Railroad Forums 

  • SEPTA Needs to Restore Full Service to the Bethlehem Branch

  • 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

 #1279101  by NorthPennLimited
 
LANSDALE — Plans for a parking garage to be built by SEPTA behind the Lansdale Train Station were unveiled to the public Wednesday night, and the transit agency wants to hear what the public thinks.

“We’d like to gather your input. It completely matters to us. This is growing into a great partnership, and I think it’s something that will benefit Lansdale, it’ll benefit SEPTA, and it’s important that we’re ready to help Lansdale along with their revitalization efforts,” said Jeff Knueppel, SEPTA’s deputy general manager.

Knueppel led a team of officials including architects and engineers in showing off plans for a four-story, brick clad garage to be built atop much of the current SEPTA parking behind the Lansdale station, with a pedestrian bridge running over the nearby railroad tracks to connect with the nearby Madison Parking Lot and development projects currently underway there.

Speaking to an audience of several dozen Lansdale residents and borough officials, Knueppel outlined the results of user surveys and supply studies that show the demand is already there for such a garage, and will only grow over the next few years.

The station currently sees just shy of 1,400 riders get on trains during the typical week day, and the agency projects that number to grow to nearly 1,600 per day by 2019. Seventy-five percent of those rail riders get to the Lansdale station by car, according to survey data, and the areas that contribute the top total traffic include Lansdale and several surrounding townships. Hatfield, Towamencin, Lower Salford, and Hilltown are the top sources of riders, who often start as drivers to the station.

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 #1357281  by SCB2525
 
Full service to Bethlehem may never see the light of day again but I'd be surprised to never see service above Lansdale. Sooner or later, the railroad will have 'caught up' in terms of state of good repair and technology mitigating the downsides of not being electrified will continue to develop. It's going to be hard at that point for SEPTA to continue to push off service expansions. Pennridge/Quakertown makes the most sense to start with.
 #1357482  by BPP1999
 
SCB2525 wrote:Full service to Bethlehem may never see the light of day again but I'd be surprised to never see service above Lansdale. Sooner or later, the railroad will have 'caught up' in terms of state of good repair and technology mitigating the downsides of not being electrified will continue to develop. It's going to be hard at that point for SEPTA to continue to push off service expansions. Pennridge/Quakertown makes the most sense to start with.
God willing, yes. I hold out this same hope for other routes (Pottstown and West Chester). Of course, when rail, equipment, and bridges are up to a state of good repair, they may be tempted to find something else to focus on - i.e. unnecessary station improvements, so they can continue to have excuses not to expand. This is, of course, idiot behavior, but it's how they think.
 #1357632  by SCB2525
 
I can't see them getting away with throwing most of their capital at just stations in that unspecified time in the future. Even as they spent about what it would cost to go to Quakertown on PTC the last 7 years they've still managed to afford a fair number of other projects, and an expansion would have a fair chunk taken care of by the feds/state.
 #1357651  by R3 Passenger
 
SCB2525 wrote:I can't see them getting away with throwing most of their capital at just stations in that unspecified time in the future. Even as they spent about what it would cost to go to Quakertown on PTC the last 7 years they've still managed to afford a fair number of other projects, and an expansion would have a fair chunk taken care of by the feds/state.
The difference between service expansion and the station improvements/PTC implementation is that the latter are unfunded federal mandates. They were required by the Rail Safety Act of 2008 to have the PTC installed by the end of 2015. They are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and subsequent rulings to replace stations with high level platforms that provide equal access for all.

As long as the government keeps legislating laws that mandate resource-intensive projects, SEPTA needs to prioritize those projects and spend the rest of its budget on catching up with maintenance and replacement of antiquated equipment. But, that backlog is so great that there isn't enough money left to do it all. Once SEPTA has met all unfunded mandates and everything is in a state of good repair and the maintenance-heavy components of the operation are replaced with newer components requiring less maintenance, then your service expansion argument is valid.
 #1361137  by NorthPennLimited
 
The Morning Call has an article about the Lehigh Valley Mayors and Amtrak trying to drum up support for restoration of passenger rail service to NYC, Harrisburg, and Philly.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-alle ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Onion should run an article:

SEPTA was going to run an extra to Pottstown or Phoenixville, but the idea was scrubbed due to the fact that (1) They don't have any passenger service diesels to entertain the idea (2) The RL-1's would be lucky to pull 2 coaches to Norristown Transportation Center without breaking down (3) Nobody at SEPTA seems to share the same enthusiasm and interest in commuter rail expansion as McHugh at Amtrak.
 #1362177  by bikentransit
 
Suburban Station wrote:
Limited-Clear wrote:Bethlehem, the new Newtown thread 🙈 Sooner they make it into a trail/bike path the better
Is it really sensible to compare newtown, pa (pop. 2250) to bethlehem (pop. 75,000)? Seems like apples and oranges
WoW how misleading! Newtown Township actually has a population of 18,000. What a troll you are.