The Philly Bus Grid

This image shows the primary mass transit grid in the City of Philadelphia. Key: Blue = north-south, red = east-west, yellow = north-south parts, east-west parts, green = trolley network (as it is an integral part of the grid).

The map has been abstracted, so that bus routes are only one line, in order to retain some legibility. Source file here, to download as a KML and play with.

Some changes have also been made to the bus routes:
17 and 33 have been merged, as they are naturally the same route.
30 and 31 have also been merged, as it turned out they were a hot mess with really could only be resolved by merging them together.
The 7, 64, and a couple of others have had some particularly silly bumps straightened out (though with the level of abstraction, it's hard to tell).

With this working model of the grid, we can also see some issues to fix (with varying degrees of difficulty):
1. Concomitant with the model of splitting the 23, the 16 and 23's southern half can be merged, roughly from Germantown and Lehigh.
2. The 43 and (revised) 30 brush each other, but branch in opposite directions. Merging these two routes together, allowing the branched routes to be handled elsewhere on the grid, can further streamline operations (much like with the 17 and 33).
3. Juniata Park is lacking N-S grid connections; the 89 handles some of it, but not all, and violates the grid. What's really needed is for routes along Castor (an extension of the one to Rhawnhurst?), G, and probably ca. D, as well as a revamping of the 15 and 25 so that the former can better serve Port Richmond and the latter does not have several major turns in it.
4. Oft derided because of its low ridership, the 25 is, in fact, very important to the grid.
5. A N-S link is necessary in Grays Ferry (but the 64 bump is insufficient). Extending the 79 northward may help, especially if it can be to the 40th & Girard turnaround. Alternatively, the G can be revamped and a 30th-to-Oregon "L"-shaped route may be considered.
6. The 7 is unnecessarily duplicative, with the G along Oregon and the 48 north of Market. Shifting the 7 to 25th north of Market would greatly improve overall access.

What else can you see in the grid? Strengths? Weaknesses?

Returning to Philadelphia2050

As time goes by, ideas metastasize and further develop. Philadelphia2050, always intended to be a model long-term transit infrastructure plan, is no different. It's not like my ideas are preserved in amber.

Remember, the core point of this is not (and never has been) that this is the optimal mass-transit network for the City of Philadelphia. Rather, the point is that we need to think of mass transit infrastructure in terms of a necessary utility. SEPTA's bus network, while extremely legible (once you figure out the system core, and they don't help with that) and frequent, is hardly the optimal solution for mass transit in an urban core routinely averaging ~20,000 people per square mile. Rail solutions are the only way to further optimize service.

The point of Philadelphia2050 is to describe a model of what optimized mass transit would look like for the city; to develop a model that can then be used to develop a funding scheme (à la L.A.'s 30/10, a funding scheme to develop 30 years' worth of transit in a decade). The L.A. example is especially poignant, since they, like us, never properly invested in a high-quality mass transit core, and as the PRT proved back in 1907, mass transit must be a public expenditure, a utility: it would drive any private concern to bankruptcy, but it must be provided, in order to ensure intraurban access and mobility, especially at the densities needed to maximize resource efficiency on the environmental scale.

Anyway, here's the map.

This map shows light and heavy mass transit in the City and (in heavy rail's case), across the Delaware.
Pastel blue is the MFL.
Orange is the BSL and constituent branches.
Black is the Loop core and branches.
Green is the Subway-Surface trolley system.
Royal Blue is the Outer Loop and constituent branches.
Red is the Delaware Avenue line and a branch via the former North Penn Branch.
Purple are heritage lines.

Changes:
1. With the Swampoodle changes proposed, there is no reason for both Chestnut Hill lines to utilize the Regional Rail tunnel. For this reason, the former Reading Chestnut Hill branch (Chestnut Hill East) is proposed to be converted to heavy rail, saving on (among other things) the cost of bringing a TBM straight up Germantown Ave.
2. The Ogontz Branch has been extended up Cheltenham Ave. to Easton Ave.: this better services upper Stenton and Ivy Hill (while the Chestnut Hill East line services the lower portions of these neighborhoods).
3. A long-term plan to extend the Chestnut Hill-Society Hill Line to the Morrestown Mall via Kaighns Ave. Prior to this happening, the Kaighns Ave. route can be developed as a "light heavy" line linking to the existing River Line way in downtown Camden.
4. Major changes have been made in the way the rail network interfaces with the Airport. Ignoring the existing (and feasible only when hell freezes over and the sun burns out) Market East proposal, the optimal HSR path to access the Airport utilizes the (ex-Reading) Chester Branch from a new junction with the NEC at Crum Lynne to the Chester Branch interchange with the NEC up by Bartram's Gardens. SEPTA can (and would) be expected to alter its routes to take advantage of this new alignment, allowing local stops in e.g. Essington, which allows the current Airport Line routing to be converted into an Airport people-mover or (better) an extended BSL terminus.
5. The Lindbergh Bvld. light rail has been extended down 84th to terminate at Eastwick Station, instead of its originally-planned Heinz terminus.
6. Light rail via Health Sciences Dr. and Civic Center Bvld. has been abandoned. Instead, Baltimore Ave. is now interlined between the existing 34 and a new Angora-Queen Village light-rail line.
7. The Washington Ave. light rail link has been moved from the Grays Ferry bridge to the 34th St. one.
8. Light rail can be added along American St. and the former North Penn Branch ROW from Northern Liberties to Fern Rock.

The largest problem with the current alignment structure occurs around the La Salle campus, believe it or not. I've resisted linking Ogontz to Broad via Stenton because of its inferior La Salle access, an issue the CHE Fishers (now closed) and Wister stops do little to obviate, despite the latter's paper proximity to campus, but the Ogontz alignment, south of Olney Ave., is most definitely overkill. It occurs to me the optimal move is to find an alignment that runs through Wayne Jct. and links to Broad via Germantown. Maybe.

The next-largest problem concerns utilizing 19th St. north of Girard. The distance between Broad and 33rd is 19 blocks; a more central location would thus be 22nd or 24th.

Finally, it occurs to me some more light-rail crosstowns may be needed. Allegheny and Lehigh, for example, host some of the most profitable bus lines with the highest farebox-recovery ratio.

What To Do With The City Branch: Return It To Transit

(Author's note: Ed. put the "...As Light Rail" at the end of Hidden City title.)

Reading Crusader model from Reading Terminal Market display | Photo: website Found Connections

The ViaductGreene proposal being entertained is for a sunken linear park between the Rodin Museum and 13^th Street, where it would meet the Reading Viaduct (at Noble). This proposal has proved controversial. In fact, the majority of readers who commented on the Hidden City report announcing a planning grant for the linear park were strongly opposed to the idea.

What are its problems?

First off, it doesn’t fill an immediate need for parkland, the way the Reading Viaduct does. The Callowhill neighborhood doesn’t have any parks. By contrast, the small Matthias Baldwin Park at 19th and Hamilton ... Read more at Hidden City Philadelphia.

Swampoodle Connection

Web of lines

The Swampoodle Connection was originally proposed in the early 1980s to link the Chestnut Hill West Line (R8) into the SEPTA Main Line--originally the Reading's 9th St. Branch--via the Manayunk/Norristown Line (R6) where the two lines closely parallel each other just south of Allegheny Ave. between the SEPTA Main/R6 line/Northeast Corridor junction complex and the lightly-used Allegheny R6 station. (A disused CHW station sits nearby; you can see its ruins as you pass by.)

CHW was originally owned and maintained by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and as such accessed Center City via the PRR's right-of-way, nowadays the Northeast Corridor, via Zoo Interlocking and 30th St. into Broad St. Station, nowadays Suburban Station. This routing is highly circuitous and adds a good ten minutes to the line's schedule. It also involves a flat junction across the NEC, such that its outbound trains foul the entire Corridor; this has the side effect of inhibiting its schedule frequency. Clearly, a reconsideration of the Swampoodle Connection is needed in order to optimize existing services.

Phase 1. The dark blue represents the Reading lines, light blue the PRR. Orange is the first junction.

Doing this is relatively simple: a flat junction between the two lines where they are more-or-less level with each other just south of Allegheny station. This moves the primary flat junction to the easier-to-dispatch SEPTA Main, as seen above. But this is not the only use of a Swampoodle connection; rather, it is the beginning of a complex.

Phase 2. The yellow line represents the extensions.

The next step would be inaugurated by the, well, inauguration of diesel commuter rail from Norristown to Pottstown (or even Reading). While the traditional Schuylkill Valley Metro project is deader than the dinosaurs, there is no reason a basic diesel push-pull service would not do well. After all, that was how the Reading (and later SEPTA) ran the line for many years! Such a quick-and-dirty restart would necessarily terminate in 30th St. Station's lower level, but utilize the former Reading main line, and hence would necessitate a second connection at Swampoodle, this time going the other way--from the R6 to the NEC. Phase 2 accomplishes this by using the former interchange track as well as the original R8 flyover; the Phase 1 junction becomes a full crossover.

The problem with this is, of course, that it would (again) create a fouling situation on the NEC, on top of being (again) an extremely circuitous entré into Center City from the north. On top of this, restarting commuter rail along the Reading main is an excellent skeletal framework for reconsidering the (underutilized) Stoney Creek Branch as a route into the city from the North Penn area, as well as the (currently a trail) former Perkiomen Branch, which would offer improved access to towns up the Perkiomen Creek Valley, most notably Collegeville-Trappe, Graterford, Schwenksville, and the Pennsburg-Green Lane-Red Hill area. Passenger service along the Reading main also offers the promise of electrification--to Phoenixville, in particular, shows promise--and possibly eventually Pottstown.

Phase 3: the red line superimposed on the previous works.

While the majority of the issues, longer-term, would be solved by reactivating the Pencoyd Viaduct (more on that later) and converting the former PRR Schuylkill Branch, the remnant of which is the Cynwyd Line (R6), into a cutoff linking the Reading and PRR main lines and offering a much more direct entry into Center City from the northwest, locals to Norristown (Phoenixville?) and CHW will still be wanting to use Swampoodle. Phase 3 thus seeks to eliminate the flat junction between the SEPTA main and the Norristown Line, utilizing the former CHW alignment and the infrastructure of the previous two phases' interlocking. Phase 3, the most expensive addition to the Swampoodle complex, would involve cutting a shallow trench tunnel from the CHW's North Philadelphia station under the Trenton Line's and through a Pathmark parking lot into the SEPTA main line. This would convert the basic interlocking achieved in Phase 1 into a fully high-speed junction.

If management wishes, a shallow tunnel can also be cut under the NEC in order to grade-separate the northbound junction at this phase (especially if Swampoodle can be achieved before Pencoyd), in order to offer full operational flexibility--even though the Norristown Line-to-NEC side of Swampoodle would have significantly less usage than the SEPTA-Main-to-Norristown-and-CHW-Lines side. Once Pencoyd is up and running, the Norristown-to-NEC side will be more a secondary path to be used mainly if the primary Pencoyd path has to be closed for any reason.

Swampoodle, like Pencoyd, is a potential interlocking with regionally-important implications. This post is intended to be a laying-out of a program to develop it to its full potential.

South Jersey Regional Rail

This is Part III of a very long-term commuter rail plan. Part I dealt with Pennsylvania rail assets, with Part Ia as an addendum; Part II dealt with South Jersey rail assets.

Proposed South Jersey rail network

Despite having plenty of infrastructure in place, South Jersey currently has no substantive rail network. Only three lines serve this area, and they, for the most part, avoid the core neighborhoods.

It should say something that, while the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines once had a large, complete South Jersey passenger rail network, only one--the former Main Line from Camden to Atlantic City--is still in use, and even then, split between heavy rail PATCO and commuter rail Atlantic City Line. Disuse of this infrastructure represents a waste--but a waste no different than the waste engendered by the disuse of viable commuter rail infrastructure in many other American cities (e.g. Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) Elsewhere, particularly in the Mountain West, work is being done to rectify this; however, there are still many places where even the idea of a passenger train is anathema.

Let us turn back, though, to a prospective South Jersey network. After surveying the rail assets, we can determine that there are two distinct networks that dominate South Jersey:

1. A commuter network largely running down the Millville Branch spine, and
2. An intercity network linking to the Shore destinations.

Both networks historically converged on Camden's massive Federal Street terminal, which had ferry connections to the Philadelphia waterfront. A station also existed at Broadway, which was the terminus of the Delaware River bridge subway. From there the routes fanned out: to Trenton, to Amboy, to Toms River, two to Atlantic City (both converged at Winslow Jct.), to Ocean City and Wildwood and Cape May, to Grenloch, to Vineland and Millville, to Bridgeton, to Salem, and to Pennsgrove. However, while it is reasonable to converge the commuter lines on Camden, it is preferable to converge the intercity network on 30th St. Station.

Six lines are viable commuter lines, four intercity, and two possible Atlantic City commuter lines. Two more lines are viable North Jersey lines which meet this network--for the time being, we'll assume these lines terminate at Newark, but we'll also want to look at bringing them to Hoboken, or better yet (if we as a nation finally decide to get our rear in gear and aggressively finance urban rail improvements) directly into Manhattan, perhaps via Staten Island. But that's for later.

The four intercity lines run to Ocean Grove via Toms River, where it connects with a former CNJ ROW that would be viable for a passenger restart, and Pemberton, where it meets the commuter network; to Atlantic City via Winslow Jct., where it meets the Cape May line and the commuter network; and to Ocean City, which meets the Cape May line at Tuckahoe. A dinky would also service Wildwood from Wildwood Jct. on the Cape May line.

All four lines would cross the Delair Bridge over the Delaware; only a single-track lift bridge, this presents probable capacity issues--even at hourly service, this represents a crossing roughly every 7.5 minutes (60/4=15, and you have to factor in that it's hourly service each direction, so 15/2). When the bridge needs to be raised (as it occasionally does), this will throw service times off--however, that is a compromise worth living with for direct Philadelphia service.

Two small natural lines extend out from Atlantic City. Both can be serviced with light rail. These two lines lead to Mays Landing and Somers Point, respectively; the Somers Point line runs through a densely built-up area while the Mays Landing line accesses Shore destinations such as the Shore Mall and the Atlantic City Institute of Technology (abbreviated ACIT).

The core network converges on Camden; there, passengers can transfer to PATCO (a fare union would be most advisable) or debark for local destinations. We will talk about the opportunities and pitfalls Camden offers soon. Tops on the agenda: figuring out how to bring a commuter rail throat into a city that willfully destroyed theirs during the '60s.

The six lines reach Camden from: Trenton, New Egypt (Ft. Dix), Hammonton (via Clementon), Millville and Bridgeton (via Vineland and Glassboro), Salem, and Carneys Point (Pennsgrove). Let us tackle each of these in turn.

The Trenton line is, more or less, NJ Transit's current River Line--the way it's set up is as FRA-noncompliant "light rail" that runs along trolley tracks through downtown Camden. The equipment the River Line uses, however, is a type of Stadler DMU related to the Flirt, which, if you recall, is one of the pieces of rail equipment that must be made legal in any sane rail regulation regime. If the FRA regulations went away tomorrow, it would be the favored type of equipment throughout the South Jersey network.

There are two components to this line: the downtown Camden light rail line, and the commuter line, shared with a freight line, along the former Camden & Amboy main line as far as Bordentown, and its branch to Trenton thence.

In order to build a true commuter network, the Camden light rail line has to be repurposed. (I will talk more about what this entails later.) So we'll concentrate on the former C&A line.

This line connects with SEPTA's existing R7 Trenton Line and NJT's existing Northeast Corridor Line at (unsurprisingly) Trenton. Abandonment Repurposing of the River Line's existing Trenton terminus and termination on Penn Station's platforms--thereby allowing for cross-platform transfers--would be superior; the River Line's existing terminus is an artifact of the FRA's insanity more than anything else.

A secondary terminus would lie in Burlington. Coincidentally, this would be the natural terminus of any commuter rail operation running down the former C&A main line from Amboy to Bordentown via Hightstown and Henrietta. This idea has been marked as the Amboy Line on the above map, but will have to be considered in more detail whenever I get around to devising a commuter rail strategy for New York.

The Trenton and Amboy Lines, considered together, can be considered the Camden & Amboy Lines, much like the Morris & Essex Lines, for obvious reasons.

The Fort Dix line (which I affectionately think of as the Military Line) runs from Camden to the east, to Ft. Dix and a terminus in New Egypt via Maple Shade and Mt. Holly. East of Mt. Holly the right-of-way has been torn up, (but can still be rebuilt with the relocation of some local rail-trails). The Military Line itself curves north at Pemberton, whereas the intercity Atlantic Line continues to the east.

The intercity line obviously runs express past many of the stops on the local line; it definitely stops at Mt. Holly and (maybe) Maple Shade. Beyond Pemberton, it stops at a couple of smallish hamlets and crosses another proposed North Jersey line in Toms River.

This line would follow the former CNJ Southern Division main to Lakehurst and a branch thence to Tuckerton; this branch can merge into a southern approach at Amboy or into a Northeast Corridor approach in Monmouth. The Northeast Corridor approach works better for a Penn Station terminus; however, any large-scale commuter network optimization of the New York metro would likely require a far larger nest with several more tunnels--it would not be, in short, surprising for a strong southern network to make a Manhattan approach via Staten Island. (I like calling this line the Barnegat Line.)

The Clementon line follows the PRSL's former Clementon Branch, a core commuter line to Hammonton via Winslow Junction. Although it's not far to the south of PATCO, it would offer an alternative service type, and eventually, hopefully a different set of destinations.

Local trains from Atlantic City can also terminate in Hammonton.

The Millville Line is the core line of South Jersey commuter rail. Electrified once, a long time ago, this line extends from Camden to Millville via Glassboro and Vineland. Two other lines branch off in Woodbury; at Vineland the line splits into Millville and Bridgeton sections. The Millville section follows the former PRSL alignment, while the Bridgeton one follows a (mostly) CNJ one.

This Bridgeton alignment would be served by an off-peak dinky but have half the peak trains go through utilizing the connection. At peak, the dinky can be utilized to fill service gaps for both the Millville and Vineland segments.

An intermediate terminus would exist in Glassboro.

The Salem line utilizes a former PRSL alignment from Woodbury to Salem; it runs through some of the most rural areas served by the network. However, despite this rural character, it also runs through a core of small towns, like Swedesboro. Trains can run through to Salem, and Swedesboro would be a viable local terminus during rush hour.

The Pennsgrove line runs along the east side of the Delaware, from Camden nearly all the way to the Delaware Memorial Bridge (Carneys Point). As such, it accesses a series of industrial towns mirroring those across the river, like Trainer and Marcus Hook. This line can expect to see high ridership, and has been outfitted with a local terminus at Bridgeport, whose location by the Commodore Barry Bridge's New Jersey approach makes it a potential fit for a park and ride (based on the rule that such infrastructure is most appropriate where hub roads enter the core urban area--that is, the city itself--where rail lines can meet them, and where hub rail lines (commuter or regional networks) cross the middle ring beltway, approximately 15 miles from the city center; US 322 fits the latter as far as I-295).

Unlike the Ft. Dix line, the Clementon, Millville, Salem, and Pennsgrove lines all utilize existing former PRSL rights-of-way, still in freight use. In fact, the vast majority of the former PRSL network, and certainly the key lines, still exists as freight routes; what has been abandoned has generally been converted into rail-trails in populated areas (e.g. from the Turnpike south to Grenloch), and simply not built on in less-populated areas. Unlike the total loss of the former Ma & Pa right-of-way between Baltimore and Towson, a loss which has essentially screwed over commuter rail access to that region's densest suburbs, the vast majority of rail easements in New Jersey still exist, and can still be returned to passenger service.

As previously mentioned, equipment such as that currently running on the River Line would be optimal for the vast majority of the Camden network. This is standard mainline equipment in Europe, and if our rail regulations were remotely sane should be reasonably inexpensive to procure and able to run immediately, without need for pointless variances.

Over time lines can then be electrified, first to local termini and then further; once the network is bought up to a high-grade electrified network certain options look especially tantalizing...

Our next steps will be to consider what it'll take to (a) provide for a suitable Camden terminal and (b) how to best repurpose the Camden light rail route.

South Jersey Rail Assets

Now entering the third part of this series, I'd like to focus on South Jersey's underutilized rail assets. Where I am going is looking at what it will take to provide a complete commuter rail network throughout the Philadelphia area, and unlike Pennsylvania, South Jersey is woefully underserved, home to only the Atlantic City Line, which is an intercity service; the PATCO Speedline, which provides local service to Lindenwold; and the River Line, a light-rail commuter-rail thingamabob utilizing Stadler GTWs (a diesel variant of the Flirt). A substantial amount of South Jersey is thus rendered car-dependent.

It wasn't always like this. Like the rest of the Northeast, South Jersey was once thick with rails. It still is. Most of those rails have, however, long been converted to freight spurs, and routes which weren't but have passenger potential rail-trails. In a few cases rails were removed entirely, but the easements remain. At one point, a large commuter rail network converged on Camden, across the river, much like it still does in Hoboken today.

So the point of this post is, like the past two, to survey South Jersey's available rail assets.

We begin with the River Line and work our way, again, clockwise inasmuch is possible.

1. The River Line extends along the Delaware between Camden and Trenton, and is, as referenced, a cross between a light rail line and commuter rail. (Call it Dallas-style light rail.) It currently functions with an FRA waiver. In the long term, as other commuter rail resources fill in around Camden, it may need to be broken up, with the core line running as commuter rail and the edges light rail in Camden and Trenton.

2. A Trenton Branch of the Reading appears to wind along the path shown on the map between Trenton and West Trenton railroad stations. Conversion of this route into light rail would be welcomed.

3. At Bordentown the former Camden & Amboy main splits off from the River Line, which utilizes its Trenton Branch. Like the former Pennsylvania and Reading (Central of New Jersey) mains further to the north, can it be cross-utilized between the three commute markets? If so, the fare union should extend between Burlington and South Amboy.

4. The Atlantic Division is a former division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, running from Camden through Mt. Holly due east. It originally extended to Bay Head; the former right-of-way east of Ocean Gate--thankfully, a natural terminus--has been wiped out.

On the New York end of things, a service restoration should be considered along the former CNJ line from Red Bank to Toms River--possibly even as far as Barnegat.

5. What I am calling the Fort Dix Branch is the remnants of a cutoff between the Camden & Amboy main and the Atlantic Division; the route in use extends north from Pemberton to Ft. Dix and New Egypt.

6. The Clementon Branch is one of two lines between Camden and Atlantic City. The former Atlantic City R.R. main line, it was phased out in favor of the more northerly line. However, seeing as that line is occupied by heavy rail and intercity service, a Camden-Hammonton commuter service would be better off using this line.

7. The PATCO Speedline follows the former Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL) main line to Lindenwold; the Atlantic City Line (ACL) follows it from Atlantic City to the Delair Cutoff (which takes it across the river). Service from Philadelphia to the various Shore towns should be considered intercity, however, and unlike the commuter services, which can terminate in Camden with a PATCO transfer at Walter Rand, these lines extend to 30th St. in a grand fishhook approach along the NEC and across the single-track Delair Bridge. (ACL service, however, can be twice as frequent--hourly.) In addition, a separate, peak-hour commuter service from Atlantic City to Egg Harbor City may be implemented.

8. The Newfield Branch originally extended from Newfield to Atlantic City. While the services of the whole branch obviously aren't needed, part of it is marked as a commuter line from Atlantic City to Mays Landing.

9. The Somers Point Branch was a branch from Atlantic City to Somers Point. Old PRSL maps show either a bridge or a ferry from it to Ocean City; this is one of the two new commuter lines suggested from Atlantic City.

10. The Cape May Branch ran from the Main Line at Winslow Jct. south to Cape May, crossing the Newfield Branch at Richland. It is a primarily intercity line, although a local dinky service may be put into place between Cape May Court House and Cape May.

11. The Ocean City Branch ran from a connection with the Cape May Branch in Tuckahoe to Ocean City. Atlantic City, Ocean City, and Cape May are the three primary intercity destinations down the Shore.

12. The Marmora Branch is a freight right-of-way that extends to a large facility at Beesley's Point. There may be justification for a dinky service along this line.

13. The Wildwood Branch runs from Wildwood Jct. on the Cape May Branch to Wildwood. Like the Princeton Branch, a dinky service would be appropriate here.

14. The Grenloch Branch is a short branch from Gloucester City to Grenloch. Despite its shortness, however, it sits halfway between the Clementon and Millville Branches in the core South Jersey suburbs. As a consequence, it would likely get ridership--if service patterns are right--on the order of the Norristown Line. In addition, this line would be targeted for heavy rail conversion if the conditions are right (generating Speedline-order ridership); this would allow for potential extensions to Turnersville and Monroe.

15. The Millville Branch was at one point the PRSL's Camden commuter operations' spine. At one point electrified, it extends between Camden and Millville, with a freight operation from there south to Leesburg, and a former passenger operation east to Woodbine Jct. via Woodbine proper. It crosses the CNJ main at-grade in downtown Vineland, and was recently the subject of a River Line-type extension as far as Glassboro. Glassboro is the natural local terminus on this line, and Millville the general.

16. The Southern Division, originally of the CNJ, between Winslow Jct. and Bridgeton may offer useful expansion possibilities. East of Landisville, however, it closely follows the Cape May Branch through a relatively sparsely-populated area.

17. The Bridgeton branch, originally of the PRSL, largely exists only as an abandoned easement north to Glassboro. Bridgeton can't handle being the terminus of two lines, but both offer tradeoffs.

The PRSL's direct alignment, straight north, takes it to Camden fastest. But it passes through a relatively unpopulated section of the state, and its peak ridership thus stunted.

The CNJ alignment through Winslow Jct. would pass through Vineland, and potentially directly access Philadelphia, rather than Camden; however, as a commuter line, it would be low on the totem pole of Delair crossings, and it would be routed by the most circuitous of all routes.

In between is the option to utilize the CNJ line from Bridgeport to Vineland, but the Millville Branch after. While it would not be as fast (or direct) as the PRSL alignment, it would pass through the most populated areas and offer reasonably direct commuter service to Camden.

Of course, a large part of this discussion depends on the ridership a Bridgeton alignment vs. a Millville one would generate. If Bridgeton does not generate as much ridership as Millville (or inadequate ridership, period), it may make sense to just operate a dinky to it, if anything at all, from Vineland--the same also applying to Millville in the case of the obverse.

18. The Salem Branch runs through the heart of Salem County, to, well, Salem. While the country is generally rural, a series of larger towns dot this line--Woodstown, Swedesboro, and Mt. Royal--suggesting that, if properly implemented, ridership may well exceed implementations. (A market in Camden wouldn't hurt matters either.)

19. The Pennsgrove Branch runs along the shore of the Delaware between Woodbury and Carney's Point. With multiple industries and larger communities along this line, it would draw some of the Camden network's highest ridership--probably second only to the Millville Branch.

Now that we know what rail assets we have in South Jersey, we can start on the next step: understanding how to use them in such a way as to maximize ridership and accessibility. Two obvious next steps for our program come out of the sheer act of surveying potential assets: (1) splitting the routes into intercity routes utilizing the Delair Bridge (as I'd intimated before), and (2) using a Camden terminus to catalyze transit-oriented development and growth--growth which would, hopefully, finally offer the city a stable fiscal base.

Some more SEPTA thoughts

In compiling my thoughts from the last post into a map, I realized that a couple of possibilities I hadn't included should be, mostly for the sake of completeness. These are two (relatively) minor spurs, one in the city and the other waaaaay at the edge of the boonies, and consideration of where Mercer Co. fits into all this.

1. The Colebrookdale Spur is the line waaaaaaaay out at the edge of the boonies, running from Pottstown to Bally. North of Boyertown its rails have been ripped up. I hadn't included it in the original compilation because it is just too far to be viable for the Philadelphia commuter market (although it may be more so for Reading). Nevertheless, the Gilbertsville-Boyertown area is sizable--in European markets, it would be large enough to demand at least daily rail service.

2. The Greenwich Extension is the ex-PRR route that extends from the Northeast Corridor through South Philadelphia to Greenwich Yard. Heavily used by freight and constrained by the single-track Arsenal Bridge across the Schuylkill, it is a poor fit for commuter rail. Nevertheless, it is for most of its length carried over 25th St. on a massive viaduct, a structure built for far more capacity than it today handles. I have in the past suggested a heavy rail line to take advantage of this excess capacity.

3. Mercer Co., N.J., is...complicated. There is a major job market in and around Princeton, the dominant local commute pattern; the remainder is about evenly divided between the Philadelphia and North Jersey/New York commute markets. (In fact, the New York and Philadelphia urban areas are divided by an extremely narrow impromptu greenbelt running about halfway through the county.) Because of this, organizational competence is absolutely essential for providing good mass transit. This would instantiate with two things: rational transfers and a local fare union between SEPTA and NJ Transit, potentially between Cornwells Heights on the Trenton Line and Trevose on the West Trenton Line, and to Princeton, New Brunswick, and Bound Brook on the NJT side. A new spur of the Raritan Line from Bound Brook to West Trenton would also be essential. Operations can be done via co-routing of SEPTA and NJT trains (terminating SEPTA trains at New Brunswick, for example, or NJT trains at Cornwells Heights); in either case, however, cross-platform, or at worst, timed transfers absolutely must be implemented. (The timed transfers between the Trenton Line and the Northeast Corridor Line are one of the few artifacts of organizational competence to be found anywhere in U.S. railroading; too bad it is neither furthered nor backed up.)

4. Speaking of intercity transit, down in Maryland, MARC's terminus in Perryville is essentially nowhere: too far to be useful for the Baltimore commute market, but too close to be useful as an intercity to Wilmington. Extend it to a natural terminus in Wilmington.

Looking at SEPTA

Lately, Alon Levy of Pedestrian Observations has been taking a long, hard look at the MBTA commuter rail operation and came to the conclusion that most of the MBTA's plans to expand the physical scope of its operations were misguided. Instead, his suggestions were to maximize the efficiency of the existing operations, primarily with the use of electrification and infill stations, likely with a long look toward uniting the disparate networks operating out of North and South Stations (although the long-term aftereffects of the Big Dig boondoggle will make that unlikely for a generation or more). SEPTA took the same approach with its Regional Rail network thirty years ago, as I pointed out in the comments, and there is no clear evidence it worked better or worse. In any event, however, I want to undertake the same kind of analysis as Alon's, looking mostly at PA (NJ is another story altogether).

This analysis will start along the lower Delaware and work more-or-less clockwise.

1. The Wilmington-Newark Line happens to be one of the three commuter rail lines that also utilizes high-speed designated lines. Since SEPTA has not relocated its stations to park-and-rides on the urban fringe, and since the Marcus Hook local works together with the local and express trains to Wilmington and Newark as well as the express Northeast Regional and Acela trains (which stop at Wilmington), service on this line is adequate--1 tph at the worst; 4 tph at rush hour. Wilmington is intercity, however; a little dinky service between Marcus Hook and Newark may be called for to handle local service there. East of Island Avenue this line operates exactly halfway between the two closest-together branches of the Subway-Surface trolley network.

2. The Airport Line, SEPTA's newest line, suffers from underridership (as do most airport lines that only serve airports). Not helping this one bit is the Airport approach this line takes, a massive fishhook. A new Airport approach would be useful, shortening and speeding up the line; commuter service would return to the line at Eastwick (and if high-speed rail is desired along an Airport routing, a little further to the east as well). Service would be returned to the original routing (IIRC the Reading Chester Branch) via a viaduct over PA 291 (Governor Printz Bvld./Industrial Hwy.) with a stop in Essington before interlocking with the NEC just west of Eddystone.

This also offers a new service paradigm for expresses, and also creates a problem with two local services both heading toward a natural terminus in Chester; one of these (the Airport one, it would have fewer stops and thus reach Chester faster) can be valved up the Chester Creek Branch--which has just begun a rail-trail conversion--to about Aston; any further would overlap with the West Chester Line (etc.: see below) complex. Bringing heavy rail to the Airport would be a wise idea--it's an employment hub. If this happens, heavy rail can use the existing Airport stations and the current I-95 viaduct for end-of-line storage (if desired) while commuter rail--and possibly high-speed rail--would have a concentrated stop at one station as close to the middle of the concourse as possible.

Finally, the current Airport Line junction with the NEC is inferior, and particularly so if a high-speed routing is desired; the technically superior routing would go straight up the Chester Branch past the interlocking with the CSX main and (under, most probably) the CSX cutoff between its main and the High Line. Infill stations would be desirable--at the Post Office, 63rd St., and Bartram's Gardens would offer the greatest balance between distance, jobs access, and residential access.

3. The Media/Elwyn Line displays the core problem with SEPTA Regional Rail: it has lost service since 1980, when the diesel lines were all shed, with one exception. Current service terminates at Elwyn, which is in the middle of nowhere (technically on the outskirts of Media) and has no park-and-ride. As you can expect, the ridership there is low.

This is not, however, the historical state of things. This line is known as the West Chester Branch, and for good reason: it goes to West Chester. Rails still exist all the way to West Chester. The West Chester Railroad serves freight customers along this line. It was electrified all the way to West Chester; the catenary poles still exist.

Of course, at the end, service was highly infrequent, and the lack of maintenance along the line made for a bumpy ride. SEPTA terminated commuter service to West Chester and beyond Paoli in the late '80s, and then offered a choice to Chester County, so the story goes, which to reopen.

However, West Chester is a natural terminus, and would draw reasonable ridership. The line passes by two schools (West Chester and Cheyney Universities), and the area this extension covers is still a core Philadelphia commuter market. Service on such a line should be hourly at the least (although service on all existing SEPTA lines is hourly at minimum already).

4. The Octoraro Branch refers to a disused route splitting off from the West Chester Branch around Lima and heading west to Kennett Square and eventually Nottingham via Oxford. The line east of the Brandywine Creek was apparently washed out in 1977 and has lain abandoned since; to the west, it is operated by the East Penn Rwy., a short line running several spur operations within the Philadelphia area and Lehigh Valley. Freight traffic runs all the way to the Herr's snack food plant in Nottingham, close to the Maryland border; at one point, this route connected into the Northeast Corridor via a Susquehanna River sub, and would have functioned as an alternative freight gateway for the PRR.

Kennett Square is an agricultural job center, and Lincoln University, a bit further on, offers a ridership draw. Additionally, the route passes Chadds Ford, a major regional draw (the home of Longwood Gardens and the Brandywine Museum). Finally, there is no direct highway route from the Chadds Ford area to the city. A good case can be made for hourly trains to Kennett Square, with bihourly trains to Oxford (Lincoln University).

5. The Newtown Square Branch is an old PRR branch serviced by diesels; service beyond Grassland (Eagle Road, perhaps? If anybody knows anything more, can they fill me in?) stopped in 1963, and all service terminated in 1981. Commuter traffic on this line was light for much of its history; it competed with a rather more direct trolley line running down West Chester Pike. Reinstating this trolley service (now Rt. 104) should be prioritized. However, this does not mean that this route should be allowed to decay away (as has been happening); it needs to be banked for the long term, and those parts that have already been lost returned to it. A rail-trail would be the most beneficial option here--the banking is a just-in-case if light rail along West Chester Pike ever reached saturation.

6. The Paoli/Thorndale Line is the second of the three Philadelphia-area commuter lines along high-speed designated corridors; the fastest express service is the Keystone Service, a push-pull utilizing AEM7s, Amfleet coaches, and ex-Metroliner EMUs converted into cab cars. Service right now terminates at Thorndale, which, like Elwyn, is in the middle of nowhere; the natural terminus for this line would be Coatesville (Thorn Interlocking allows turning; a Coatesville or Parkesburg terminus would need to turn all the way out at Lancaster. IIRC, there is a project to improve Parke Interlocking; if this allows for turning, this would make Parkesburg the natural operations terminus of this line).

One of the issues of this line, however, is that it's starting to venture into intercity territory. Lancaster is the main commuter market beyond Coatesville; the least frequent of all trains are the ones beyond Malvern (the "Paoli Local" terminus), the only ones on SEPTA's system which have bihourly frequency.

7. The Cynwyd Line is too damn short. Service needs to be extended to at least a park-and-ride off the Schuylkill Expressway, or possibly Ivy Ridge (where it was in 1986). If extended to Ivy Ridge, a connection could be made with the Manayunk/Norristown Line, thereby increasing service flexibility upstream.

8. The Manayunk/Norristown Line has much higher ridership today than in 1986, when it split riders with the Ivy Ridge line. Extensions of this line to Reading have been on and off the drawing boards for the past twenty years; the Schuylkill Valley Metro disaster basically sunk all of SEPTA's expansion plans for the past decade. Such a route to Reading would, however, be intercity; the natural termini beyond Norristown are Phoenixville and Pottstown, to which extensions can come in that order. Add to that that the line has plenty of capacity, while its primary competitor (the Schuylkill Expressway) is famously ever over-capacity, and this route has some of the region's better potential. This is also the passenger line that comes closest to King of Prussia; unfortunately, it does so in the middle of a giant office park. Perhaps shuttle services can help alleviate the problems that come with that.


9. The Perkiomen Branch saw its last service way back in the 1950s but suburban growth (sprawl) since means that service to Collegeville, with the built-in ridership boost its name suggests is there, and eventually the East Greenville-Pennsburg-Red Hill area. The major problem with this is that this line has been broken in numerous places, including in one place for a golf course (!). That area, however, is much more a part of the Allentown commuter market; a Collegeville spur would make for a better rail restart option.

10. The Chestnut Hill East and West Lines are two semi-overlapping commuter rail lines entirely within the Philadelphia commuter market. Their major problems stem from their infrastructural heritage; Chestnut Hill West has a queerly roundabout routing from North Philadelphia into Center City courtesy of its PRR heritage.

The best fix would be maintain one as commuter rail and convert the other into heavy rail. The usual proposal would be to maintain Chestnut Hill East as commuter rail because it enters the SEPTA Main Line at Wayne Jct., while converting Chestnut Hill West into heavy rail, entering the Broad Street Line around the North Broad/North Philadelphia transit node.

However, this has some major disadvantages: (1) while CHW has that roundabout Center City gateway, its routing north of that is straighter and therefore preferable for commuter rail, and its corollary, (2) CHE is much curvier, and (3) CHW passes mainly through residential areas while CHE comes quite close to Germantown--a major commercial artery--several times.

Combining this with my proposal that my Society Hill-Mt. Airy Line conception, we get a different idea, however. With a 19th St. subway to Wayne Jct., we can use Chestnut Hill East as a heavy rail routing and, with a Swampoodle Connection linking Chestnut Hill West into the SEPTA Main Line, give that line much more direct Center City service. Converting CHE to heavy rail furthermore has the advantage of giving us equipment that can better handle, and in the long run, a superior technical framework for eliminating the sharpest of, that line's curves (Wister Woods and Germantown). This routing also gives us a route that is better equipped to be extended--to Chestnut Hill College, another natural ridership generator a mile away--say. Note: Stenton and Ivy Hill are both definitely underserved by the current options. I may have more ink to spill on that later.

11. The Lansdale/Doylestown Line is the core route of the SEPTA Main Line, and one of the busiest on the Reading side. However, Lansdale, while a major North Penn area center and a natural terminus, is not the natural terminus. Service originally extended to Bethlehem and occasionally Allentown; were local service extended up to the North Penn area's other natural termini (Perkasie and Quakertown) and Bethlehem service extended, (service extension to Perkasie is currently being studied; the relatively bare-bones idea is upgrading the tracks to ridable condition and electrifying the line while utilizing existing infrastructure for stations (to be upgraded later), and extending Lansdale locals) Lansdale would be quite a busy rail junction, leading us to...

12. The Stony Creek Branch, a freight cutoff between Lansdale and Norristown. The primary attraction of this line is service to Merck, which lies right on it; with a busier Bethlehem Branch beyond Lansdale, it would also function as an express cutoff avoiding traffic snarls downstream (particularly in the busy two-track section between Jenkintown and Wayne Jct.)

13. The Warminster Line is the line that currently best accesses the part of Philadelphia's northern commuter market with the worst highway access, and hence has high ridership. Beyond Warminster the line continued as the New Hope Branch, today the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad. This route should be extended to a natural terminus at Ivyland; the next one up is New Hope, which, while a regional draw, would require too extensive an electrification to be viable until better routes are dealt with.

14. The Newtown Branch (part of which is the Fox Chase Line) was the last diesel commuter rail line SEPTA operated, ceasing service in 1983, after SEPTA had run its RDCs into the ground. While the Warminster Line passes Willow Grove, the Newtown Branch has, in aggregate, the best rail route in the northern suburbs' commuter rail market. Warminster Line saturation also suggests it's time to invest in it once again. PA-TEC has an ingenious (if rather park-and-ride heavy) plan to extend service to Huntingdon Valley, a key foot in the door for actual Newtown Branch line restoration--the line's natural terminus is Newtown itself. The Newtown Branch crosses the New York Branch at Ayres Interlocking in Beth Ayres.

15. The West Trenton Line follows the New York Branch from Jenkintown east. At Beth Ayres it crosses the Newtown Branch; it terminates at West Trenton in Ewing Township, another of those stations with nothing around it. For whatever reason, the Reading chose to terminate its Philadelphia commuter service here, and the infrastructure needed for it hence still exists. It is an operational terminus: Yardley is the more natural terminus. Since it's already in New Jersey, two possibilities can be considered: extend it to NJ Transit, or extend NJ Transit down to it, with a shared terminus at Yardley. Such a route would be considered part of the Raritan Valley Line (and short of its electrification there is no good reason to extend SEPTA service to Bound Brook).

16. The New York Short Line is a freight cutoff between the Newtown Branch and the New York Branch with some useful passenger rail possibilities. West Trenton trains using the NYSL would eliminate the need to go through Jenkintown, thus saving time; it would also avoid needing to reinstate the level interlocking at Ayres and send potential Newtown Branch trains through Jenkintown. An unfortunate byproduct of this idea, however, is that it would eliminate service to Philmont, Forest Hills, and Somerton stations. However, an NYSL express cutoff is still a useful idea: West Trenton express trains run local beyond Trevose (which is where the NYSL-West Trenton Line interlocking is).

17. The North Penn Sub, as I recall its name, is the route extending from Fern Rock south, principally along American Street. It was originally the North Penn R.R.'s mainline--hence its name. The entirety of the ROW still exists; a smart move may be to bring light rail service up it, especially if new light rail service is to go along Delaware Avenue (although that is not the smartest proposition right now).

18. The Bustleton Branch is a short branch between Holmesburg Jct. and the Bustleton area. While the section north of Roosevelt Bvld. has been obliterated, the portion south is still intact, and a spur heads from it to Northeast Philadelphia Airport. This is minor expansion written all over it, and would make a good terminus area for a local service from the interior of the Trenton Line. It would also be helpful to extend a spur from the NYSL to this branch, as the current setup forces the not-inconsiderable amount of freight traffic generated here onto the NEC.

19. The Trenton Line--at last!--is the NEC's route north from Philadelphia and is hence the third high-speed designated line in the city. It has sharp curves at Zoo Interlocking and Frankford Jct.; as I've noted before, there is no cost-effective way to do something other than put up with Zoo as the junction between the NEC and Keystone Corridor; for true high-speed service, a Frankford Jct. cutoff along Torresdale Ave. can be arranged. (A little concrete is better than a lot.) Trenton trains are reasonably frequent, and timetables for this line also include a section of the connecting NJT Penn Line timetable to New York--a rare manifestation of organizational competence in the passenger experience. So rare is it that the two can't even be bothered to time their trains for cross-platform transfers! Or accept one another's tickets!

Infill stations should be considered along the Trenton Line, particularly at Brewerytown, Fairhill, and Juniata Park.

Commuter rail in Philadelphia is a different animal than in Boston. Where in Boston concentrating on optimizing existing service would be more useful than less and less tenuous greenfield extensions, in Philadelphia, development and larger towns tend to exist beyond the edges of existing lines. I hope to get a map of these ideas going; additionally, I would like to see what kinds of service patterns would optimize our resources.

Modifying Center City's Market Street Tunnel

Built in 1907 (and extended during the Great Depression), Center City's Market Street tunnel is an example both of the possibilities and the realities of the subway. Originally envisioned as an express subway-local trolley tunnel, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Corp. (PRT) ran out of money less than halfway through construction from the original 23rd St. portal and was forced to terminate the trolleys at City Hall, resulting in a situation where all subways have to run local east of it, stopping at 13th, 11th, 8th, 5th, and 2nd Streets, while not stopping at all along the axis of postwar skyscraper development along Market west of City Hall.

Never a great fit, even in the best of times, the Market-Frankford Line now stops too frequently, particularly in Market East (where two, rather than three, stops are really called for), or not at all, relative to Center City's major employment and retail destinations*. The trolley transfer at 15th is confusing (you have to access the westbound trolley platform, from 15th, via the Broad Street Line platform), and a full subway stop--not just a local trolley stop--at 19th is necessary to capitalize on the strong demand for Penn Center, Logan Square, and Rittenhouse Square access.

Fixes for this are, needless to say, expensive.

The easiest-to-implement partial "solution" to Market East's too-close-together subway stops is to implement stop-skip service at 11th and 13th, much as occurs elsewhere in the system (particularly on the Frankford Elevated). The free trolley transfer at 13th can also be done at 15th (despite its complexity) and 30th, making it a relatively minor loss if half of the rush-hour trains don't stop there, and the line's stop-skip service has been in use for so long that it's fairly simple just to add an extra "A" and "B" to the map. However--this is still a quick fix, a half-assed solution. And it doesn't remotely address the issue of unmet express-service demand along Market West.

To optimize the tunnel, relative to today's use patterns, would require (a) the consolidation of the 11th and 13th Street stations into a single stop**--certainly feasible from a technical standpoint; the tunnel is mirrored on either side by a pedestrian tunnel; and so opening the pedestrian tunnel to the rail tracks at 12th, along with adding some new fare gates and punching an entrance into the former Reading Terminal's basement, along with some barricades along the former 11th and 13th Street platform edges--nothing too fancy, but nothing ugly--along with a fare-gated passage down to the Juniper station, to maintain the free transfer. This costs some money, of course, but is relatively inexpensive--probably about the same as the already-needed-anyway refurbishment of '70s-garish 11th Street Station.

Market West, on the opposite side, is much more expensive. There the need is to widen the tunnel approximately 10 feet from the western side of the current 19th Street station down to 20th; and were a new 19th Street trolley station elected to be built, two new platform niches for that, too. Like at 30th, the maximal cross-section for a full stop could be as much as 80 feet (Market is 100 feet wide), requiring significant utilities relocation in an underground that is more like Swiss cheese than schist. Furthermore, a new second-level concourse would need to be bored under the rail tunnel; access to an MFL platform without it is impossible. The most cost-effective solution may be to maintain the current 19th Street carstop with a deep new elevator niche and fare barrier*** and access to the sublevel concourse at its western end^, coupled with a brand-new concourse access at 20th^^. Either way, retrofitting an existing four-track subway for a new express stop cannot be cheap.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this discussion is incomplete without a discussion of 30th Street access improvements. Currently, there is no direct route between the main station and the subway concourse^^^; there used to be one that followed an indirect and winding route, but that has long since been closed, with one entrance being obscured by a pub.

An obvious immediate improvement is to cover the (heavily used) pathway between the main station and subway concourse.

In the longer term, the major access issues are caused by the layout of the area. There is little space to effect direct access; this, indeed, was the reason the original implementation was winding and circuitous, which led to its lack of safety and eventual closure. The only good spot to extend the underground concourse in such a manner as to create a direct connection with the main (intercity) station is currently occupied by the lower level of 30th Street, a route which is also an access road to the coach yards on the north side of the station. The obvious answer to this conundrum is to open a new access path to the coach yards, allowing this access road to be closed and the concourse extended across it towards a direct station connection.

But what if it can't be? Not in the short or medium terms, at least?

A good medium-term plan to offer direct main station-to-concourse access at 30th may be to enclose a pathway connecting the main station to the concourse along the side of this quite wide lower level, with a sort of gated ped-road crossing (as an access road, it's lightly used) where the pedestrian access pathway must needs cross the carriageway. Moveable glass fixtures may be used, allowing the pathway to be climate controlled. No matter what the solution is, however, the space must be well lit and securitized. It must be safe and feel safe. Safety (or the perception thereof) was what did the previous connection in, in the end; just as important as solving access issues is the solving of safety issues in the area.
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* Those actually fronting Market Street, remember.
** Why this was not done in the first place, I have no idea. The closest stop to the former Reading Terminal would have been 11th; it is frankly bizarre that there was never direct subway station access. 11th and 13th were obviously built to facilitate department store access (Wanamaker's at 13th; Snellenburg's and Frank & Seder at 11th), but access would still have been possible at 12th, particularly since pedestrian tunnels have been built parallel to the subway from 11th Street west. (These, note, are almost certainly later additions.)
*** Cheaper than a niche for a whole carstop, that's for sure.
^ This setup also has the advantage of making the existing carstop an access concourse for a potential 19th Street subway. The MFL concourse would then terminate in the new line's southbound platform, while the northbound platform would be accessed from the carstop's east end.
^^ This is assuming that the El stop would be built between 19th and 20th Streets. A case can also be made for locating Market West between 18th and 19th Streets, in which case just switch all my "wests" to "easts" and "easts" to "wests" and provision for access to the Penn Center concourse (currently terminating in the BNY Mellon Building at 18th and Market). 19th-20th is more equidistant between 15th and 30th; 18th-19th has better connections access and is slightly closer to the major draws.
^^^ A perception issue as much as anything else. Cities without these sorts of connections just don't quite feel large and worldly--whatever the reality may be. As an example: New York's Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station, Boston's North and South Stations, and D.C.'s Union Station all have these interconnections. Camden and Penn Stations, Baltimore, by contrast, do not.

Rt. 17

The proposal I'm putting forward is a simple one--consolidate the 17 and 33 into a single new route, eliminating the current Market East jog both take in favor of connections offered to the Market Street buses at Market and JFK. This route would run service at a 15-minute headway and would be, like the 2, 7, 23, 47, 57, and C buses (and Broad Street Line and Philadelphia2050's proposed Loop Network) part of a frequent service core in the, er, urban core.

Consolidating this service would still allow for connections to other core frequent services at Cecil B. Moore (3), Girard (15), Spring Garden (43), Market/JFK (10, 11, 13, 34, 36, and the MFL), Chestnut/Walnut (21, 42), and Lombard/South (40)--as well as possible frequent service route modifications along Race/Arch (31, 48) and Spruce/Pine (12, 30), and expanded light rail service along Girard (37 proposal) and Washington (49, 64) (see here). The bus sections of this proposal can be implemented with relatively minimal cost: putting out a new schedule and map, and putting up new bus station signs; the buses (and drivers) taken off the now-defunct 33 would go to augment some of the more poorly bused routes in this network (mostly east-west).

Sometime in the near future I'm thinking of showing a map of this (unwieldy-named) Core Frequent Bus Network and connections, in the contexts of both current, and suggested Philadelphia2050, operations.

Roads

Now I want to talk about the highway system I would like to see in 2050. While the Philadelphia highway network is largely built-out, it is by no means in an optimal state, and in fact, the national trend of ongoing outer-edge investment over core and inner-suburb investment--the trend that held true until 2008 and that Tea Partiers are vainly and idiotically trying to reboot--has guaranteed that projects left unfinished by previous generations remain unfinished--even when they are enormous assets.

While I fundamentally disagree on any need for a true limited-access radial beyond 20 miles of the city center (and most cities throughout the developed world, and where their highway networks are fairly mature, developing, happen to have radials of that distance), and frankly the construction of the 202 bypass between Exton and King of Prussia via Chesterbrook was a major factor in the vampiric job sprawl out there sucking Center City's office market dry*, from a purely transportation planning viewpoint, one which attempts of minimize, if not outright eliminate, biases for or against roads or public transit, there are a few road projects necessary in the long term: increasing capacity on the grossly congested Schuylkill Expressway, via various means; separating the Roosevelt Boulevard's dangerous-to-traverse express lanes from at-grade running (that is, converting the express lanes into a highway), new or improved interchanges at I-95 and I-76, I-95 and I-276, and I-295 and I-276, as well as the N.J. Turnpike and the North-South Freeway, and so on.

The two most important feasible road projects in the region--aside from alleviating the high degree of congestion on the Schuylkill Expressway--are the construction of an expressway link along the Roosevelt Boulevard, to facilitate through-traffic currently using the express lanes, and completion of a partial inner (~10 miles) loop, in large part to facilitate the dismantling of a large section of the Delaware Expressway, which would (hopefully) lead to the obsolescence and removal of the Vine Street Expressway and North-South Freeway north of the Walt Whitman Bridge approach, and perhaps in the longer term, the Schuylkill Expressway between City Line and the Walt Whitman, as well. I-95 would be strategically rerouted via the Walt Whitman Bridge, to the North-South Freeway, to I-295/N.J. Turnpike, where the Turnpike would function as express lanes and the former I-295 local lanes, the Delaware Expressway from Oregon Avenue to Girard Avenue would be dismantled**, and the access spur the rest of the Delaware Expressway would be converted to would be numbered I-695, north to the junction with I-276.

Of course, the elimination of I-295 as a highway designation north of the North-South Freeway creates something of a numbering void for the highways around Trenton. Since, with the completion of the (now-called) I-95/I-276 and I-295/I-276 exits, both of which sorely need to be built, a full loop road will exist around Trenton, this loop road would be called I-995.

Of all these projects, the only one currently being worked on is the I-95/I-276 junction. This project will route I-95 to the N.J. Turnpike via the P.A. Turnpike--but at the same time, it does absolutely nothing to alleviate the issue of I-95's running directly through the center of Philadelphia. As a through road and not an urban spur, until I-95 can be rerouted off that alignment, the otherwise overengineered, overbuilt, and unurban Delaware Expressway will be forced to remain.

In the long term, of course, these projects would be financed via the bonds and tolls system common in the United States prior to the advent of the Interstates. Indeed, a dismantling of the current Interstate funding mechanisms (which ceased to be self-sufficient some time ago) in favor of a partly-public partly-private bonds-tolls system, in which existing highways are leased or sold off to private entities, who would then be in charge of maintenance*** and new starts would be funded by bond issues, paid for by tolls, and then leased/sold off when paid off, is my long-term road policy recommendation.
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* While Center City's office market usually shows between 75% and 90% occupancy, in fact the total amount of office space in Center City, over the past twenty years or so, has been subject to a number of downward adjustments, due to condo and apartment conversions of older office buildings (the most spectacular being perhaps the Aria at 15th & Locust and the Residences at Two Liberty Place in an overbuilt section of former Cygna headquarters). By my estimation, there is now only about half as much office space available in Center City as there was in 1990.
** Industrial access to the Richmond Marine Terminal being the main reason why it's not being dismantled further, all the way to the Betsy Ross Bridge.
*** This solution, note, is truly libertarian. For a Tea Partier, proposing this solution for roads would be political suicide. Again--the Tea Party is not libertarian, but rather a form of radical populist conservatism veiled in libertarian-esque language.

Lindenwold Line

The final full line utilizing the Loop is the Lindenwold Line.

This line already exists: it is called the PATCO Lindenwold Line (colloquially, just PATCO) and it utilizes the east and south sides of the Loop framework, terminating at 15th-16th (the tunnel ends at 18th, or Rittenhouse Square). Added to the existing system is a new stop between Walter Rand and Ferry Avenue (mislabeled on map, mea culpa) at Kaighns Avenue. Another possibility is the closure of the Ashland station and its relocation closer to the Echelon Mall (it is currently a mile-long walk between the two), although rail transportation tends to be separated from destination uses in South Jersey in the grossest way. Woodcrest is a natural park-and-ride, right off 295 and the New Jersey Turnpike*.

The lack of fare parity between this line and the SEPTA network is one of the major barriers to its incorporation into the Loop. Two possibilities exist for the amelioration of this: either the PATCO fare is amortized with SEPTA's such that free transfers are in fact possible where the two lines interconnect, or SEPTA leases PATCO such that the separate PATCO fare is eliminated. Either way, the fare separation ensures an additional barrier for New Jersey patrons wishing to access Philadelphia, thereby undermining the goal of access; furthermore, the Lindenwold Line is the connecting through-route linking lines terminating in Camden (such as the River Line and proposed Glassboro Line) with ultimate destinations in Center City. Making these connections as easy as possible plays its part in inducing transit ridership--one of the major goals of the program.

Finally, some of you may notice that the Lindenwold Line and 25th Street Line terminate in the Loop, coming from opposite directions. There is the possibility of them interlinking, such that trains originating in Lindenwold terminate at Sports Complex South, but the major reason I declined to show this is because if these lines were joined it becomes exceptionally difficult to properly balance service within the Loop, since if the joined line uses one section of the spine, it disproportionately adds service to just that section, and if it is broken up so that each direction uses a different section of the spine, it disproportionately services one direction at all stops over the other direction. The only ways out of this operational asymmetry in Center City are to either: (a) terminate the two services in the Loop, running opposite directions, or (b) introduce an extra service to terminate in the Loop, running the direction opposite (clockwise), assuming 25th-Lindenwold service is split such that each direction runs different branches of the Loop. This could work, but only if the Roosevelt Boulevard Line (see section here) is interconnected into the Loop...the current general idea, however, is that it terminates on the Broad Street Line at Washington Avenue and peak-hour Fern Rock express service enters the Loop. The connection is there via the Ridge Avenue Spur, which would be transformed into a maintenance track with the creation of the Pennsport-Andorra Line, but could just as easily be reactivated for a new service.
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* One of these two duplicate roads really needs to be closed. Seriously.

25th Street Elevated Line

Our penultimate addition to the Loop Network segment of Philadelphia2050 is the 25th Street Elevated Line, a subway which follows the Pennsylvania's Delaware Extension from the Sports Stadium District to Washington Avenue, and then an underground right-of-way to Rittenhouse Square, where it meets with the existing Loop. This underground right-of-way follows Grays Ferry to South to 19th, about two miles.

This line fills a real need in South Philadelphia. Currently, transportation access in western South Philadelphia (west of 20th Street) is relatively limited and serviced mainly by the 2, 7, and 17 north-south buses, as well as the various east-west feeder buses (7 and G on Oregon, for example). However, South Philadelphia hosts the city's most-densely populated neighborhoods (by tract) and the neighborhoods themselves are very much inherently transit-oriented, when not unbuilt with suburban-style small-box Rite Aids and other such dross. South Philadelphia is, indeed, considered a North American example of European-style urbanity, and neighborhoods such as East Passyunk and Southwest Center City are booming, while Point Breeze is gentrifying.

Existing elevated line. Formerly electrified.

Furthermore, this line is less expensive to construct, and can tap into more funding sources, than initially meets the eye. 25th Street makes sense because of an already-existing elevated line, currently used by Norfolk Southern and CSX to access Greenwich Yard and the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal; since nearly all of the subway line, other than the Rittenhouse-Washington Avenue segment, uses this easement (barrier-separated), or else otherwise existing or proposed Loop tracks, this line can be built via a public-private partnership with Norfolk Southern (the owning entity): as the existing trestle is quite literally crumbling, the partnership would involve a renovation of the trestle, benefiting all parties, along with the setting aside of about half its right-of-way for this use. Modern, ultra-efficient signaling will help enable this, as well as the single-track Arsenal Bridge creating a pre-existing bottleneck making the trestle just too plain wide for purely freight use. In exchange, direct structural ownership would transfer to the passenger rail operator for future maintenance.

The running of mass transit and freight trains side-by-side is feasible: it is commonly done in Chicago. 25th Street offers the best access of any alignment in South Philly--directly servicing SWCC, Point Breeze, Grays Ferry, Girard Estates, and Packer Park--and the formerly industrial badlands surrounding the trestle offer abundant opportunities for upzoning in the city's fastest-improving section. Finally, since one of the propositions of Philadelphia2050 is that the city is both large and dense enough to support heavy rail mass transit within the most-urban core, this heavy-rail running is accomplished via the least expensive means available, and that is the repurposing of existing infrastructure.

Cemetery Heights Pt. II

Some time ago, I wrote about my proposed extension of the Cynwyd Line, perpetually SEPTA's lowest-performing, to a park-and-ride by the Schuylkill Expressway, quite a long bridge across the Schuylkill River from Manayunk and just outside of where the Expressway enters Philadelphia proper. My proposed park-and-ride terminus got some flack, and I defended my justification of one there based on a need to balance maximized access with local station-side upzoning (both increase ridership, and upzoning does it in a more natural way, but park-and-rides offer maximized access only where auto infrastructure, i.e. freeways, and rail infrastructure intersect). Based on in-system ridership from similar types of stations, I made the case this proposal would triple Cynwyd Line ridership while at the same time increasing Center City access.

Now I want to revisit Cemetery Heights*. Not because I am rethinking any of my earlier points, but rather because I am interested in how to further increase ridership. The Cynwyd Line, as it exists today, is extremely similar to the MBTA's lowest-performing line, the Fairmount. Both lines are substantially shorter than any other on the system, at about 10 miles each, and each has only five stations (Cynwyd has Suburban, 30th, Wynnefield Ave., Bala, and Cynwyd, while Fairmount has South, Uphams Corner, Morton St., Fairmount, and Readville). Even so, the Fairmount Line has a ridership three times that of the Cynwyd Line, and the MBTA is planning and building several new stations along the Fairmount Line: Newmarket, Four Corners/Geneva, Talbot Avenue, and Blue Hill Avenue. By just about doubling stations while maintaining the same line length, the MBTA is also doing something else: it is treating the Fairmount Line more like a metro. Granted, a metro using commuter-rail equipment, but a metro nonetheless.

The question I want to ask is can't we do this with Cemetery Heights, too? If we (a) add three new stations between 30th St. and Wynnefield Ave. (Zoo, Parkside, and 52nd St.) along with the two (Belmont and Cemetery Heights) proposed in the Cemetery Heights extension, and (b) extend service along the SEPTA main north to North Broad** with new local stops at Spring Garden and Girard***, given the high capacities the Center City tunnel currently allows, such a quasi-metro can be born. With reasonably frequent service (roughly every 20 minutes is the least frequent, I would suggest), and considerable upzoning and densification around the stations--something Philadelphia2035 is generally promoting anyway--we can come up with a ridership projection which assumes (a) parity between Cemetery Heights and Cornwells Heights (SEPTA's other major park-and-ride station) and (b) ridership increases at other non-core stations based on upzoning. We will peg average daily ridership at Belmont, Cynwyd, Bala, Wynnefield Ave., 52nd St., Parkside, 34th St., Spring Garden, Girard, and North Broad at 300, and treat, for the purposes of this analysis, 30th, Suburban, Market East, and Temple University stations as destinations for those alighting at other stations. We will assume 90% of riders are round-trip riders, and since this analysis is biased toward this, we will add a 10% contingency (assumption of one-way riders).

Thus 300 x 10 (average ridership per station times station count) = 3,000 + 1,100 (Cornwells Heights boardings = Cemetery Heights boardings) = 4,100 + 410 (one-way ridership) = a projected ridership on this line in this scenario of 4,510. This projection is likely an underestimation, due to, among other things, the tendency of such models to underestimate urban transit mode share, but it also demonstrates parity with the ridership of other urban Regional Rail lines (~5,000)...for once.

Of course, the trick is considering Cynwyd (Cemetery Heights) more a Subway 2.0 than commuter rail.
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* A justification can be made on naming the terminus Pencoyd Heights, after the name of the viaduct extending across the Schuylkill (Pencoyd), which formerly carried the Pennsylvania Railroad's Schuylkill Branch. This viaduct was taken out of service in 1986 due to structural concerns, and, since the rail line beyond parallels that of the active Norristown Line, there is currently very little reason to extend passenger service any further than the Schuylkill Expressway connection.
** This takes advantage of a track stub and the former coach yard at North Broad.
*** Or to Wayne Jct., or Fern Rock, or even Fox Chase or Chestnut Hill East...coupled into a through service as need be.

Society Hill-Mt. Airy Line

Along with Pennsport-Andorra, the Society Hill-Mt. Airy Line forms the second half of the Loop backbone. This line is the Germantown Avenue backbone, connecting the sections of this area where transit access currently is relatively poor. Additionally, it stretches east, servicing Society Hill and Penns Landing.

This line would lie between the two major spines of North Philadelphia, the Broad Street Line and the Pennsport-Andorra Line. Its major purposes would be to (a) serve Mount Airy and central Germantown, (b) serve lower and central North Philadelphia, (c) to serve western and southern sections of Center City, and (d) to serve several institutions along the way, primarily the Eastern State Penitentiary and Girard College.

Another feature of this line is its expandability: this line can easily be extended along Front or the Delaware, should demand permit. Combined with the Pennsport-Andorra line's first phase, the first phase of this line, along with the Lindenwold Line, is envisioned as the 2025 system core, the Loop skeleton these lines sprout from.