Reasonable Long Term Hopes

Now that the state transportation bill has passed and SEPTA will be receiving a more reasonable capital funding level (eventually), I've been wondering whether it's reasonable to hope for *some* gradual improvements/expansion in the long term once SEPTA has had a chance to replace every broken bridge, substation, and other areas of its repair backlog. With that hope in mind, and as a bit of a joke, I created a "revamped" version of the transit map that we see plastered across trains and stations every day with my own rough guess at what we can reasonably hope the system could eventually look like. If I did it right, this will amuse at least a couple of you. Any suggestions for a more "accurate" prediction would be welcome. For those that know more about SEPTA than I do, I'm really curious as to what the Delaware Valley can reasonably hope for, regional rail-wise, 10, 20 and (gulp) even 50 years down the line.

Jamison??

Quakertown really needs to go to Bethlehem/Allentown to realize its fullest potential.
What happened to Reading?

None of this is getting built, but its nice entertainment.

I don't see a Boulevard extension of the BSL, nor do I see service via the NYSL or Trenton Cutoff.

Very nicely done. My only nit-picks are no more Norristown Main or Elm Streets? I would have put them on the Stony Creek branch and connected it to Lansdale. I also would have added a few more stops between NTC and Pottstown.

The little branches like Stoney Creek, Navy Yard & the blvd are all nice to have things, but it would probably be most wise for SEPTA to punch out on the long lines into other counties to expand their sphere of influence. If the funding issue is due part to the rest of the state not wanting to fund Philly, then the railroad needs to serve more of Pennsyltuky. A good move might be to just take the railroad away from SEPTA and put it into a PennDOT managed agency. Build out the far reaching lines that have no service like Reading, Allentown and Scranton (and help get the Lackawanna cutoff done). Then go for the Newtowns and Stoney Creeks.

As long as the commuter rail lines remain with SEPTA, we'll be stuck in this unfundable bubble, and SEPTA will stick to maintaining that bubble by devoting existing funding to it. Time to think out of the box boys.

bikentransit wrote:The little branches like Stoney Creek, Navy Yard & the blvd are all nice to have things, but it would probably be most wise for SEPTA to punch out on the long lines into other counties to expand their sphere of influence. If the funding issue is due part to the rest of the state not wanting to fund Philly, then the railroad needs to serve more of Pennsyltuky. A good move might be to just take the railroad away from SEPTA and put it into a PennDOT managed agency. Build out the far reaching lines that have no service like Reading, Allentown and Scranton (and help get the Lackawanna cutoff done). Then go for the Newtowns and Stoney Creeks.

As long as the commuter rail lines remain with SEPTA, we'll be stuck in this unfundable bubble, and SEPTA will stick to maintaining that bubble by devoting existing funding to it. Time to think out of the box boys.

Good thoughts. However, Newtown, Pottstown, West Chester, and Quakertown are all reasonable, and should not be unfundable. Aside from NJ Transit, which is a small state, how many other states have one statewide agency?

It would take 20 years to figure out how to divest SEPTA's Regional Rail system into a PennDot agency. Of course this then opens up the possibility for clowns like Metcalfe to more easily kill it.

BPP1999 wrote:Aside from NJ Transit, which is a small state, how many other states have one statewide agency?

Delaware and RI come to mind.

One issue is any of these branches have been quiet for ages, meaning whatever they have left is so out of code by today's standards that they'd essentially be ground up restorations. And SEPTA's budget gets eaten up by things like buses and new station facilities that we'd almost need a dedicated line item in a state budget to fund something that big. Other states are doing it here and there, but they seem to have transit agencies run by management that isn't so pessimistic. For example, most of the news articles on Newtown over the last few years quotes SEPTA as saying the line isn't feasible or isn't needed. Well no duh. None of it is really feasible in terms of dollars and cents, and if that's the breadth of their scope of view, nothing is going to get done. The bigger issue is the trend that expansion seems to be driven by the counties and not actual need. For example, Montco wants a train to Reading or KOP, so studies get done. Chester county isn't really interested in a train to West Chester, so no studies get done. Fragmented politics and counties with deeper pockets seem to drive what gets funded vs. what needs to be done.

bikentransit wrote:Jamison??

Quakertown really needs to go to Bethlehem/Allentown to realize its fullest potential.
What happened to Reading?

None of this is getting built, but its nice entertainment.

If you've ever ridden from Warminster, you've probably seen that even the relatively large parking lot is jammed to capacity by people from further north (Ivyland, RIchboro, and Jamison). Extending the line a little felt like a fair way to ease congestion without entering rural areas where rail would be a lot less cost-effective and would completely impinge on the New Hope-Ivyland tourist rail.

As far as Bethlehem/Allentown/Reading, I've always thought that SEPTA was hampered geographically by its 5 county board make-up. I know there are a couple exceptions to this (Wilmington/Newark, DE; Trenton/West Trenton, NJ) but I figured with all of the difficulty spent even discussing service up to Quakertown due to funding issues (last I heard, service to Sellersville only was being looked at), pushing into Lehigh or Berks was too much of a stretch (made even worse by the rail trail they built up there).

Glad you're entertained (an amusing nod to SEPTA's current map was part of my goal), but this is also meant to be a proposed idea for where SEPTA could be if funding that is now expected stays consistent and enough time is allowed to go by. I didn't add in service to Reading/Pottsville, Allentown, Stoney Hill branch, Octoraro branch, and the Roosevelt Blvd. because, awesome as that would be, I'm trying to compromise dreams with conceivable reality. What would SEPTA do if it had a couple billion dollars to spend on expansion in the next 50 years, but not the tens of billions that would be needed to treat rail like it was 1920 again.

Not gonna lie, i love that reading side development past jenkintown, all of it makes sense. The only thing i'd say is that i think quakertown may end up with a shuttle that only goes to landsdale, with thru service peak hours.

And, of all the comments about bethlehem, i think that would work with diesel, but 20 years is a long time to draw in enough appreciation of the service to wire it up. You could run any diesel service as far as jenkintown, reverse it over a switch, then send it back out.

I'm familiar with the situation in Warminster. My friends complain all the time how every bloody station in that area is stuffed and there's no choice but to a) park illegally or b) drive and white knuckle it down 95. Warminster just needs to be pushed up to where the old navy base was, it seems there's room there for a second park-n-lock and could be done on the cheap. Call it a stop-gap measure. Your map was very thought provoking to all, though I'm not convinced any of this will happen within the span of our working years.

bikentransit wrote:The little branches like Stoney Creek, Navy Yard & the blvd are all nice to have things, but it would probably be most wise for SEPTA to punch out on the long lines into other counties to expand their sphere of influence. If the funding issue is due part to the rest of the state not wanting to fund Philly, then the railroad needs to serve more of Pennsyltuky. A good move might be to just take the railroad away from SEPTA and put it into a PennDOT managed agency. Build out the far reaching lines that have no service like Reading, Allentown and Scranton (and help get the Lackawanna cutoff done). Then go for the Newtowns and Stoney Creeks.

As long as the commuter rail lines remain with SEPTA, we'll be stuck in this unfundable bubble, and SEPTA will stick to maintaining that bubble by devoting existing funding to it. Time to think out of the box boys.

That is a really interesting idea. Two concerns come to mind: 1) Assuming it were approved of, could SEPTA (or whatever it would then be called) ever be expanded widely enough to cover a solid chunk of the state (i.e. a majority of the counties) geographically? 2) Wouldn't this tread into Amtrak's role if PA really tried to have state-wide service? (though i admit Amtrak service is pretty lackluster since only the Keystone/NE Corridor have regular service; once a day on the Pennsylvanian doesn't count for too much).

As a compromise, I wonder what it would take to bring further out counties into SEPTA's governing board? I guess the obvious first two would be Berks and Lehigh. Lancaster also comes to mind, but it has decent rail service already with Amtrak's Keystone. If SEPTA could even conceivably be re-organized into a 7-county system officially instead of 5 (along with extending rail service from Norristown to Reading and Lansdale to Bethlehem/Allentown, and perhaps taking over BARTA/LANTA), there would be that much greater a proportion of PA's geography and population that had a direct stake in this single mass transit system.

I like that you snuck the Swampoodle connection in there. In that case though, you don't need to specify with (TRE) at North Philadelphia.

If this is truly a 50 year map where the old guard has died off and hopefully there's some transit-sensed people in the right places there's some notable omissions plus personal ideas.

- Atglen (somewhat likely within 10 years anyway)
- Frazer./202 station
- Ivy Ridge via Cynwyd
- Reading
- Bethlehem/Allentown
- Kennett Square/Oxford
- Airport line infill station(s). Lindbergh/61st? 70th?
- Boulevard Ext.

bikentransit wrote:Jamison??.

An extension to Almshouse Rd. actually makes a hell of a lot of sense (even though its technically JUST inside Northampton Twp. not Jamison).

I didn't see your later post that addressed some of the things I listed, but notably the Boulevard extension is so ridiculously practical and useful that its downright criminal that it hasn't been done yet. If it were NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston or the like it would have been built in the 60s/70s and if proposed today in any of those cities would be built within 5 years.