If Philly Had A More Extensive Subway/Rapid Transit System..

If Philly had a more extensive subway/rapid transit system, there would be less gridlock on the city streets...more people would ditch their cars and get around by subway. Anyone agree??? As an Uber/Lyft driver, I've noticed over the last couple of years that Philadelphia is becoming less and less "driver-friendly", with the streets being clogged with traffic, especially in and around Center City. I recently commented to one of my riders that Philly is becoming as bad as New York City, and he said that driving in Philly is WORSE than New York City! What SEPTA needs to do is to figure a way to improve service to encourage more people to use it, thus getting more cars off the city streets. I remember back in the late 1980's/early 1990's, SEPTA had the slogan "SEPTA...Better Than Driving", which likely was trying to encourage people to leave their cars at home and use mass transit. Philly definitely needs more in the way of rail transit, but of course it's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

I'm not sure Philly has the population density to support a more extensive subway system, except perhaps to the Northeast--and there only as a catchment point for suburbs farther out. Come upstairs from a New York subway station and you see tall residential buildings, not trinities and twins.

ExCon90 wrote:I'm not sure Philly has the population density to support a more extensive subway system, except perhaps to the Northeast--and there only as a catchment point for suburbs farther out. Come upstairs from a New York subway station and you see tall residential buildings, not trinities and twins.

Philly may not have the population density...but look at the traffic situation on city streets...always bumper-to-bumper, even during non-rush hour periods. They need to figure out a way of eliminating the gridlock, which I believe one solution would be adding and improving mass transit options...and launching aggressive ad campaigns to encourage people to leave their cars at home and use mass transit to go into, and navigate the city. The traffic situation in Philadelphia seems to have gotten worse over the last couple of years. I remember not too long ago you could pretty much "breeze" through Center City without encountering a traffic jam.

I think we could probably support subways into the Northeast and the Northwest as well as two extensions of the BSL covering the Navy Yard and the current route 6 bus. As far as congestion goes, blocking the box has become a really big problem and I suspect that if you started another round of PSAs plus tickets traffic would get better. More than a subway system though, regional rail desperately needs more capacity. It needs not only more parking but room on the train.

silverliner266 wrote:I think we could probably support subways into the Northeast and the Northwest as well as two extensions of the BSL covering the Navy Yard and the current route 6 bus. As far as congestion goes, blocking the box has become a really big problem and I suspect that if you started another round of PSAs plus tickets traffic would get better. More than a subway system though, regional rail desperately needs more capacity. It needs not only more parking but room on the train.

One thing that causes the majority of the congestion is the stupid law that motorists must yield to pedestrians crossing at the intersections, sometimes making motorists get stuck through at least two traffic light cycles. If it was the other way around, where vehicular traffic had the right-of-way and pedestrians had to wait until the traffic cleared before crossing, then traffic would move much smoother and efficiently. As for "blocking the box", that has happened to me on a few occasions, and most times you can't help it...traffic in front of you all of a sudden stops, with you stuck in the middle of the intersection as the light changes...and no room for you to maneuver to get out of the "box". I know I'm going way off-topic...but I just had to vent over the current traffic situation in the city. As I've said, more transit options would be one way of easing the congestion, especially rapid transit...trolleys/light rail, more subway/elevated lines, etc..

Extending PATCO further into the city might help, as would any extension to either side of the BSL.

mcgrath618 wrote:Extending PATCO further into the city might help, as would any extension to either side of the BSL.

Agreed, PATCO really needs to be extended at least out to University City, with maybe a connection with the R-1 line.

TWTRTECH wrote:

mcgrath618 wrote:Extending PATCO further into the city might help, as would any extension to either side of the BSL.

Agreed, PATCO really needs to be extended at least out to University City, with maybe a connection with the R-1 line.

Perhaps a Subway to Rittenhouse Square to start, with room for expansion in the future? I feel as if Rittenhouse having mass transit would really help the gridlock in the area.

Perhaps a 19th or 20th st subway running north/south (I think there was planned back in 1919?) would also help this.
I also feel as if South St. could use either a trolley or a subway, being that it is literally the shopping destination in the city, and can only be reached in one small area by a BSL stop.

mcgrath618 wrote:I also feel as if South St. could use either a trolley or a subway, being that it is literally the shopping destination in the city, and can only be reached in one small area by a BSL stop.

Perhaps a retro heritage streetcar (much like many other cities are doing now in downtown/commercial areas)?

R36 Combine Coach wrote:

mcgrath618 wrote:I also feel as if South St. could use either a trolley or a subway, being that it is literally the shopping destination in the city, and can only be reached in one small area by a BSL stop.

Perhaps a retro heritage streetcar (much like many other cities are doing now in downtown/commercial areas)?

I mean Route 15 is already just that, and apparently they want to replace those with this new wave of streetcars...
Perhaps those PCCs could be put to use down there?

As respects density, we have a greater density downtown than Boston yet they have more lines. The Chicago El travels much farther throughout the the city to areas with denisity less than Roxborough, Northeast Philly or Southwest Philly. I agree that we should have a more extensive system but keep in mind that other than LA no heavy rail has been built in decades other than extension of the 7 and part of the the 2nd Ave line in NYC.

Traffic in Center City is simply the result of lack of enforcement by police for double parked cars or blocking the box and short cycle traffic lights. Traffic doesn't have a chance to get flowing before the light changes again.

traffic got worse when SEPTA got worse. ridership is down and it results in gridlock. one wonders what would happen if the city were a stronger job market. that said, the problem is we lost so much regional rail service and they never finished the broad street subway system. it was intended to be a four track main with branches to bustleton, Germantown, southwest philly, the navy yard, and I believe even glenside via west oak lane. these were to be elevateds feeding a four track subway. that doesn't include the parkway-29th line. the one that makes the most sense today is bustleton.

Suburban Station wrote:traffic got worse when SEPTA got worse. ridership is down and it results in gridlock. one wonders what would happen if the city were a stronger job market. that said, the problem is we lost so much regional rail service and they never finished the broad street subway system. it was intended to be a four track main with branches to bustleton, Germantown, southwest philly, the navy yard, and I believe even glenside via west oak lane. these were to be elevateds feeding a four track subway. that doesn't include the parkway-29th line. the one that makes the most sense today is bustleton.

SEPTA can't be entirely held at fault for the horrid gridlock. It's not their fault that they don't have funding, or that they inherited a shoddy subway system from PCC, or even that Hyundai screwed up the SLV.

If perhaps the state or even a few block grants came rolling our way, perhaps some new subways could be constructed under SEPTA.

world traveler wrote:As respects density, we have a greater density downtown than Boston yet they have more lines.

Actually Boston and Philly line up to be fairly similar rapid transit wise
Boston Philly
Orange Line Broad St. Subway
Red Line Market Frankford El
Blue Line PATCO
Green Line Subway Surface

But then when you factor in commuter rail, Boston's is a joke compared to Philly's system, so Philly comes out ahead there.

Boston's downtown is probably at least as dense as Philly's but is a lot smaller in area.
Boston is much harder to drive around than Philly so that might give transit a leg up here.

Jon

jonnhrr wrote: But then when you factor in commuter rail, Boston's is a joke compared to Philly's system, so Philly comes out ahead there.

Not as much of a joke as one might think. The MBTA is a roughly 50% larger system in terms of track miles, and while diesel, has done somewhat more expansion than SEPTA (if we're going on track miles of service added vs. track miles of service cut since say 1975, the MBTA is net positive while SEPTA is net negative; this may be more due to the New Haven, B&M, and B&A being more aggressive in the 50s and 60s about abandoning service and eliminating infrastructure than the PRR and Reading*). Ridership wise, the MBTA is slightly ahead of SEPTA (though substantially behind on ridership per track/route mile).

There is a substantial difference in density. The City of Philadelphia is 134.1 square miles and has a population of 1.567 million. Boston/Winthrop/Revere/Chelsea/Everett/Somerville/Cambridge/Watertown/Newton/Brookline/Needham/Dedham/Canton/Milton/Quincy (Boston and all contiguous municipalities) add up to 170 square miles and 1.335 million people (you have to add nearly all of what's inside of 128 to get to the Philadelphia level of population.

*: it should also be noted that a certain amount of the apparent advantage to Boston in subway/light rail is at the expense of the commuter rail system: had the Highland Branch of the B&A not become the Green Line D Branch, it would likely be a prototypical example of SEPTA-style service and the single-track Old Colony and Haverhill lines near the terminals are that way precisely because of rapid transit conversion.