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Originally Posted by Nanyika
To clarify: The Broad Street Subway, Ridge Spur, and PATCO all operate on railroad-gauge track, the same gauge as Regional Rail. In that regard, there would be no problem in running Broad Street trains on lines like Chestnut Hill West, although stations, etc., would have to be rebuilt. On the other hand, the Market-Frankford line runs on trolley-gauge track, the same as Routes 101 & 102 and all the trolley cars. Of course, if there were a change to heavier light rail vehicles (LRVs), the tracks on the street might need to be reinforced.
I operated both trolley cars and subway-surface LRVs in San Francisco for close to 30 years. In fact, I drove some of the old surplus PCC cars (like on Girard Avenue) that Philadelphia sold to SF. These cars now operate on San Francisco's Market Street, where they are real workhorses for travel, as well as being a tourist attraction.
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I believe the biggest obstacle facing Philadelphia and it's subway system appears to be the rolling stock used in it's subway lines. DC uses one type of rolling stock (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washin..._rolling_stock), NYC uses two types of rolling stock, one for the IRT lines and another for the BMT and IND iines (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yo..._rolling_stock), Chicago has one throughout it's entire system (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicag..._rolling_stock), while Boston has different rolling stocks for each of it's lines (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTA_subway#Rolling_stock). In Canada, Toronto uses one currently and Montreal has one.
Had Philly used the same rolling stock the way Chicago and DC has one type of rolling stock, maybe Philly would've had a more extensive subway system, but in the case of Boston, each line has it's own type of rolling stock, and Boston, unlike Philly, was able to expand the Red Line in the 1970's and 1980's. The MBTA is expanding it's Green Line Northward to Somerville and Medford and there's even talk of extending the Blue Line to Lynn.
I still believe that using one type of rolling stock for Philly is the best case scenario but Philadelphia has a strange way of trading it's mass transit system unlike other cities in this country. Either way, there isn't really an excuse why Philly never expanded it's subway system the same way NYC, Chicago, SF, Boston, and DC expanded theirs.
Routes 101 and 102 would greatly benefit Delco had they been converted to grade separated heavy rail as opposed to the current light rail trolley. don't get me wrong, it does its job, but extending those lines from Sharon Hill to Chester would be a boon for Delco. It would cost a lot of money doing that, but I could see Chester booming just because of that line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanyika
I think similarly restoring trolley lines on E. Market Street in Philadelphia would make sense, especially if they connected directly with the subway surface lines at 13th St. Also, perhaps, the old Welcome Line on 12 St. and the 23 trolley in Germantown should be brought back. In general, however, restoring trolley lines on narrow streets makes less sense, in my opinion. On wider avenues -- including Girard -- SEPTA should consider articulated LRVs, stations featuring high-level boarding at all doors, honor-system fares (with random inspection), the ability to trigger green traffic lights, etc. Such systems can carry more passengers at a faster pace than buses.
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I wouldn't waste my time placing a trolley line along Market East. It's too much traffic to deal with plus Market St serves as a major artery in the city, and if a trolley were to break down on Market, that would cause a lot of gridlock. The City Hall subway-surface line is looped for a reason. However, bringing back the 23 as a trolley line from South Philly to chestnut Hill will work and I'm still surprised why SEPTA never brought back the 23 trolley the way they revived the 15 as a PCC trolley and instead split the 23 into two routes, which is inefficient, to say the least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanyika
I agree with wanderer34 and others who argue that an LRV line on Delaware Avenue should have less priority than other transit projects, even though that project was on the front burner a few years ago. The old single-track trolley line there was mainly for tourists, and at this point, I doubt that ridership would be very high for general travel. On the other hand, a subway line spur from the Market-Frankford Line that reached into South Philadelphia (i.e. perhaps down Moyamensing Avenue) would be tremendous -- but it would obviously be too expensive and ambitious for today's political climate. To see it, we would have to wait for a tremendous re-allocation of resources on the federal level, perhaps under the pressure of increased climate change.
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Philadelphia should've expanded it's subway system when the city was growing in the 20th century. When the city peaked with 2 million people in 1950, there was still a chance to build subway lines, but as many people left for the suburbs, the opportunity window became slim to the point of the window being shut. The best time Philly should've expanded was between 1920 and 1950.
There was a station nearby the current site of Penn's Landing called Market-Chestnut, which served as the former eastern terminal of the MFL, but the line became extended to Frankford and the rest is history, which may be the reason why I suggested a station at Penn's Landing (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_St...SEPTA)#History)
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Originally Posted by TonyTone
100% I agree cars will not be pushed out in favor of transportation it those two functions just work together. My issue is that philly lets the cars be above anything else, look at the speeding Ive seen people doing 50 on broad st, 40 on Walnut, these are areas packed with civilians, bike riders, kids we need speed bumps in many areas in philly just like NYC.
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I used to drive a taxicab and, at the most, I believe that Broad and Walnut Sts are marked at 30 mph, so at the most, I'd do up to 40 depending on traffic, and even then, I was always careful, but 50 on Broad is very excessive. Still, I wish Philly did a much better job expanding it's subway lines because it could've gone to good use had they did.
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Originally Posted by TonyTone
You also are correct we shouldnt focus all the energy on Delaware Ave we have other areas trolleys can be brought back first. its just the fact that the infrastructure is on Delaware Ave which makes it easy to do.
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Germantown Ave would be perfect if SEPTA wanted to bring back the PCC trolleys. The reason for the tracks along Delaware Ave was because of the freight lines from the piers to the warehouses. They didn't call Philadelphia "the Workshop of the World" for no apparent reason.
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Originally Posted by TonyTone
I think Philly just needs to dissolve Septa and create a new agency PNJTA Pennsylvania New Jersey transportation agency or even better PNDTA Pennsylvania New Jersey Delaware transportation center.
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Good luck with that. It's bad enough this region is fractured, with the DRPA representing the entire region, but our seaports are ran by the Philadelphia Regional Port and the South Jersey Port. In NYC, there's the MTA, NJ Transit, and the Port Authority of NY/NJ. Each transit agency has a responsibility of providing bus and train service in it's respective locales. A PNJTA will never happen, even though I can understand what you're trying to do, but like I said, each transit agency has a responsibility to serve it's locale.
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Originally Posted by TonyTone
We need to get rid of the dysfunction and just make everything work on one platform, we have Patco, regional rail which is Septa but it isn't. then septa and all its mess. we just need to allow everything to be one. Then I promise you half the issues we have right now wouldn't even be talked about.
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PATCO is a separate system that is ran by DRPA. The regional rail system is operated by SEPTA by the engineers and the conductors have a different union, if that's what you're referring to. The bus and train operators here in Philadelphia have their own unions.
Personally, I wish SEPTA was divided up in three boards, the surface (bus), subway, and commuter rail boards. The commuter rail board would have one representative from each county (Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Chester counties and if extended to the exurbs Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Lancaster), and the subway and surface boards would have 2 representatives from Center City, North, South, West, NW, NE, and SW as well as 2 reps from Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks.
However SEPTA only operates one five-member board, representing the five-county region and the four suburban counties always overrule Philadelphia in not just the regional rail, but bus and subway operations, which doesn't make any sense, since the subway lines never go to certain parts of the suburban counties.