Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You're right, but I suspect that if someone living in the San Francisco Bay Area is considering graduate study in Philadelphia, he's not aiming to study at West Chester (two words - the one-word Westchester is a New York suburban county) University. More likely, that person is considering Penn, Temple or Drexel, in about that order, depending on the field of study (if engineering, Drexel first; if communications in practice rather than in theory, Temple first, for instance).
But we don’t know what the schools are or what the program is so we’re left reading tea leaves. And depending on the program, if you’re in Comp Sci, you won’t be seeing much of outside so you could be in any city and it would make almost little difference.
Grad school isn’t undergrad if you’re in a program that is competitive. It’s actually quite terrible.
But we don’t know what the schools are or what the program is so we’re left reading tea leaves. And depending on the program, if you’re in Comp Sci, you won’t be seeing much of outside so you could be in any city and it would make almost little difference.
Grad school isn’t undergrad if you’re in a program that is competitive. It’s actually quite terrible.
If they're considering grad school in comp sci, they're probably not considering graduate study in Philadelphia at all. If they're considering study in Pennsylvania, they're probably asking questions over on the Pittsburgh board.
You're right, but I suspect that if someone living in the San Francisco Bay Area is considering graduate study in Philadelphia, he's not aiming to study at West Chester (two words - the one-word Westchester is a New York suburban county) University. More likely, that person is considering Penn, Temple or Drexel, in about that order, depending on the field of study (if engineering, Drexel first; if communications in practice rather than in theory, Temple first, for instance).
The OP literally said the school was in N. Philly so, lol, it's Temple. Plus, the OP is likely busy checking out the suggested neighborhoods and has stopped looking at this thread for now.
But we don’t know what the schools are or what the program is so we’re left reading tea leaves. And depending on the program, if you’re in Comp Sci, you won’t be seeing much of outside so you could be in any city and it would make almost little difference.
Grad school isn’t undergrad if you’re in a program that is competitive. It’s actually quite terrible.
OP mentioned that their program being in N Philly is great because it can serve a community in need. As someone who’s gone through this, somehow I doubt this is a CS program.
Yes and Oakland is a quicker BART ride from DT SF than many areas within SF proper.
True, some parts of Oakland have a faster time getting to DT SF via mass transit than some parts of SF does. This is also true of some parts of the Delaware Valley (the Philadelphia metropolitan area) to Center City than some parts of Philadelphia proper. There's probably some kind of weighted distance to downtown from within X minutes by mass transit or walking to neighborhoods within the city or otherwise that can be done.
One thing about Philadelphia is that the price of rapid transit is quite low and more extensive in regards to amount of time to downtown and plus the large expanse of neighborhoods where bussing, biking, or walking to downtown is pretty reasonable. Part of this is because Philadelphia extends to the north, west, and south of downtown whereas SF's downtown is mostly in the northeast of the city.
Center City is in many ways more accessible to North Philadelphia than downtown SF is to Oakland, so it's possible that the proportion of the population within say a thirty minute average biking, walking, or mass transit time, including average wait time, to Center City is more diverse than the equivalent for downtown SF, but that's something someone would need to actually calculate out. It’s also quite possible the sheer amount of area this would encompass is greater for Philadelphia as well. The mass transit component might change a bit for downtown SF in several years though and hopefully change for Center City as well if they ever get Regional Rail to operate more like BART does.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-03-2019 at 05:05 PM..
Yes and Oakland is a quicker BART ride from DT SF than many areas within SF proper.
This doesn't surprise me at all, given how little of San Francisco proper BART serves. From Balboa Park station, for instance, I'm sure that's the case. But in between Balboa Park station and the point where the Muni light rail lines and BART reunite in the Market Street subway tunnel, there's a huge swath of San Francisco BART doesn't serve.
Philadelphia has an analogue to this in the Northeast part of the city, which the rapid transit lines only barely penetrate. The Broad Street Line Northeast Spur, aka the "[Roosevelt] Boulevard subway," is Philadelphia's answer to New York's Second Avenue Subway - even worse now, because part of the latter is now in service while the former may never get built.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
True, some parts of Oakland have a faster time getting to DT SF via mass transit than some parts of SF does. This is also true of some parts of the Delaware Valley (the Philadelphia metropolitan area) to Center City than some parts of Philadelphia proper. There's probably some kind of weighted distance to downtown from within X minutes by mass transit or walking to neighborhoods within the city or otherwise that can be done.
One thing about Philadelphia is that the price of rapid transit is quite low and more extensive in regards to amount of time to downtown and plus the large expanse of neighborhoods where bussing, biking, or walking to downtown is pretty reasonable. Part of this is because Philadelphia extends to the north, west, and south of downtown whereas SF's downtown is mostly in the northeast of the city.
Center City is in many ways more accessible to North Philadelphia than downtown SF is to Oakland, so it's possible that the proportion of the population within say a thirty minute average biking, walking, or mass transit time, including average wait time, to Center City is more diverse than the equivalent for downtown SF, but that's something someone would need to actually calculate out. It’s also quite possible the sheer amount of area this would encompass is greater for Philadelphia as well. The mass transit component might change a bit for downtown SF in several years though and hopefully change for Center City as well if they ever get Regional Rail to operate more like BART does.
I tend to object to the use of "Delaware Valley" to refer to Greater Philadelphia, largely on the grounds that this makes Philadelphia the only large American city whose metropolitan moniker omits all reference to the core city (what's the name of the Bay in the Bay Area?), not to mention that it's somewhat inaccurate topographically because by the time it reaches Central Philadelphia, the Delaware River isn't in a valley; in fact, it doesn't really enter a valley until you reach Trenton, above which the fall line crosses the river. But it's become such an ingrained term that I don't protest too much over its use.
The geography of both San Francisco and the overall San Francisco Bay Area, combined with the layout of the BART system, militates against having a large territory within that 30-minute-commute-to-downtown-San-Francisco-by-rail-transit circle. The BART system is actually centered on Oakland; downtown SF lies on one of the branches. Had Marin County not pulled out of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, this would have been different, but it did, and so it is what it is now.
I tend to object to the use of "Delaware Valley" to refer to Greater Philadelphia, largely on the grounds that this makes Philadelphia the only large American city whose metropolitan moniker omits all reference to the core city (what's the name of the Bay in the Bay Area?), not to mention that it's somewhat inaccurate topographically because by the time it reaches Central Philadelphia, the Delaware River isn't in a valley; in fact, it doesn't really enter a valley until you reach Trenton, above which the fall line crosses the river. But it's become such an ingrained term that I don't protest too much over its use.
The geography of both San Francisco and the overall San Francisco Bay Area, combined with the layout of the BART system, militates against having a large territory within that 30-minute-commute-to-downtown-San-Francisco-by-rail-transit circle. The BART system is actually centered on Oakland; downtown SF lies on one of the branches. Had Marin County not pulled out of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, this would have been different, but it did, and so it is what it is now.
Well, it's unique so that's nice. NYC's metropolitan area is often called the Tri-State Area. Philadelphia's also neat in that its downtown isn't called downtown Philadelphia but Center City. That uniqueness isn't bad. Aside from the Delaware Valley and Greater Philadelphia, are there any other candidate names?
Given the density of the northeast, wouldn't a Regional Rail service, especially if the Regional Rail service were run with greater peak and off-peak frequency be a reasonable alternative to the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway at least partially? There are rail right-of-ways that go through the area now that don't have stops/service.
San Francisco is certainly still the center of the Bay Area and though BART certainly has more branching in Oakland, there are also other mass transit systems and combined mass transit rail systems are definitely focused on or more extensive in San Francisco than anywhere else in the Bay Area though perhaps San Jose which has overtaken San Francisco in population, albeit with much more city land area, may eventually overtake San Francisco in other measures.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-03-2019 at 06:54 PM..
Well, it's unique so that's nice. NYC's metropolitan area is often called the Tri-State Area. Philadelphia's also neat in that its downtown isn't called downtown Philadelphia but Center City. That uniqueness isn't bad. Aside from the Delaware Valley and Greater Philadelphia, are there any other candidate names?
No, not really.
I also know that the term "Delaware Valley" originated in a newspaper feud: Walter Annenberg coined the term as a means of distinguishing his Philadephia Inquirer from its larger rival, the Evening Bulletin, which - like the magazine I write for now - used "Greater Philadelphia" to refer to the region. (You may or may not have heard some oldtimer or journalism junkie toss out the Bulletin's well-known advertising slogan: "In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads The Bulletin." (Well, they did until it folded in 1982.)
"Tri-State Area" may be used internally by New Yorkers, but it doesn't travel well beyond the region, for there are at least three other metropolitan areas, including Philadelphia, where the term can be used (and sometimes is). It strikes me that when referring to the region when outside it, both residents and outsiders simply call it "New York."
Quote:
Given the density of the northeast, wouldn't a Regional Rail service, especially if the Regional Rail service were run with greater peak and off-peak frequency be a reasonable alternative to the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway at least partially? There are rail right-of-ways that go through the area now that don't have stops/service.
In the part of the Northeast that lies closest to the Delaware, running the R7 Trenton line more like rapid transit would be highly beneficial and desirable. Of course, to really make this work, we'd have to upgrade every station from Cornwells Heights inward to high platforms, and we might want to reopen some shuttered stations in order to provide the denser station spacing characteristic of rapid transit (at the cost of increasing running time Center City-Trenton).
The opposite side of the Northeast isn't really well served by Regional Rail: the Fox Chase line has three stations on its far western end from Five Points north, and the R3 West Trenton clips its far northwest corner with two very closely spaced stations. Because of this, I'd say a subway line up the Boulevard would still deliver significant bang for the buck: that street is to the Northeast what Broad and Market are to the rest of the city.
Quote:
San Francisco is certainly still the center of the Bay Area and though BART certainly has more branching in Oakland, there are also other mass transit systems and combined mass transit rail systems are definitely focused on or more extensive in San Francisco than anywhere else in the Bay Area though perhaps San Jose which has overtaken San Francisco in population, albeit with much more city land area, may eventually overtake San Francisco in other measures.
The only other rail transit systems in the Bay Area are two commuter routes, CalTrain (which is upgrading with an electrification project as we converse) and Altamont Commuter Express, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SF MTA, or "Muni") light rail network, and the Valley Transit Authority light rail line in San Jose. Of those, only the Muni system provides anything resembling dense coverage within San Francisco itself. The city is building a new north-south light rail subway tunnel through downtown and Chinatown, but it's gotten criticism from even San Francisco residents as an expensive boondoggle.
I also know that the term "Delaware Valley" originated in a newspaper feud: Walter Annenberg coined the term as a means of distinguishing his Philadephia Inquirer from its larger rival, the Evening Bulletin, which - like the magazine I write for now - used "Greater Philadelphia" to refer to the region. (You may or may not have heard some oldtimer or journalism junkie toss out the Bulletin's well-known advertising slogan: "In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads The Bulletin." (Well, they did until it folded in 1982.)
"Tri-State Area" may be used internally by New Yorkers, but it doesn't travel well beyond the region, for there are at least three other metropolitan areas, including Philadelphia, where the term can be used (and sometimes is). It strikes me that when referring to the region when outside it, both residents and outsiders simply call it "New York."
In the part of the Northeast that lies closest to the Delaware, running the R7 Trenton line more like rapid transit would be highly beneficial and desirable. Of course, to really make this work, we'd have to upgrade every station from Cornwells Heights inward to high platforms, and we might want to reopen some shuttered stations in order to provide the denser station spacing characteristic of rapid transit (at the cost of increasing running time Center City-Trenton).
The opposite side of the Northeast isn't really well served by Regional Rail: the Fox Chase line has three stations on its far western end from Five Points north, and the R3 West Trenton clips its far northwest corner with two very closely spaced stations. Because of this, I'd say a subway line up the Boulevard would still deliver significant bang for the buck: that street is to the Northeast what Broad and Market are to the rest of the city.
The only other rail transit systems in the Bay Area are two commuter routes, CalTrain (which is upgrading with an electrification project as we converse) and Altamont Commuter Express, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (SF MTA, or "Muni") light rail network, and the Valley Transit Authority light rail line in San Jose. Of those, only the Muni system provides anything resembling dense coverage within San Francisco itself. The city is building a new north-south light rail subway tunnel through downtown and Chinatown, but it's gotten criticism from even San Francisco residents as an expensive boondoggle.
Never knew about the history of the name, thanks for that!
Tri-State Area may technically be applicable to other places, but so is the Bay Area as there are a lot of bays though point taken that Tri-State Area probably does not default to New York City Tri-State Area for most of the US the way say the Bay Area does to the San Francisco Bay Area.
There’s a rail right of way and single track on it though probably room for more that seems to go from Cheltenham station on the Fox Chase line to Neshaminy Falls station on the West Trenton line and parallels Roosevelt decently enough—were there ever proposals for the use of that for Regional Rail with stations?
The Bay Area also has SMART for commuter rail in Marin and Sonoma and the Capitol Corridor commuter rail line that’s San Jose through East Bay and out to Sacramento and a bit beyond.
Capitol Corridor, ACE, BART, Muni Metro, Capitol Corridor, Caltrain and VTA light rail are all currently in some stage of expansion/improvement which is pretty interesting, though little steps as the US generally does with mass transit. The slated improvements also seem like they’d benefit San Jose more so than San Francisco overall.
Even with those improvements, the meat and potatoes of good heavy rail rapid transit goes towards Philadelphia which is more to the OP’s purposes. Greater Philadelphia or Delaware Valley, like the Bay Area, also has a hodgepodge of agencies and services for rail service though SEPTA at least controls the lion’s share of services.
The return to population growth, and seemingly accelerating population growth, for Philadelphia is pretty interesting as the city is quite large and there’s quite a bit of room in places for development without displacement both within the city and the region in general. There’s a lot of infrastructure with which it’s endowed.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-03-2019 at 11:55 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
