Northeastern PennsylvaniaScranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pocono area
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Haha. You people are talking about these things like they're theoretical ideas. They're approved plans awaiting an action strategy. The maybe stage is over. You can say it's not gonna happen soon, but it's already been decided it IS going to happen, both the interurban, & the NY direct. Most of the tracks are already there from before, so they barely have to build anything, just restore it. Even the trains haven't been gotten rid of, just put aside.
Oh my god really? Carbondale? The city cannot even afford to keep its hospital open and you think there is a need for a train? The Casey highway is am empty racetrack for kids in their cars and motorcycles. Unless you work at the prison in Waymart there is no one on that road at all.
I-81 is only a parking lot because the state keeps using crap contractors to fix the roads and they hand out the political repair contracts to fix them every other year.
Build the road right and then there is no traffic or at least not enough to warrant pissing away millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a freakin train to no where...
Connecting to the train from Scranton to NYC..That is still the funniest pipe dream that I have heard in years....
A shuttle to the airport is a joke as well... You realize that the busiest terminal at AVP is the private terminal at Tech Air right?
Do you guys really live here or are you just pretending?
Ok here is the deal, I'll drop the price per acre of the Ocean Front land in Nebraska by 100k and the Unicorns are buy one get one free. Who is in?
Phase 1 of the Lackawanna line opens next year , Phase 2 to Stroudsburg by 2017 , with Phase 3 by 2020s to Scranton or Binghamton...not so far fetched...
It's all far fetched, every single bit of it. Just because someone says that its reday or its going to happen sometime in the next 20 years means nothing.
Administrations change, funding changes, etc...
THERE IS NO NEED FOR THIS KIND OF RIDICULOUSLY SPENDING FOR SOMETHING THAT HAS NO PURPOSE.
ESPECIALLY THE "INTERURBAN", THATS THE BIGGEST JOKE OF THEM ALL.
Next you going to tell me that they want to put a monorail in the Disney park they are going to build in Throop....
Please guys my stomach hurts so much from laughing right now that its not even funny.
I have a pamphlet from 13 years ago that talks about plans to build a river common & dowtown movie theater with elaborate sketches depicting Movies 14 & Riverfront Park as they appear today. Are those things "crazy" or "far fetched" because they took a decade to happen?
No they built them and the store are empty, the river common gets used little and even when there is an event its lack luster with little to no turn out.
Somebody made money on the political contract to build them.
That's all any of thus is about contracts and money, they don't care if they get used as long as votes were paid for with the contracts.
There is NO DEMAND FOR ANY OF THIS.....
What I don't understand is why you guys can't reralize that that there is no demand, no traffic and no peiople to use these things. They are whats refered to as "Political Footballs" passed around through the years to garner votes and contributions from the companies that want to stick their hands into the cookie jars and get their far share.
Pork Barrel projects, no different then the bridge to nowhere that was to be built in Alaska.
There are many of these wonderful projects that have been built for the pipe dream mentality that are empty..
317 Linden in Scranton was hailed as a revolutionary design and construction process for downtown apartments in Scranton, they are empty, no med school students, no "Urban Warriors" moving in and now the owner wants to convert it to a HALF-WAY HOUSE FOR CRIMINALS.
Yet it was built on the backs of the taxpayers, no different then the Med school which is on financial life support praying that Da U will buy them and integrate it into their pre-med program.
I know Nexis is a young kid and I';m assuming Coalcitytrash is as well because you guys can't see past the pipe dreams and see the reality fo the region, politics and where and when the public funding is spent and why?
No one of these projects in the entire region was built based on a DEMAND, its all been BUILD IT AND HOPE THEY COME...That's it, nothing more and nothing less....
GUESS WHAT? THEY DIDN'T COME AND THEY ARE NOT GOING TO COME...
It's all about the contracts and tax dolalrs and to whom they shall go.
I read with great pleasure over the past few days in the Times-Leader newspaper some articles that are highlighting more progress in the ongoing revitalization of Downtown Wilkes-Barre. A speculative developer from Weatherly has invested nearly $2,000,000 of his own savings into the refurbishment of a historic building at South Main & Ross Streets, not far from the campus of Wilkes University, into 16 upscale apartments that he hopes to eventually transition into condos. He's purchased a liquor license to complement a restaurant that will occupy the ground floor. The apartments are showing now and should be available to rent starting next month. They feature stainless steel appliances, hardwood flooring, intercom and security systems, and parking, amongst other amenities.
Perhaps what I find to be most promising about this project is that the vast majority of the dozens who have commented on the article thus far are upbeat and optimistic. This developer invested all of his own funds into this venture, showing that one need not rely on the taxpayers for handouts to do something great.
I also read that the city will be using gaming proceeds from Mohegan Sun Casino to provide $5,000 grants to revitalize/refurbish the facades of the many unkempt private dwellings lining the main gateways into the city, especially Coal Street, East Northampton Street, and Blackman Street. One issue that Wilkes-Barre will always have in convincing middle-class and upper-middle-class families to return from the suburbs to which they've fled since the 1970s is that its housing stock is largely run-down, outdated, and antiquated. Perhaps polishing some of it up will help to entice these suburbanites to give the city's neighborhoods a second glance?
If and when I return to the area to care for my parents as they age Downtown Wilkes-Barre will be my neighborhood of choice. I hope other developers continue to feed off this positive momentum. I can already imagine having Barnes & Noble, a movie theater, a perfoming arts center, two universities, a farmers' market, Boscov's, ethnic restaurants, the YMCA, a library, houses of worship, galleries, and so much more within blocks of my loft/condo.
I grew up in the suburbs and now live within walking distance of Downtown Pittsburgh. I can safely assure you that the difference in living environments is like night and day. I went from living in a sidewalk-less subdivision near a congested four-lane highway to living in a 110-year-old rowhome on a street lined with brick sidewalks where I can walk to public markets, boutiques, galleries, theaters, stadiums/arenas, a casino, museums, and much, much more. Urban living is "in" again, and I'm ecstatic to see that Wilkes-Barre is capitalizing upon this trend. Despite what this sub-forum's many naysayers will say there ARE those of us who WOULD like to live in a Downtown setting. Some of us enjoy the hustle and bustle of being in the middle of the action---car alarms, panhandlers, graffiti, etc. notwithstanding.
Let's keep this discussion about Wilkes-Barre please.
There's another thread on this forum that welcomes negative posts about NEPA in general.
The posts are not negative, they are facts and the reality of projects in WB. I was using the useless projects that have been built and failed in Scranton to show that the projects in WB are of the same nature.
Whether you like it or not it is the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area and there is a symbiotic relationship between the two.
SO whether its a failed political project in Scranton or a up and coming soon to fail political project in Wilkes-Barre its the same.
Its not all rainbows and happy days reruns here so please lets not try to make it like that so everyone has a skewed and unrealistic view of the area.
You can't discuss the rebirth without discussing the reasons for it and the smoke and mirrors behind it..
EVERY PROJECT IN WILKES-BARRE IS A POLITICAL ONE, WB has more political pork barrel corruption then the whole region.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 04-07-2012 at 03:08 PM..
No they built them and the store are empty, the river common gets used little and even when there is an event its lack luster with little to no turn out.
Somebody made money on the political contract to build them.
That's all any of thus is about contracts and money, they don't care if they get used as long as votes were paid for with the contracts.
There is NO DEMAND FOR ANY OF THIS.....
What I don't understand is why you guys can't reralize that that there is no demand, no traffic and no peiople to use these things. They are whats refered to as "Political Footballs" passed around through the years to garner votes and contributions from the companies that want to stick their hands into the cookie jars and get their far share.
Pork Barrel projects, no different then the bridge to nowhere that was to be built in Alaska.
There are many of these wonderful projects that have been built for the pipe dream mentality that are empty..
317 Linden in Scranton was hailed as a revolutionary design and construction process for downtown apartments in Scranton, they are empty, no med school students, no "Urban Warriors" moving in and now the owner wants to convert it to a HALF-WAY HOUSE FOR CRIMINALS.
Yet it was built on the backs of the taxpayers, no different then the Med school which is on financial life support praying that Da U will buy them and integrate it into their pre-med program.
I know Nexis is a young kid and I';m assuming Coalcitytrash is as well because you guys can't see past the pipe dreams and see the reality fo the region, politics and where and when the public funding is spent and why?
No one of these projects in the entire region was built based on a DEMAND, its all been BUILD IT AND HOPE THEY COME...That's it, nothing more and nothing less....
GUESS WHAT? THEY DIDN'T COME AND THEY ARE NOT GOING TO COME...
It's all about the contracts and tax dolalrs and to whom they shall go.
You speak with a strong sense of authority for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. The theater is ALWAYS a hot spot. Even if it's not packed, there are people there. The low appeal of the apartments isn't their location, but the apartments themselves. They're tiny efficiency apartments for $600 a month. You can get a place twice the size for half the price a round here. As for Riverfront Park, it is impossible to go there at any time of day & not find someone hanging out there. Whether it's kid's on their bikes, fishers by the banks, or runners on the levy. You're just here to disagree. All of what we're saying is fact backed up with citable evidence. Every single thing you've stated thus far has been opinion. Do you see the difference?
As for the people who say there's no demand for a light rail system, you've obviously never used the area's public transpotation as your primary means of commute. Just because YOU don't need it doesn't mean nobody needs it.
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