Why is Wawa expansion so slow and costly??

askclifford wrote: 1. Bus Rt 104 provides customers service from 69th Street terminal to West Chester Transportation Center (Septa's new eight story parking garage)...
Busses run every five minutes

http://septa.org/schedules/bus/pdf/104.pdf indicates 2 cases where a bus leaves or arrives at 69th St within 5 minutes of another, am 6:00 and 6:05 leaves 7:55 and 8:00 arrives, but not where both are West Chester buses, rather one of each of those 2 pairs only goes to or from Newtown Square. The West Chester bus service is pretty uniformly once every 30 minutes, with a few 20 minute headways at rush hour.

askclifford wrote: and is one of Septa's most populated lines.

Can you elaborate a bit more? Even if you're only talking about suburban routes I'd think any of the ones through Yeadon and Darby would traverse more heavily populated areas than West Chester Pike. For example the http://septa.org/schedules/bus/pdf/109.pdf 69th St to Chester, which consistently has 15-20 minute weekday headways, indicates it might have more riders than the 104.

septadude wrote:

cpontani wrote:Yes, but the old WCU station is so close to the terminus (looks like a half mile or so), are both necessary?

I haven't seen the ROW so I can't know for sure, but very few people will walk a half mile to get to a train station.

I highly doubt that only very few people would walk a half mile to get to a commuter rail station. A half a mile is only about a 15 minute walk or so for the average person, probably even less. Of course, the terrain would have more to do with this than simply the distance of the station from the originating point.

That being said, I believe the West Chester Market Street Station is further than a mile away from WCU itself. Additionally, perhaps the terminus at Market Street isn't the best location for the trains, and they could terminate a little bit closer to the site of the old WCU station, allowing for plenty of space for a parking lot and maybe access from High Street itself to the new station.

delvyrails wrote:Hadn't been on the ground west of Elwyn for a decade; so I made a quick motor tour of the line one morning last week. I want to do it again, but some observations and very tentative conclusions are:

1. Track and overhead are intact, the former is good enough for the ballast trains from South Elwyn to Glen Riddle. No embankment repairs needed; catenary hangs limp through the station area, which is now effectively inaccessible by car. As a stop, it would have to depend on walk-ins from apartment houses which crowd the right of way. Could it generate the necessary 75 walk-in weekday boardings? I'm doubtful.

3. At Lenni, there's another rebuilt single track roadbed east and west of the traditional station area, which still retains its old lollypop sign at the Lenni Road crossing. Empty new catenary brack arm poles continue around the curve out of sight toward the SEPTA "Lenni Shop" sanctuary, a filled-in one time quarry. Didn't check that out (a SEPTA contractor's vehicle was buzzing around).

It would appear that at least 50 parking spaces could be placed on vacant land right around Lenni station, many more going toward the shop site. No potential-NIMBY homes within 100 yards or so. The track level is well above the Chester Creek at this point; no possible flooding. Although pathfinder signs would be needed, it's not hard to get off route 1 to the Lenni station site. Also, nearby Smith Bridge Road and Foulke Road go easily well back into the semi-suburban PA/DE hinterland for this station.

4. By contrast, the Wawa site is a poor one for a MAJOR station site, probably adopted because the line crosses route 1 on the map at this point (easy SEPTA route 111 JARC bus interchange). Unlike a decade ago, the area appears overgrown. The track is closer to creek level than at Lenni, and the ground to be used for parking is still lower (hence the costly garage?). An oxbow of the creek flows through this area, and that makes for more complexity and cost to build around.

So I'm beginning to think Lenni would be more suitable than Wawa as a TEMPORARY terminus, as someone earlier in this thread suggested. Most of the necessities are now in place since the line was reopened for the Amtrak ballast trains.

Very interesting observations. I know that I heard that Lenni wanted to have a station along the line, especially since a rail yard would be installed there. At Glen Riddle, is there a place where a parking lot could be installed. I used to pass by the station all of the time on that road that crosses over it (don't remember the name at the moment) and it seems to be pretty far below street level.

Tritransit Area wrote:Very interesting observations. I know that I heard that Lenni wanted to have a station along the line, especially since a rail yard would be installed there. At Glen Riddle, is there a place where a parking lot could be installed. I used to pass by the station all of the time on that road that crosses over it (don't remember the name at the moment) and it seems to be pretty far below street level.

Yeah that's PA 452. It's not a bad location for a station but I don't think SEPTA wants to reopen any of the stations between Elwyn and Wawa and to be honest with you, out of Williamson School, Glen Riddle and Lenni, I think only Lenni if any of them would be a good candidate to reopen. There's really no need for all three of those stations in that short a distance.

Here's an idea divert the line so it actually goes right next to the wawa headquarters then if we want west chester we could use the old tracks and have two terminuses. Wawa and West Chester.

I can't speak to your idea's cost vs benefit, but I can see that having a station on the present right of way will probably not generate much traffic to or from Wawa Food Markets's headquarters on US 1. It's a steep, long climb up the hill from the railroad, as is virtually anything interesting in the neighborhood.

Try to remember not everybody participating in this site is from around here, I think we should hope to have an international audience.
I'm born and raised in Philly, and I had to take a few seconds to figure what 'the wawa headquarters' was.

Is it possible to provide light rail service after Wawa?

askclifford wrote:Is it possible to provide light rail service after Wawa?

Maybe but, it would cost to much money and it might as well be rail.

But you could operate using Riverline Style Diesel Multiple Units and just as a shuttle service between Wawa and West Chester. The current rail can handle it, in my opinion.

askclifford wrote:But you could operate using Riverline Style Diesel Multiple Units and just as a shuttle service between Wawa and West Chester. The current rail can handle it, in my opinion.

I'm sorry, could you please remind us again what your background is in railway construction?

askclifford wrote:But you could operate using Riverline Style Diesel Multiple Units and just as a shuttle service between Wawa and West Chester. The current rail can handle it, in my opinion.

OK, let's think this through from the start of the day through to the end, from both the perspective of vehicle, track, crew, and passengers.

Vehicles
Place to store the vehicles (land, grading, tracks, etc...)
Place to store fuel for the vehicles
Place to maintain the vehicles (land, site prep, building, tracks within the building, work areas, space for MOE people to sign in, locker room, lunch room, space for supervisors, space to store parts and supplies, etc...)
Tools and other assets (note a lot are likely to be different from what you need to maintain a Silverliner)
Place to wash the vehicles
Specialwork and signals needed to connect the repair facility to the main line
Architectural and engineering services needed to plan all the above
Project management services needed to oversee creation of all the above
Insurance (property and liability)
Lawyers to make sure all the above doesn't get into trouble
More lawyers and engineers to get regulatory approval to run DMU on the general railway system
Vehicles needed to make the line
Spare vehicles
Initial supply of parts
Procurement costs including bid package preparation and project management
Testing

That's just the vehicles part of the project and I'm sure there's [stuff] I've overlooked.

SEPTA gave a breakdown of project costs at a public meeting in Middletown earlier this month.

First, it appears the project is now $90 million, which is a $10 million increase from this year's capital budget.
$10 million for track/catenary/signals. This part is funded
$55 million for a facility at Lenni
$25 million for the 600 spot parking garage at Wawa

Given the funding situation, an alternate approach might include completing the infrastructure work to bring the rail line to a state of good repair, and opening low cost facilities at Glen Riddle, Lenni or Darlington which could allow near term resumption of service. The grand "hardened" Wawa facility will have to wait given the likelihood that the state and feds will contribute funds for its construction.

limejuice wrote:

askclifford wrote:But you could operate using Riverline Style Diesel Multiple Units and just as a shuttle service between Wawa and West Chester. The current rail can handle it, in my opinion.

I'm sorry, could you please remind us again what your background is in railway construction?

None. I'm just exploring the idea. I know someone who works for WCRR, and he says the rail is perfectly capable. He said there are a few things and fix ups that need to happen, but other then that with a little work light rail would be fine.

The biggest problem with restoring service to West Chester is the fact that that portion of the line ( from Media to West Chester) suffered from poor ridership going back into the 1950's. It is true that the Nield Street station was much closer to WCU than Market Street, but most WC students who travelled between the College and Philly used the bus ( Red Arrow Route W- Septa Route 104) even though the walk uptown was much longer than the walk to Nield Street. ( This was during the days when the bus did not go to the College, but rather, stayed on Gay Street inbound and Market Street outbound.) Now that the bus actually goes to WCU, I would suspect that any restored train would attract even fewer riders than it did "back in the day".-- I always preferred the train ( for one thing it was a one seat ride for me between West Chester and Lansdowne, while using the bus required a transfer-- either at 69th Street or at Llanerch), but even in the '60's, most WC students did not.

walt wrote:The biggest problem with restoring service to West Chester is the fact that that portion of the line ( from Media to West Chester) suffered from poor ridership going back into the 1950's.

Did that poor ridership have anything to do with the availability of the Red Arrow West Chester Trolley that was at least around as a cheaper alternative until 1954?

I grew up in Delco and now live out of the area but the amount of traffic and development along West Chester Pike (PA Route 3) is 1000 times greater than when I was a kid riding the West Chester bus to and from Llanerch, (the trolley was before my time). I can't even imagine how slow and arduous that bus ride is today through Newtown Square, Havertown and Upper Darby during rush hour. When visiting friends or family and traveling at rush hour east along the "Pike" from the Blue Route, (I-476) just to get to Eagle Road; I want to pull out my hair and that's in a CAR!

Despite the low ridership on the train in the 50's with today's impatient commuters, I have to believe that if rail service was restored which was faster and wasn't exorbitantly more expensive than the bus, commuters to West Chester would flock to it.