the equivalent MD purple line look like for Septa?

  • Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.
Discussion relating to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia Metro Area). Official web site can be found here: www.septa.com. Also including discussion related to the PATCO Speedline rapid transit operated by Delaware River Port Authority. Official web site can be found here: http://www.ridepatco.org/.

Moderator: AlexC

 #1585497  by andrewjw
 
There are two big issues here:

1. Demand patterns - There are a lot of sprawling suburban residential neighborhoods, but it's hard to find walkable employment centers with the same job density as Bethesda and Silver Spring. DC has a ton of (government and government-adjacent) jobs in suburban business centers, whereas the Philly area has fewer, and they're much less conveniently located for one line to connect them up.

2. ROWs - the DC area has a lot of former trolley ROWs preserved as trails. The Philly area has very few, because the city proper was mostly served by street running trolleys and the suburbs by extant heavy rail. An easy way to see this is to look at the bicycle layer on Google Maps - there's barely anything once you exit the city itself that doesn't parallel a rail line with modern service. Branches like the one west from the wye at Oreland or the old PRR Havertown branch have long before lost their ROWs.

Here are a few ideas but I don't think any of them are really ideal:

Paoli and West Chester are very far out - at the point where you build a spur of the Main Line parallel to US-202 down to connect these, you'll probably get a lot more riders by using it to provide faster West Chester service to center city than you would by sending it to Norristown and KOP. But there might be a way to run 79mph heavy rail that stops in Fort Washington and Willow Grove on the way to Trenton, providing useful onwards travel. I'm sure NS would hate it, so you'd probably have to be running in the other trackbed and build passing loops, limiting frequency.

Connecting King of Prussia to the NHSL mostly fits the bill here. Upgrading the Media and Sharon Hill lines to modern LRVs and improving their grade separation and signal priority to build more LA-style light rail, along with an extension of the Sharon Hill line to the Airport, might be a good candidate here?

Looking for ROWs, consider the areas I-476 passes through are not very built-up or walkable - except for Media, and a faster Media LRV meeting the route 100 accomplishes some similar travel itineraries. On the north side, similarly, if you were to build a route down US-1, you'd get a lot more traffic sending it to Center City on the BSL express tracks than continuing it southwest to Manayunk or Bala Cynwyd. And there aren't a lot of people who would take a train that runs from the West Trenton line across the Wyncote wye up to Fort Washington.
 #1585852  by PHLSpecial
 
Agreed with the 102 extension down to the airport with LRV and level boarding platforms. The Norristown Line would benefit if we upgrade it to LRVs. I would think a few people would have an easier connection to the airport.
Adding back 69th street to West Chester trolley would be a massive benefit. Heavy rail to KOP and Phoenixville would be a big item too.
I see that land see and spawn is terrible north and west of the city hence why I agree we have no good candidates for a crosstown line.
Last edited by nomis on Tue Nov 30, 2021 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Removed immediate quote
 #1585885  by JeffK
 
PHLSpecial wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:30 am Agreed with the 102 extension down to the airport with LRV and level boarding platforms.
There've been proposals to extend the 36 as well. I'm unsure if they can share tracks over short distances but the idea of a common station is intriguing.
The Norristown Line would benefit if we upgrade it to LRVs.
Not to be a downer, but AFAIK that would require severing the line from the rest of the RRD - a serious issue where it joins the former RDG "main line".
Adding back 69th street to West Chester trolley would be a massive benefit.
I'd love to see that happen but it's not clear how you could shoehorn it into WC Pike. The aptly-named Highway Department of the 1950s killed the median as a possible ROW by gobbling it for turning lanes.
Heavy rail to KOP and Phoenixville would be a big item too.
Last I heard it's in the semi-serious talk stage. Unfortunately it requires buy-in from NS, and couldn't offer much more than morning and evening service, plus it would have to skirt the edge of KOP rather than serving denser areas. Trying to find space for a new heavy-rail ROW has been researched a zillion times with no good alternatives.
I agree we have no good candidates for a crosstown line.
True that.

One other thought would be to set up a joint park-and-ride station in Radnor. The existing RRD and P&W stations are barely 1/4 mile apart and aren't hugely constrained by surrounding construction. Now the North Wayne "Protective" Association may be a different matter though ...
 #1585886  by ExCon90
 
Extending the 102 to the airport would require fixing the dip under the former B&O between MacDade Blvd. and Chester Pike; it floods every time there's a heavy rain, requiring a bus bridge between the last two stops, and we can't have that on a line to the airport. I would think it would take major sump pumps to keep it passable, and I'm not sure where you could pump the water to -- hopefully not across NIMBY property. Anybody know whether that's been studied? It would hardly be worth considering just to reach the end of the line at SH, but on a line to the airport it would be a different matter.
 #1585926  by PHLSpecial
 
Not to be a downer, but AFAIK that would require severing the line from the rest of the RRD - a serious issue where it joins the former RDG "main line".
I meant the NHSL not the RR line. Though I'm not sure what LRV would be modern and support third rail
I'd love to see that happen but it's not clear how you could shoehorn it into WC Pike. The aptly-named Highway Department of the 1950s killed the median as a possible ROW by gobbling it for turning lanes.
Right that would be a massive fight to do so but so worth in the long run. SAP and West Chester would have a quicker way to connect to the airport if the 102 was extended.
Last I heard it's in the semi-serious talk stage. Unfortunately it requires buy-in from NS, and couldn't offer much more than morning and evening service, plus it would have to skirt the edge of KOP rather than serving denser areas. Trying to find space for a new heavy-rail ROW has been researched a zillion times with no good alternatives.

Figures as much. It's also difficult and not at the same time because there is massive parking lots in KOP to advantage of if the opportunity arise.
 #1585927  by PHLSpecial
 
ExCon90 wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:15 pm Extending the 102 to the airport would require fixing the dip under the former B&O between MacDade Blvd. and Chester Pike; it floods every time there's a heavy rain, requiring a bus bridge between the last two stops, and we can't have that on a line to the airport.
The 102 can't go to Shanon Hill Rd to 84th street, and make a new bridge to the airport?
 #1585928  by MACTRAXX
 
PHL and Everyone: Does anyone remember the late 1980s/early 1990s proposal for what was titled SEPTA's
"Cross County Metro"?

The "Cross County Metro" route would have been from Downingtown to the Trenton area running parallel to the
PA Turnpike on the former PRR Conrail (now NS) Trenton Cutoff route. Equipment would have been a group of
NHSL-type N5 cars bulked up to FRA standards with the route electrified with third rail. CR removed the wire on
the once-electrified route in the early 80s when electrified freight service ended. For RRD Silverliners to be used
SEPTA would have had to fully restore the catenary system on the route - most of the unused steel poles were
still standing and likely reuseable.

Ridership forecasts on this proposed CCM route were somewhat low for what would have been the first "outer
belt" suburb-to-suburb rail transit route in the Philadelphia area - having to compete directly with roads such
as the PA Turnpike made this plan have major flaws from the beginning - and the cost of the project was steep.

SEPTA does have one bus route that I am familiar with - #77 - that is a true outer "crosstown" route which runs
from the Chestnut Hill Loop on Germantown Avenue to the Roosevelt Mall area at Cottman Avenue/Roosevelt
Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia - serving five SEPTA RRD stations directly:
Chestnut Hill West-CHW Line
Wyndmoor-CHE Line
Glenside-Lansdale/Doylestown and Warminster Lines
Jenkintown-West Trenton, L/D and WAR Lines
Ryers-Fox Chase Line
Service runs hourly 7 days a week: Weekdays and Saturdays 6AM-6PM; Sundays 9AM-5PM on average.
The #77 route - which has a somewhat low ridership outside of peak hours - can be used as an idea
of demand for a transit route with the belt-type routing. #77 is emphasized/mentioned to be serving
Jenkintown Borough - which it does directly in the center of the route...MACTRAXX
 #1585966  by Literalman
 
The Cross County Metro would have intersected every commuter rail line on the north side of Philadelphia but generally not where the stations were. I think that to be usable it would have needed new stations where it crossed the regional lines, also very high frequency: every 10 minutes? If people were to use it to connect between regional lines without going into Philly, a frequency of half an hour would have doomed that use: a passenger might have had to wait half an hour for the Cross County Metro and another half hour for the next regional train, maybe longer. Making it a useful connection that way would have been awfully expensive, probably way out of proportion to possible ridership.

But the Cross County Metro was similar to the Maryland Purple Line in one regard: it was more like circumferential transit than crosstown. The Purple Line original concept was a complete circle paralleling the Capital Beltway and intersecting all the other Metro lines. It might have been really useful although big and expensive. The current Purple Line project is basically one arc segment of the full circle.
 #1585994  by rcthompson04
 
One proposal that went nowhere was the so-called Green Line that would have ran from Paoli Station to Oaks via Phoenixville.

An interesting idea that keeps coming to me is West Chester to Phoenixville via the following route: Start at West Chester Transportation Center and head to High Street / Pottstown Pike, continue to Exton Station, after Exton Station head north to Business 30 and run that east to PA 29, swing through the Vanguard campus cross over 202 and run through the Great Valley Corporate Center onto the old Frazer Branch and run that to Phoenixville.
 #1586053  by MACTRAXX
 
SD: Good reply post concerning the "Cross County Metro" proposal.
The Trenton Cutoff between the Downingtown and Trenton areas was also single-tracked in the Conrail era
meaning that SEPTA would have to pay to restore fully a second track (with passing sidings at intervals to be
determined) especially if the line were to be electrified with third rail requiring separation from freight trains.

Overhead catenary would require SEPTA to restore catenary with high enough clearance for double stack type
freight trains to use the route - a possibility that the line could be "shared" by SEPTA and NS in a way similar to
the type and arrangement that NJT has with CRSA concerning the Trenton-Camden, NJ River Line.

Stations at places where SEPTA RRD intersects the route either by relocation or a new transfer station creates
other problems: The best example that I am most familiar with is Fort Washington where the TC crosses over
the SEPTA Lansdale-Doylestown Line near the Fort Washington exit of the PA Turnpike along with PA 309 at that
point. The land is somewhat hilly and also contains the Sandy Run creek running through the intersect area.

Back in the Spring of 2000 there was major flooding in the area where these two major highways meet after
severe storms with a old RDG-vintage stone bridge on the L-D Line getting washed out closing the route for a
six-week period - a replacement bridge was quickly designed and constructed to restore rail service by SEPTA.
The Fort Washington Interchange area has had a long-term problem with flooding on occasions.

SEPTA since the mid-late 1990s has expanded the Fort Washington Station with two high-level platforms and
major parking facilities (around 500 spaces) replacing the much smaller former RDG station area. Relocating
the station 1/2 mile south to a station allowing a junction and access to both lines would not work in this case.

A good circumference-type route would work if there was not so many problems with the line concerning
connecting rail services and highways and arrangements with the route owner (in this case NS) to share
service hours and maintenance primarily to work together for the common good...MACTRAXX
 #1586062  by ExCon90
 
All true; and regarding above posts about needed service frequencies on the circumferential line, the radial lines it connects would also need to have a base headway no greater than 15 minutes to make the whole idea workable. In addition, it was noted back when the idea was originally discussed that there were few or no traffic generators (office parks, shopping centers) within walking distance of where the stations would have to be, necessitating clusters of van routes radiating from the stations (one-seat rides? forget it). Traffic conditions would have to get a lot worse to make a circumferential line attractive -- and the way we're going maybe they will.
 #1586086  by JeffK
 
Very, very true. IIRC its routing was the second factor, after cost, that sank the CCM. I heard it described as going near many destinations but to none of them.