Schuylkill Valley Rail in the news
February 21st, 2009The Reading Eagle has an article about the latest study to extend rail service from Norristown up the Schuylkill River valley to Reading, PA in Berks County.
One idea for paying for both the initial construction and ongoing operating costs is to charge a $2 toll on Route 422, which would generate about $100 million in revenue over several years, according to the article.
Montgomery County transportation planners are moving ahead with plans to look at how to pay for passenger-train service between Norristown and Wyomissing. One option being considered is collecting tolls on Route 422. Here’s a look at the plan for the rail line, called the R-6 extension:
Where are the proposed stations? Wyomissing, Reading, Monocacy, Pottstown, Royersford, Phoenixville and Valley Forge.
What options for the rail line are under consideration? Planners are looking at seven options. All but one involves extending train service into Berks. Most are variations of electric and diesel trains between Berks and Montgomery counties.
What is the cost? A train line between Wyomissing and Norristown would cost $234 million to $297 million to begin the service, with annual operating costs of $5.4 to $7.4 million.
“Tolls on Route 422 could put rail line into Berks on track” [Reading Eagle]
New York to Atlantic City trains now running
February 7th, 2009Yesterday saw the first direct trains between New York City and Atlantic City, NJ, on the ACES service. The train stops in Northeast Philadelphia so the engineer can change ends, but does not drop or pick up passengers in Philadelphia.
Official site: http://www.acestrain.com/
High Speed Rail in Wired’s Autopia
January 28th, 2009There’s a blog post in the Autopia blog on Wired.com, and it has a good interview with Michael Dukakis about the future of high speed rail in the US. The most bang-for-the-buck is upgrading existing track to 125 mph, says Dukakis, and he talks about the many reasons to invest in rail.
See the full article: “High-Speed Trains Return to U.S. Fast Track” by Dave Demerjian, Autopia from Wired.com
Infrastructure infusion
January 16th, 2009One interesting thing about the latest fiscal stimulus plan is that infrastructure projects like the ones SEPTA is working are now getting funded and built, whereas in the past they were highly constrained in their budgets. What was once considered pork-barrel spending is now considered the most important thing to get the economy moving again. Interesting times.
SEPTA’s quiet car written up in Bloomberg
January 14th, 2009See this: Philadelphia Commuter Rail Says Zip It With Quiet Car.
R5 Doylestown to get quiet car
January 7th, 2009SEPTA is trying out a pilot program on the R5 Lansdale/Doylestown line where the first car is a “quiet” car where calls on cell phones are banned.
SEPTA ridership up but can it be sustained?
December 22nd, 2008There have been several newspaper articles about how SEPTA’s ridership for the previous 12 months is up over the previous 12 month period, but the drop in gas prices to the “cheap” range only came last month. It takes a few months for people to change their commute patterns. And if you stop to ask why gas prices are low, I think you’ll find it’s because of demand destruction because more people are out of work and cutting back on travel. If Philly unemployment rises, you can expect SEPTA ridership to drop even if the relative market share of transit compared to automobiles rises.
JR East R&D on Suica
December 20th, 2008Suica is the smart card used for fare collection on the JR East railway in Japan. “Following the track leading to Suica”.
Fare collection systems in Japan
December 20th, 2008With SEPTA’s interest in a new fare collection system, it’s interesting to see how they do it in Japan. Here’s a video of an “turnstile” which accepts contactless cards as well as paper tickets: “Cat sleeps on train turnstyle in Hiroshima, and no one cares”. Also note the station cat.
Delaware public transit ridership still high
December 15th, 2008Despite the cliff diving of gasoline prices lately, people in Delaware are still taking public transportation. It seems that many commuters, once they get used to the new routine, are unlikely to go back to driving. However, the recession is probably cutting into Amtrak ridership.
(“Delawareans stick with public transit.” by Aaron Nathans, The News Journal, December 14, 2008.)