Pennsauken Transit Center opens! (Philadelphia, Westmont: 2013, employment, transfer to)

[drive carephilly]

It's about time.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/art...-A-C-RiverLine

Last I saw (a few months ago) NJTransit was doing a feasibility study for a new station at Woodcrest. The ACRL could turn into a really useful line.

with hourly to 30 minute headways most of the day from 30th St. out to Woodcrest or maybe even Atco:

30th St.
North Philly
Pennsauken
Merchantville
Cherry Hill
Woodcrest
Lindenwold
Berlin
Atco Park&Ride

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

Are they going to start stopping at North Philadelphia station soon? That would be a plus.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

Are they going to start stopping at North Philadelphia station soon? That would be a plus.

Ha. No. I just made that list up. They really should though. The station is already there. Temple + hospitals are big destinations on North Broad and it would offer a much quicker ride to Center City if you're coming from Cherry Hill, Pennsauken or points north.

Like I said, Woodcrest is being studied. Merchantville and Berlin aren't on anyone's radar (that i know of).

[gwillyfromphilly]

I'm glad it's complete as it opens up employment options between Atlantic and Mercer County. What NJT needs to do is add more service during morning and evening rush. It would really help boost ridership levels.

[stuckinsj]

Woodcrest was studied but i think the modelers dont like it.

1. It would only get 300 passengers a day based on todays bad service
2. Its also on a straight away where the ACL reaches 70mph, so the service might get slower
3. It would be hard to construct ($) with a tunnel needed to access the parking lot and PATCO
4. Its close to Lindenwold, which just got an upgrade (probably would have to close in order to make woodcrest feasible) and has lots of bus service and parking.

North Philadelphia could happen but its not on anyone's radar in NJ
1. The westbound train travels on the middle track so it does not touch the platform. For it to reach the platform it would have to slow down and change tracks. Only the eastbound direction has easy access to the station platform
2. Its SEPTA territory, so some sorta agreement would have to be worked out when/if customers were allowed to travel between North Philly and 30th street
3. The station is a mess and would need upgrading.... whose gonna pay
4. Its in a bad neighborhood but it has subway access to Temple and CC and better connections to CHW and Trenton.

Hour or half hour service would take some doing.

1. The ACL was rebuilt cheap so its mainly a one track line with some passing sidings. It gets lower ridership because of its lousy running time and schedule so NJT really doesnt like it. All the stations would also have to be double tracked except AC, Pennsauken, and 30th street. Though this would be pretty easy because the ROW is there except between Lindewold and Haddonfield because of PATCO (Woodcrest could be doubled track in between because of its large ROW).

2. The Delaware Bridge is bad shape and NJT shares it with freight making it slow going. Increasing trip time. The Delair bridge was the first to cross the Delaware south of Trenton in 1895. A new or upgraded bridge is long overdue.

3. The ACL has to cross the Northeast Corridor to access Philly. Alot of time is wasted waiting for space to open up for the train to cross 4 tracks. A flyover would be needed to improve reliability.

4. More trains and crews. Probably need a SJ maintenance facility. Currently all the trains head up to the meadowlands for cleaning, refueling, and basic maintenance.

Probably altogether hundreds of millions of dollars to get a great line to a faded resort town while the highways are all being widened and the need to go to Philly, was never that high. Still worth it in my opinion.

[pman]

North Philadelphia station has good bones and already has parking (free) and ADA accessibility. what it needs is maintenance, not some grand scheme. paint would help as would knocking down the new "station." ACL trains could discharge only inbound, somehow I doubt 30th st to north philly ridership on the infrequent ACL will upset the apple cart. what it would do is allow for transers to/from the trenton line, chestnut hill west, and broad st subway to temple (among other things). I'm sure that SEPTA, Amtrak, and NJT could come up with a reasonably cheap maintenance agreement. really NJT needs to put money into the line itself not transfers from the river line. 95 minutes to AC is incredibly slow.

[drive carephilly]

Excellent points. Thanks, this is good stuff.

Originally Posted by stuckinsj

Woodcrest was studied but i think the modelers dont like it.

1. It would only get 300 passengers a day based on todays bad service
2. Its also on a straight away where the ACL reaches 70mph, so the service might get slower
3. It would be hard to construct ($) with a tunnel needed to access the parking lot and PATCO
4. Its close to Lindenwold, which just got an upgrade (probably would have to close in order to make woodcrest feasible) and has lots of bus service and parking.

1 - That sounds about right . . . but doesn't 300 people represent an 8% increase in ridership? I think the problem, as you point out, is the bad service not the location of the station.

2 - This is a good point - and maybe the trains running from AC to Philly wouldn't stop in both places but I don't think adding a minute or two to the timetable is really a big deal if it's only affecting the people who are getting on or off at Lindenwold or Berlin. I think of the line as serving 3 different sets of riders - Camden County to Philly, Atlantic County to AC, and AC to Camden Co/Philly and ultimately, i think that's how the trains should be scheduled. The only quick comparisons I can think of to the type of line that the ACRL is - a commuter line with two major destinations as anchors is Caltrain between SF and San Jose and MARC between DC and Baltimore. The important difference being that in those other cities a lot of people live in between. With the ACRL hardly anyone lives between Berlin and EHC.

3 - I've heard this before and I don't really buy it. You don't need to build a new tunnel under the tracks since the PATCO station is already under it. NJT pays PATCO to reconfigure their fare gates to allow for movement through the tunnel or just encode the NJT tickets to Woodcrest so they can be read by PATCO ticket readers. PATH and MTA have been doing this for years. In any case, at most, NJT would need to punch through the back wall of the station and dig for ~15 feet - there's no need for a completely separate tunnel.

4 - With increased service I don't think it's woodcrest vs. lindenwold. They're twice as far apart as the average SEPTA stations besides, they serve two different ridership profiles. Woodcrest is largely people in the local area or people coming off of 295. Lindenwold is serving a lot of bus riders, people driving from points east as well as Voorhees and places like Blackwood.

North Philadelphia could happen but its not on anyone's radar in NJ
1. The westbound train travels on the middle track so it does not touch the platform. For it to reach the platform it would have to slow down and change tracks. Only the eastbound direction has easy access to the station platform
2. Its SEPTA territory, so some sorta agreement would have to be worked out when/if customers were allowed to travel between North Philly and 30th street
3. The station is a mess and would need upgrading.... whose gonna pay
4. Its in a bad neighborhood but it has subway access to Temple and CC and better connections to CHW and Trenton.

Agreed on all points . . . and NJT should just eliminate the possibility of 30th St. to North Philly trips. Outbound North Philly would be pick-up only and inbound it would be discharge only.

Hour or half hour service would take some doing.

1. The ACL was rebuilt cheap so its mainly a one track line with some passing sidings. It gets lower ridership because of its lousy running time and schedule so NJT really doesnt like it. All the stations would also have to be double tracked except AC, Pennsauken, and 30th street. Though this would be pretty easy because the ROW is there except between Lindewold and Haddonfield because of PATCO (Woodcrest could be doubled track in between because of its large ROW).

I think the long-term goal should be to double-track the entire line but in the short term they can double track the line from the Delair Bridge to Westmont, then it would be single track through the cut, then it can be double tracked again from just east of the cut to just east of Woodcrest, then single track again from just east of Woodcrest to just west of Lindenwold where it would then be double tracked out to Atco.

This is more than enough to allow for 30 minute headways. Even stopping at Woodcrest trains would only need 10 minutes to get from Lindenwold and clear the cut in Westmont so you could get away with a single track from Lindenwold to Westmont.

I'm also not so sure that double tracks are needed at every station. It should be a long term goal but I don't think it's necessary to get the service up and running in the short term. The Riverline runs on 15 minute headways at peak periods and it has plenty of single track platforms.

2. The Delaware Bridge is bad shape and NJT shares it with freight making it slow going. Increasing trip time. The Delair bridge was the first to cross the Delaware south of Trenton in 1895. A new or upgraded bridge is long overdue.

Good point. That's a mess right there - our infrastructure is generally a mess.

3. The ACL has to cross the Northeast Corridor to access Philly. Alot of time is wasted waiting for space to open up for the train to cross 4 tracks. A flyover would be needed to improve reliability.

Yes, i looked at this a while back and thought the flyover should actually be for Amtrak with NJT and SEPTA sharing tracks between the junction and 30th St.

4. More trains and crews. Probably need a SJ maintenance facility. Currently all the trains head up to the meadowlands for cleaning, refueling, and basic maintenance.

Another good point. If they build an AC airport station as has been talked about maybe that's the time and place to build a maintenance facility. Since the line won't be electrified anytime soon they should probably look into DMUs. It would make operations more flexible and speeds a little better.

Probably altogether hundreds of millions of dollars to get a great line to a faded resort town while the highways are all being widened and the need to go to Philly, was never that high. Still worth it in my opinion.

I think there's a lot of demand there. If you live in Voorhees and work at Penn you can drive or you can take PATCO, then the El, maybe transfer to the trolley or to LUCy. It's expensive, stressful and it takes forever. A one seat ride to 30th St. means you flash your ID on the LUCy shuttle (if you can't walk to work from there) and get a free ride. It saves a ton of money and eliminates a transfer. There are about 10,000 people in SJ making the commute to U. City everyday.

Portland recently built a 5 station line on an abandoned ROW using DMUs they ran into major cost overruns and still got it built for $166 million. I'm thinking $120 million should get the job done for 3 new stations, some double tracking, 3 new train sets and a shop.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by pman

. what it would do is allow for transers to/from the trenton line, chestnut hill west, and broad st subway to temple (among other things).

exactly.

I'm sure that SEPTA, Amtrak, and NJT could come up with a reasonably cheap maintenance agreement. really NJT needs to put money into the line itself not transfers from the river line. 95 minutes to AC is incredibly slow.

They already have a maintenance agreement at Trenton so it shouldn't be much different at North Philly - just different ratios maybe.

I think 80 minutes from 30th St. is a more reasonable trip time considering the number of station stops. Part of the reason for the slow speeds is sitting on a siding for 5 minutes waiting for a train to pass - and a lot of the schedule disruptions are coming from Amtrak dispatching.