SEPTA and the DVRPC unveiled plans today on how they will go about modernizing the infrastructure of the city light rail network to accommodate the future replacements to the K-Cars:
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A report released this week details plans for stops that will feature platforms raised above street level, will be wheelchair accessible, and provide the backbone of a service that, along with new, larger cars, would remake the trolleys in the city into something more like a light rail service.
The report from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is a small advance toward the plan to introduce new trolleys by 2024, an estimated $1 billion overhaul that rivals the proposed rail to King of Prussia in both cost and scope.
“This is a game changer for really an entire section of the city,” said Erik Johanson, SEPTA’s director of business innovation.
The new service would lengthen trips between stops and defined platforms where riders get on and off, instead of the bus-like system that exists now, in which trolleys can stop at nearly every intersection. The current 112 cars, 53-foot-long and manufactured by Kawasaki during the Reagan administration, along with 18 cars that date to 1948, would be replaced by 120 cars at least 80-feet long that could hold about twice as many people. SEPTA also has 29 trolleys on two routes in Delaware County that would also be replaced, but the focus is on city transit for now.
Conductor for Norfolk Southern Corp. Opinions expressed are my own and don't represent the company in any way.