Schuylkill Valley Metro

$400 million versus the previous $2 billion...? Who knows. If Schuylkill Valley "Metro" turns into SV Regional Rail like it always should have been, then I'd say it's a possibility.

Probbably an 'installment' plan. i.e., they allocate money this year for X amount, money next year for X amount, etc.

Of course, given the way agencies handle money, this means nothing probbably. Just come over to NY where we see lots of money get 'spent' on nothing....

Irish Chieftain wrote:$400 million versus the previous $2 billion...?

No, that's consistent.

$400 million is the state share of the cost. If SEPTA's unrealistic financial plan could be implemented (80/20 federal/state-local split), that would support a $2 billion project.

If you assume the "overmatch" requirement that has been DOT policy since the Bush 41 administration (i.e. 60/40 or 50/50 split), that supports an $800 million to $1 billion project, which is a much more realistic number, and easily attainable if SEPTA is willing to do the project as conventional commuter rail on shared track.

If SEPTA were to do the project on the cheap, $400 million could cover almost the entire cost (the feds could kick in an additional $25 million with much less paperwork than for a larger grant application, and you might assume a local match of as much as $80 million, based on precedent).

Matt wrote:If SEPTA were to do the project on the cheap, $400 million could cover almost the entire cost (the feds could kick in an additional $25 million with much less paperwork than for a larger grant application, and you might assume a local match of as much as $80 million, based on precedent).

We could have the old Regional Rail service back for that amount.

Could, but would is another matter. Do you really think SEPTA can be
persuaded to run diesels on their tracks? Doesn't seem likely to me.
I think they're going to be better off working with an independent agency
and PennDOT, and going over SEPTA's head.

(x) Design and construction of Schuylkill Valley and Cross County Metros 400,000,000

After looking at the SEPTA FY 2005 Capital Budget, on page 54, it states that the $2 billion total New Starts funding applies to all three of the SVM, CCM, and Route 100 extension projects. The above quote from the bill seems to omit the Route 100 project. Any significance?

Also, I was looking through the New Starts descriptions of projects in other parts of the nation, and the federal match is usually around 50% or less. For example, the Harrisburg commuter rail project has a federal share of 33% (at $24.9 million, which exempts it from FTA evaluation). The BART SFO extension has about 50% federal funding. The SVM project as submitted to the FTA stands out as expensive ($2 billion total) and unrealistic (80% federal share) compared to other projects in the FY 2005 Report.

From the Schuylkill Valley MetroRail Project Profile (11/03) in Appenix A:

The proposed project would utilize an innovative technology consisting of conventional commuter rail car design modified to permit single person operation. SVM would operate on shared track with regional rail, Amtrak and freight trains and would use Philadelphia’s Center City Tunnel. SEPTA is also examining a possible linkage to the proposed Cross County Metro project between King of Prussia and Norristown.

Proposed Project: Hybrid Commuter Rail, 74 Miles, 34 Stations
Total Capital Cost ($YOE):$2,588.9 Million
Section 5309 New Starts Share ($YOE):$2,071.1 Million (80%)
Annual Operating Cost (2020 $YOE): $65.2 Million

The overall project rating of Not Recommended is based upon the project’s Low financial rating. This rating is based on the greater than 60 percent New Starts share of project costs. The conference report accompanying the FY 2002 Department of Transportation Appropriations Act directs that, as of October 1, 2002, no new Full Funding Grant Agreement may be executed with a Federal New Starts share greater than 60 percent. The project's Low share rating and summary financial rating reflect this Congressional direction. Although FTA is reporting SEPTA’s ridership forecasts for the project, FTA continues to have concerns about the ridership levels anticipated by these estimates and is thus not rating the project justification criteria. The overall project rating applies to this Annual Report on New Starts and reflects the information available as of November 2003.

And I have been successful in finding old copies of information available on the www.svmetro.com web site, with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. You can download the old newsletters and other information with that link. Most of the information is four years old.

My conclusion after looking at all this data is I really don't understand how a project with so much local public support could be so badly mismanaged.

Lucius Kwok wrote:After looking at the SEPTA FY 2005 Capital Budget, on page 54, it states that the $2 billion total New Starts funding applies to all three of the SVM, CCM, and Route 100 extension projects. The above quote from the bill seems to omit the Route 100 project. Any significance?

Well since there's no real chance they're going to get two billion for all those projects put together, let alone Schuylkill Valley alone, there's no real significance in terms of budgeting or prioritizing. If you want to look at it as a sign the left hand at SEPTA doesn't know what the right hand is doing, then you might have some significance there.

Also, I was looking through the New Starts descriptions of projects in other parts of the nation, and the federal match is usually around 50% or less. For example, the Harrisburg commuter rail project has a federal share of 33% (at $24.9 million, which exempts it from FTA evaluation). The BART SFO extension has about 50% federal funding. The SVM project as submitted to the FTA stands out as expensive ($2 billion total) and unrealistic (80% federal share) compared to other projects in the FY 2005 New Starts Report.

Correct. During the Bush 41 administration, as the amount of New Starts requests exceeded available funding, the DOT established a policy that while it could legally make grants for projects at an 80% federal share, DOT would give preference to projects with an "overmatch" (i.e. more than 20% state/local share). That would help weed out the weaker projests as well as stretch the federal funds farther. During the Clinton administration, this policy was retained, and an unofficial minimum of 40% state/local share was set. As your citation below says, this was given the force of law in 2002.

Even though SEPTA was aware(*) of this policy, they went ahead and submitted a grant application calling for a 80/20 split. And no surprise, the application was rejected.

Perhaps it's because SEPTA refused to deal with that reality (they were persisting in planning for a two billion dollar project and getting 80% from Washington) that Rep. Gerlach and PennDOT stepped in and convened their own task force to try and rationalize this project and salvage it, with or without SEPTA.

*--and had been told by DVARP that they were risking having the grant rejected

From the Schuylkill Valley MetroRail Project Profile (11/03) in Appendix A:

Proposed Project: Hybrid Commuter Rail, 74 Miles, 34 Stations
Total Capital Cost ($YOE):$2,588.9 Million
Section 5309 New Starts Share ($YOE):$2,071.1 Million (80%)
Annual Operating Cost (2020 $YOE): $65.2 Million

The overall project rating of Not Recommended is based upon the project’s Low financial rating. This rating is based on the greater than 60 percent New Starts share of project costs. The conference report accompanying the FY 2002 Department of Transportation Appropriations Act directs that, as of October 1, 2002, no new Full Funding Grant Agreement may be executed with a Federal New Starts share greater than 60 percent. The project's Low share rating and summary financial rating reflect this Congressional direction. Although FTA is reporting SEPTA’s ridership forecasts for the project, FTA continues to have concerns about the ridership levels anticipated by these estimates and is thus not rating the project justification criteria. The overall project rating applies to this Annual Report on New Starts and reflects the information available as of November 2003.

Note the additional concerns about ridership projections. While FTA did not spell out specific reasons for questioning the forecast, we questioned SEPTA's use of a city transit model for estimating ridership all the way out to Pottstown (ridership projections for the Berks County segment of the line were developed by Berks using a different model, and are much more in line with what we projected).

And I have been successful in finding old copies of information available on the www.svmetro.com web site, with the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. You can download the old newsletters and other information with that link. Most of the information is four years old.

The documents from the Major Investment Study should be there, I think. You can also find our formal comments to FTA at http://www.dvarp.org/svm/ along with other background information on this fiasco, going back to the 1998 feasibility study.

My conclusion after looking at all this data is I really don't understand how a project with so much local public support could be so badly mismanaged.

Until the Auditor General or PennDOT orders a complete investigation of SEPTA's planning department in general, and this project in particular, you're only gonna see the tip of the iceberg. SEPTA has literally wasted at least four years and tens of millions of dollars pursuing first its trolley folly and then the MetroRail pipe dream.

I think the answer is simple; SEPTA didn't really want the project to succeed. It's not that SEPTA was deliberately trying to scuttle SVM, it's that they just wanted to do things their way. They have their nice system
of 3 car EMU's, and they wanted SVM to be the same way. They didn't
want to have a separate fleet of diesels; that would require separate
maintenance facilities, and would also not be interoperable with the rest
of their system. From SEPTA's point of view, that was a pain in the ass
they didn't want to deal with. So SEPTA simply presented SVM in the
format of being an extension of one of their existing lines. If the feds
funded it, fine, if not well, hey we don't care about the people out in
Reading anyway, so big deal. That's SEPTA's attitude.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; SVM will never be built by SEPTA.
The people in Reading will have to start their own transit agency, go directly to PennDOT and get track and station rights , and run the diesels on their own. Otherwise it will never happen.

Why assume the service - any service - has to be diesel?

Last I heard, electrification costs were only about 5% of the total SVM cost (which sounds about right).

Septa won't save a dime running diesels. They have no maintenance facility, no fueling facility, the units can't be run on other lines, into the CC tunnel. Diesels aren't any cheaper to operate, and they're a heck of a lot slower.

The initial costs would likely be the same either way. Looking at what facilities in the NY area have cost in recent years, it's concieveable that going diesel wouldn't save SEPTA one cent.

What's the point of it is it's not cheaper, faster, or better?

I'm not sure it was just the electrification issue, although I think it was
going to cost more than 5% of the budget. I think it was more SEPTA's insistence on having their own separate track without freight trains. That
was the other thing that made it so expensive.

The estimates I heard at the time were it was roughly 5% of the budget.

Realize that basing costs off of the NEC boston segment is only going to yield a 'worst case' number, since the NEC's electrification was severely overbuilt, and hardly an example of best practice anywhere.

In the early-mid 90's, MK studied electrification for Caltrain, and they concluded that with substations and wires and 'civil modifications' (I'm guessing bridge and clearancing), 50 miles of <b>two track</b> route could be built for roughly 60 million dollars. This is for a 25kv system. There's really no reason why Septa cannot use a 25kv system. I'm guessing you'd have to add maybe another 10 or so million for a 12kv 60hz system, and a bit more for a 25hz system. This would primarilly be substation costs.

So, that seems to suggest about 100 million for the SVM's route length (Wasn't it about 75 miles?), thus 5% of the budget.

This doesn't assume signal modifications, but ANY line, existing or new is going to effectively need a whole new signal system anyway.

So, axing electrification isn't going to save much. I'm guessing at best you'd save 100 - 150 million (if Septa picks a competant contractor ans watches them carefully). Anyone want to take a stab at what a facility to maintain diesels is going to cost? I'm guessing at least 50 million.

When you work things out over 30 years, the cost difference becomes so tiny it's not worth bothering with diesels, especially in light of the interchangability equipment can then have, plus the elimanation of the center city tunnel issues.

The most recent estimates (this year) of electrifying 90 miles of track in California for Caltrain is $457 million for 2 tracks, not including rolling stock. (See their web site). If the SVM section to be electrified is about 50 miles long and 2 tracks, that would give an estimate
of electrification of about $250 million. Now, undoubtedly operating costs of electrics will be much
lower than diesels. However, this is still a significant
amount of up-front money, and constitues a significant
barrier to service implementation as proposed by SEPTA. In addition, an earlier Caltrain study points out
clearly that for lines with less than 100 trains/day,
as would clearly be the case for SVM trains with MBTA-
type 6 or 7 car one or bilevel consists (not SEPTA 3 car trains), that electrification does not make economic sense.

It's not a barrier.

And Caltrain's been growing the cost of their electrification for political reasons (i.e., they don't want to do it). A number of groups in the area have pointed out that Caltrain has been overstating the cost of their system.

In any case, big whoop, you sped 250 million now and get a better system. Do you <b>really</b> think a diesel maintenace facility, yards, fueling, and having a totally incompatible fleet of equipment is really going to be that much cheaper that it'll be worth the added operating expense over the next few decades?

One problem with Septa is a large array of fundimentally incompatible equipment. Adding yet another flavor of train to that mix isn't going to help.

Further, for a system that's already too slow, locking an expansion into being based on what's by far the slowest type of train out there is crazy. On top of which, a diesel fleet would be useless anywhere else in the system, thus it'd be a huge outlay for equipment that would basically sit unused most of the time.

The extra upfront cost isn't really that much, and the added performance and flexibility is a huge advantage. For once, Septa's actually right ininsisting on an electric extension, since diesel service would make no sense at all.

Diesel service for SVM makes perfectly good sense. Since SEPTA (or
someone) would have to share the line with CSX, I see no reason why
they couldn't sub out the locomotive maintenance to CSX too, assuming
they have the capacity. As far as being stuck with diesel rolling stock,
if they wanted to convert to electric later on, they can sell off their locomotives to any railroad that would buy them (they wouldn't necessarily
have to sell their railcars).

Diesels are slower to acclerate than electrics, but on a 62 mile long line with wider station spacing, that won't be as much of a problem; the MBTA uses them on all their lines, some almost as long, without any real problems, and they pull seven to ten car double decker trains. The EMUs are only significantly better on shorter lines with many stops (the rest of the SEPTA system).

The whole point is, you need to get the initial cost down to get things
going; otherwise SVM will never happen at all, for political reasons.
Electric service would be nice, but it should follow the pattern of most
commuter lines; diesel first to prove the service has ridership, then convert to electric if/when the line becomes heavily used.

The Reading and PRR both ran diesels. Is there anything left of their diesel servicing facilities? Amtrak must have diesel servicing capabilities as well, couldn't SEPTA work out something to borrow them?