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Commuter rail has higher top speeds and is designed for longer distances with fewer stops per mile. IIRC for RTD the airport line from downtown light rail alternative was about 20 minutes slower over the course of it's 23 mile 7 stop journey. Light rail has quicker acceleration and is more flexible in where it can go. The flexibility makes it cheaper to implement in urban areas with limited ROW, and the acceleration makes it better on lines with more stops per mile. In general light rail is better as an urban transit solution. If the lines go beyond the inner suburbs and the average space between stations becomes greater it might be better to use commuter rail as a suburban to urban transit solution. |
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There are already 4 actively used tunnels through center City, but another tunnel would be nice in South Philly. I think that's a weak point for the system as it only has the broad Street line and it's very populated. Also the navy yard is becoming a big office center and isn't served by anything. There's a 3-track elevated track that runs down 25th to the navy yard, but csx owns it. Then there are plans to do light rail down along the Delaware river, but it feels like that project is not going anywhere. The broad-ridge spur tunnel (diagonal orange line on Google maps) was supposed to go all the way to northwest Philly but the great depression hit sit it just connects to broad. There's an unused 6-track tunnel that goes from broad, past the art museum that would be nice to put to some use. Septa owns it but just sits on it. Then there's the patco tunnel (red line on Google maps) that just ends at Rittenhouse square. It was supposed to loop around the city, but again the depression. I think there are a couple blocks of tunnel under arch from the loop plan but unused. There were a couple other lines I think that never happened and plans for something to northeast Philly down Rosselvelt Blvd. |
It is clear that you have thought about this more than I.
I was thinking that the commuter rail alignment between Sedgley Ave and Glenwood Ave was a weird alignment, and should be replaced by a new alignment closer to the Market-Frankford line for cross-city trips. I, again, know next to nothing about Philadelphia, so please take my critique with a grain of salt. |
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There is a pretty massive plan to develop around 30th Street station, so the current alignment would make more sense since that would be the destination for a lot of commuters. The east side of the city, along the Delaware, is more of a tourist destination with all the historical stuff. From broad Street to the Schuylkill river is the office center of the city. |
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There's never been an official proposal to take one of the Chestnut Hill lines and convert it into a subway line though I made a fantasy routing doing just that and posted it here a while ago. Such a plan would be sensible in some ways. |
^^ I bet I'm remembering one of your posts then regarding chestnut hill west/BSL. I think it definitely makes sense given the bandwidth that BSL has. Would need to convert the catenary to third rail though, which I have no idea what that would take.
The under-utilization of SEPTA regional rail really frustrates me though. They've done all the hard work to make it a true s-bahn (electrifying the whole system, building the connector tunnel for through-running service that all the branches feed into, a 4-track trunk to allow local and express station calling). It just seems like after all that they just shrugged and called it a day. I'm sure unions and mgmt are a big issue, but I don't think the funding is where it should be either. Also, I wonder if they could automate a large portion of the system. There are some grade crossings that would need to be fixed, but I think a lot of it is grade-separated. To SEPTA's credit, they're at least getting all the rates under septa key and adding raised platforms to improve loading times. |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkWxbAoOK2o Additionally, that video mostly about passenger trains near Philadelphia, reflects what was basically going on nationally as private enterprise was pulling out of transit and government stepped in. Many errors were made. |
^^^ interesting video, they really hit on the frustration of it all. Didn't know about the swampoodle connector; that would be one (fairly low-cost) solution to the chestnut hill west line sharing the NEC issue. also like the mention of our "temporarily suspended" trolleys 56 and 23. at least they brought 15 back.
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So what commuter rail extensions/creations would be most useful? I definitely feel that if these systems are greatly expanded, ridership would explode. Here are a few ideas for expansion, I feel would be fantastic, by metro.
NY: MOM rail to Toms River Extension to Hightstown, NJ West Trenton Line Allentown extension via High Bridge Washington, NJ extension via Hackettstown East Stroudsburg New Paltz via extension through Sparta, NJ New branch through Suffern that turns out to Goshen on to Port Jervis North East NJ extension through Tenafly up to Newburgh. New Milford, CT extension. Torrington extension Extend metro north out to New London Re establish branch to Sag Harbor LA: Santa Barbara extension Victorville extension Palm Springs extension Hemet extension Temecula extension DMU Line from DTLA to Costa Mesa Chicago: Milwaukee extension Lake Geneva extension Rockford extension Rochelle Extension Ottowa extension Wilmington extension Kankakee extension Lowell ext Crown Point ext Valparaiso ext LaPorte extension San Francisco: BART to San Rafael SMART to Sonoma BART to NAPA Caltrain to Vacaville via new transbay tunnel with BART Caltrain to Antioch BART ext to Danville Caltrain to Stockton and Modesto replacing ACE Caltrain to Salinas BART to Santa Cruz Philadelphia: Newtown ext New Hope ext Quakertown ext Reading ext Lancaster ext West Chester ext Oxford ext Northeast ext Dover ext Woodstown ext Glassboro ext Mount Holly ext Boston: Portsmouth ext Manchester ext Gardner ext Clinton ext Webster ext Milford ext New Bedford/Fall River ext Hyannis ext What’s a few hundred billion to make our lives better. |
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Why limit your commuter rail corridor to just the cities you listed? Couyldn't other metros have a fantastic commuter rail line? Like Denver to Boulder? |
I can only speak as a Philly resident; I think given the growth of the Lehigh Valley, the extension of the Lansdale line out past Quakertown to Bethlehem/Allentown would be very beneficial. Also, while Reading hasn't seen the same growth, the traffic on 422 is horrible due to the population density along that corridor. Extending the Norristown line towards Reading would help relieve that. SEPTA is already working on an extension of the Norristown high speed line to King of Prussia which will help, but I still think the regional rail extension is needed on top of that. Problem is that Norfolk Southern is fighting it and I'd expect they would want to electrify the service (septa regional rail is all electrified), since that was the reason they discontinued the original service to Reading; it used diesel engines after Norristown. West Chester would also be nice (322 and route 1 get pretty backed up) and SEPTA is already building an extension to Wawa and I believe are doing studies for continuing out to West Chester. That line was electric all the way to west Chester, so not sure why they cut it to begin with.
The Northeast corridor extension is an interesting idea but I don't know if Amtrak would fight that since they want to run more trains. I always thought that Philadelphia and NYC are close enough where it would make sense to kind of integrate into a single massive regional network (I know, doubtful). Local trains on the NEC between the two cities could run on this network on the outer tracks while Amtrak runs express trains down the middle 2 tracks. this would replace the current NJT and SEPTA lines that currently run on it (you currently need to change trains at Trenton between the two systems). NJT is looking into resuming service out to Easton in the Lehigh Valley and the current North Trenton SEPTA line could tie into the NJT Somerville line using existing track. I also read Scranton PA is working to get a NJT line extension there, but Scranton is pretty isolated due to the mountains. The others listed are nice to have but not sure if the ridership would be there. |
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That is of course in addition to extremely useful extensions such as those to Quakertown (and eventually Allentown), Atglen (which used to be a major junction where the PRR passenger and freight main lines from Philly to Harrisburg diverged), Pottstown, West Chester, and Newtown, and into the fast-growing area around Kennett Square, all of which have been proposed amongst transit activists since forever. There are also some routes I've dreamed of, e.g. to Middletown, DE, up the Perkiomen valley, and through an underserved part of Northeast Philly that would likewise prove useful. As others have noted, Philadelphia, moreso than any other city in the US, has the infrastructural base for a high-quality S-Bahn system. The problem here is mainly one of poor administration (which is, to be fair, a common problem throughout the US). |
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Philly has fantastic rail infrastructure (for a U.S. city), with the RER-style tunnel, but the ridership just isn't there. On paper, Philly should have some of the highest transit share in North America, but it doesn't fully translate. Still decent ridership, of course, but you would think it would have higher ridership than, say, SF, which has a vastly inferior regional network. |
Perhaps better fare and connection integration would get better use out of it.
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SEPTA regional rail is actually a good performer, it's highest in the nation after NYC and Chicago systems with a much smaller reach in track miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_by_ridership I agree that we have a pretty great system by US standards, but I'd argue that improving headways, extending operation time and simplifying the pricing structure will improve ridership quite a bit without making any physical modifications to the system. After that extending the system to population centers and better connecting major business nodes in the region will boost it even more. There are some pretty densely-populated regions that are missed by the current system. If anything, SEPTA has shown that an s-bhan type system in the US (and a somewhat neglected one at that) works well and is worth investing/expanding. Also, I just wanted to add that a fairly large portion of center city residents reverse-commute. I can already walk to 30th street station and get access to plenty of job centers in both the region and other nearby cities (NYC is an hour by Amtrak). Folks living near the trunk stations on the system can do the same, which also encourages building out the system to other job centers not yet served. |
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So, to me, Philly is an underperformer. It should have, at worst, the second or third highest ridership. There's no way in hell it should have lower ridership than Boston, which has a fragmented, 90% diesel system. Toronto has a joke of a system, all diesel, with booming ridership. |
Most of Chicago's system is diesel as is most (all?) of Boston's system, so obviously that doesn't make a system a "joke" at least compared to most of the continent. Of course I realize Toronto is just a popular insult target for some so such remarks shouldn't be interpreted as serious points.
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Toronto's 'joke' commuter rail network is receiving enormous investment, which is gradually transforming it into a true rapid transit network. Its high ridership is no joke.
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