You may laugh but I'm actually excited that the Boulevard line is in every mayoral candidate's manifesto and so it may finally happen. In the meantime, excuse me while I go play "choose your adventure" to decide which potholes will do the least damage to my car whilst running today's errands.
Yes, you have people who want European style public transit in North America and it just won't work. Compared to the U.S. Europe in tiny and very densely populated, and doesn't,t have the space to build larger roads so public transit works for them. The U.S. is huge, and outside of major cities sparely populated, and there is plenty of space for huge road systems. Plus Americans are used to having the freedom of coming and going as they please so most will not put up with a train or bus schedule dictating their travel.
Being from Detroit, it blows my mind that there are cities in the US that have such mass transit systems. Metro Detroit is the very definition of an apocalyptic suburban nightmare from which there is no escape.
Exactly. You can't increase density because of all the cars in the suburbs and problems in the city; you can't revert it to farmland because the ground is poisoned.
I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that personally, because of the massive difference between the inner and outer ring suburbs. Transit to/from the city for Dearborn, Hamtramck, Harper Woods, the Pointes, etc. would be possible. Debatable, but possible. As soon as you try and move past that first moat of suburbs, everything changes. People would need to drive to the station anyway, and what’s the point getting out of your car if you’re already driving?
advent of passenger revenue service by robo shuttles: • ruclips.net/video/RFmAyzt4XFc/видео.html • ruclips.net/video/60BHKecm_aQ/видео.html • ruclips.net/video/60BHKecm_aQ/видео.html
Ok, so why not advocate to improve that? It's bad even for drivers and plenty of improvements are being attempted, but if you, or anyone is just going to write it off because that is true now, we're just going to get more bad developments practices instead of QoL improvements that isn't focused on auto ridership.
Is it bad that I don't think it's that bad, and that I cringe more when I see videos from other creators featuring stroads that are 8+ lanes wide? Like, the mall is awful, but you can mostly dodge the mall even if you're driving down 202 at rush hour. There's one light (202/Gulph) where it transitions from highway to arterial that's really bad, and because that same spot is right next to the convergence of two major highways that's also really bad, but it's not any more car-infested than anywhere else around here...unless your definition of car-infested is simply that everyone drives. And, well, that's American suburbs for you.
The solution to KOP is to add the best, most expensive rail transit ever. The trains will speed the shoplifters, looters, carjackers and thugs to this deluxe shopping and business mecca. Within three years it will all be gone. And then you can run the trains as an amusement park ride for kids with nothing better to do.
@@jaylewis5035 I know you're being sarcastic, but people DO actually think running trains to the suburbs will somehow cause criminals to decide to commute by rail for the purpose of doing crime. So... Leaving aside the dogwhistle I personally see imbedded in that idea? l those trains are going to be heavily equipped with monitored CCTV cameras. That's life in the 21'st century. So your hypothetical burglars or robbers get on the train, on camera, with a bunch of looted stuff...and a bunch of other people looking at them. Camera phones will come out, calls will be made. Now, carjacking? The majority of carjacking occurs very near where the perp lives. As do most crimes. Not 20 miles away. Street criminals tend to have poor impulse control, otherwise they'd go be white collar criminals instead. One more thing: You're not thinking of the low-wage workers who are helping to make your cushy suburban life possible. You're requiring people who make quite little to ALSO keep a car on the road. Edit: I mean, they can't afford places to live that are handy to the stores, shops, daycare facilities, nursing homes, and so on. If there's no public transit for, say, all those workers in the mall? The stores will have to pay more to keep anyone. Prices might go up. Stores might go kaput.
Navy Yard extension and RBS would be the most logical rail extensions if SEPTA is going to do any line expansions. Hopefully they'll move on to doing what they should have this entire time.
Navy yard extension doesn't make since IMO, or rather it should be behind RBS and turning RR into rapid transit. No one lives in the Navy yard even though it has a lot of corperate campuses, servicing places where people actually live is more useful.
The Feds have already poo-pooed the Navy Yard in the past, and RBS will also be going nowhere unless SEPTA can figure out how to prevent project costs increasing five-fold over the decade it takes to plan anything these days.
@@openphoto Yeah totally, but that's my point. No one lives there, just works there. I'd rather RR lines that service neighborhoods in the city limits where a lot of people live, become rapid transit lines. I would 100% get rid of my car of the R6 ran at least every 15 minutes, all day every day.
I'm a bit concerned about how they said "paused" instead of "cancelled", though IDK if that's just to appease supporters or if they actually intend on "resuming" it at any point (hopefully not). And yeah, I used to commute out there from West Philly using NHSL and unless you drive for the last mile, your commute gets twice as long anyhow. hardly matters if the station is right next to the mall or not cause all the offices in the area are spread out.
It basically means that in the unlikely event that there is a change in tone and they can find some funding for it (new federal government perhaps), then they'll still build it. Chances of this happening however are close to nil.
@@azuarc This isn't a corporation, this is a government agency...and almost nothing gets cancelled at that level....just paused for decades on end. Just look at the 2nd Ave subway in New York if you don't believe me.
I just love how you always strike a perfect balance between being highly serious on one hand, and a qualified shitposter/memer on the other. Top-tier content as always!
While completely ignoring the hellacious social situation the keeps white people off the transit system. The system itself, while ugly as hell, is actually comprehensive. If people felt safe on the system, they could get to virtually any place in the region from any other place.
I mean, the entire thing could be paid if even a single rich fucker paid their actual taxes, but sure. Just saying, it might be just as effective to rob the nearest billionaire for the funds lol
@@monsieurdorgat6864 It would be interesting if there was a single billionaire who cared enough about their city to fund these kinds of infrastructure projects.
@@astrosquirrel08108 you never become a billionaire by being a good person, sure you can get double digit millions and have a soul, but to become a billionaire you have to screw as many people over as possible, minimize taxes through BS loopholes, and buy off politicians. No such thing as an ethical caring billionaire.
That's a slippery slope, you could argue for 10 good projects and suddenly it's 5% extra tax. Your taxes really should already be enough to cover this kind of thing.
@@astrosquirrel08108 This is why we shouldn't leave it up to whether they care or not. If they want to keep living in the society that makes them rich and powerful, they're going to have to contribute.
I definitely understand that one-seat argument. Where I'm at on Long Island, I live along the western Montauk Branch and because of it, direct service to and from Penn is very limited so I'm stuck changing at either Jamaica or Babylon. This is because of a number of factors, firstly the branch is not electrified (they could at least electrify it between Babylon and Speonk where they have a yard) and most of it is single-track. The LIRR has 160 miles of diesel territory and only 22 percent of its fleet is diesel. Said diesel fleet keeps breaking down, and only a small amount of said diesel fleet can turn on electric mode to enter Penn. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel for a bit when in 2021, the LIRR partnered with Alstom to test batteries (the US's first) on the Oyster Bay Branch on electric trains so they could run on the diesel branches. But while initially successful, this proved to be too expensive, and the experiment ceased in July 2022. And an example of transit that goes to a mall DONE RIGHT is Newport station on the HBLR in Jersey City. Unlike other malls in the US, Newport Centre is very much a thriving mall (they still have SEARS!) and it's mostly thanks to transit. It's the most popular stop on the HBLR (which stretches across Hudson County from North Bergen to Bayonne) by far, and that's on top of the mall being near a PATH station! The HBLR also connects to the PATH at Exchange Place and Hoboken Terminal as well. Private Spanish shuttles from Union City and the GWB also go to Newport.
A solution for diesel replacement that doe not require electrifying the rail is looming on the horizon. Canadian Pacific is trialing hydrogen fuel cell locomotives.. Fuel cells engineered by (30+ years of experience) Ballard Energy. Range before refueling is something like 700? kilometers.
Heading out to Temple next week for an admitted grad student event. Thanks for giving me some good ice breakers for discussions with my fellow transit nerd peers.
10 thousand some daily riders on the KOP extension vs 120k projected daily riders for Roosevelt blvd line for the same price is all you need to hear. Suburbs need better transit access but not to the detriment of Philadelphians
Should be busses bicycles and cars to the park and ride and solar panels over the park and ride car park . That way the park and ride makes money all the time .
@Prince Sid this is true, and unfortunately the cost-benefit analysis is probably pretty hard to determine as the Blvd transports many different types of people doing different things. I hope they're at least crunching numbers.
I used to live in Reading. I hoped so much for a train ride into Philadelphia. Instead I had to drive to King of Prussia Mall and ride a bus in. That bus was always stuck in the grid-locked traffic of 76. It sucked. At least I wasn't the one driving but I would have absolutely loved a straight train ride in.
Spending this much would have been crazy considering SEPTA can quickly run buses from Norristown Transportation Center to King of Prussia (under 4 miles) with the flexibility of stopping at major job centers.
I really like Philly, and I have ridden on virtually all of Septa’s various transportation ( including the commuter lines). I have also traveled on the Patco line out to NJ. I’ve driven to King of Prussia and have tried to get into Center City using I-76; it took nearly 2 hours at the height of rush hour on the rainiest Friday --what a total nightmare! But once I was able to park the car, I used the public transportation to all the places I wanted to see.
I used to ride the Septa R5 line from Exton in Chester County to 8th Street in Philly every day back in the 90s. This was just after the Blue Route finally got finished and right around the time the Rt 30 by-pass went in. King of Prussia was such a hell hole you could feel the anger radiating off it as far out as Blue Bell. Ugh, the memories! I live in the Netherlands now where transit works and we have no traffic. Nice to know that good ol' PA is still stuck in the past. Thanks for the great video.
Funny part is the Norristown High Speed tramway line runs out there, within maybe a mile of the KoP Mall. I had to use it to get to work for awhile in the late 90's. There was never any reason for a spur to the mall to cost anywhere near as much as they claimed. Most of that money was meant to line someone's pockets.
Lived in Western Montco for almost 20 years. This good video barely scratched the surface of how messed up this area is. it’s not just the Schuylkill. There are THREE major highways that all intersect at KOP and feed into the Schuylkill. When this project was fast-tracked, it wasn’t for the mall. It was for the hi-rises planned at and around the KOP golf course next to the mall. Well, the hi-rises are now there, the developers and politicians have their money, the suburbs have exploded even more and there is still no effective transportation solution - rail and/or roads - to serve the area.
As someone who lives in w montco I rather go to the outlets of Lehigh valley than philly because I can’t drive yet and public transport takes twice as long than driving to center city
I used to drive Roosevelt Blvd and I have a lot of sympathy for all the "Road Warriors" who have to drive on the Blvd. It is Philadelphia's 75 MPH stroad version of Mad Max's Fury Road, but with more crazy drivers, accidents, and the daily hit & runs. SEPTA needs to do the Roosevelt Subway!!
I've been on it once. What I would really like to know is how anyone gets on it at all the in-ramps with no merge lanes... and I am a fairly assertive driver!
Not 75, sadly. Now with 'road works when flashing' and automatic camera tickets for tired commuters to enjoy if they don't notice the blinkenlights in the bright morning sun at 8am when no construction worker has ever been on the job site in the history of Philadelphia. It's nearly an 8th Amendment violation in that it is an unusually cruel, but sadly usual for commuters who have to use it, punishment for being from or working in Philadelphia. The accidents is mostly a) frequent stop lights leading to rear ends in the rain, and b) people who just carelessly cross a multi-lane highway and expect cars to stop in time or make them rich. The solution, sadly, is not a rail line, but an elevated roadway without those incessant stoplights and cross traffic. Can't be done because construction on that scale would kill the commute for years.
Unfortunately that will never ever happen because they just do not have the money. People think just because this project is cancelled we will finally get the Roosevelt Blvd subway, but the reason this project was cancelled was because SEPTA was found to not have enough capital to get any investment
Merritt Taylor whose family then owned the Red Arrow lines wanted to do this when he had the Red Arrow buy two recently abandoned electric streamliners that had tap cars. This was in 1964.
Those were the famous Electroliners, operated by the North Shore system from 1941 till 1963. They were designed to be able to operate both as high-speed interurbans and on the Chicago "L" tracks. The Taylors bought the two trainsets when the North Shore ceased operation, with the intent of using them on new service to the Exton area with a possible spur to KoP. The proposed Exton line was to run parallel to (or possibly inside) the rebuilt highway from KoP to Exton. However that being the car-crazed 1960s, any and all attempts to modify the highway plans and fund rail service failed. The 'Liners were then relegated to service on the P&W tracks from 69th Street to Norristown. However the P&W's rails and power system weren't up to handling the big, juice-hungry trainsets, forcing their use to be limited to a couple of afternoon "premium" express runs before they were discontinued. I confess to sometimes adjusting my work hours just so I stood a chance of catching one of the two daily trips! Fortunately SEPTA (which absorbed Red Arrow in 1970) had a rare flash of sensitivity, and sold both sets to museums that restored them. ruclips.net/video/-KZkUZ9BPrY/видео.html
It would be an improvement, since Alan actually sees and anticipates flaws in the system now whereas current leadership will first notice today's shortcomings 30 years from now.
The problem is that your group of big-wig know it alls with a "college degree" doesn't want someone like Alan refuting their ideologies. It's a scheme cos if your transit network is damn near perfect, there isn't a need for the planning & development board to solve these issues
Please cover the recently proposed incredibly stupid "autonomous vehicle lane" proposal between Ann Arbor and Detroit. We almost had regional rail in SE MI, but rich white people in the Detroit suburbs voted it down Wayne (Detroit) and Washtenaw (Ann Arbor) counties voted for it (the latter by a large margin), Oakland county was basically a tie, but Macomb county crushed it, causing the plan to fail. And now they want to make a special highway lane for autonomous cars. It makes me want to scream.
Part of the problem is the unfair division of seats on the SEPTA Board. 2 seats per county is very tilted towards the suburbs. A more fair division would be 4 seats for Philadelphia, 2 for Montgomery, 2 for Bucks, 1 for Delaware, and 1 for Chester.
The title of "worst transit project" is a pretty bold claim, considering some of the decisions Seattle's getting ready to make on its light rail system. I'd love it if you'd spend some time talking about the West Seattle/Ballard light extension currently in planning. Instead of a hub station, our light rail network is poised to be broken up into a multitude of tiny lines - you talked about a "one seat ride", well, many trips here are poised to require *three to five transfers*. And I'm not talking regional trips - I'm talking about trips inside the city, in the same county, on the same light rail / bus system.
Not a problem if the service is frequent and transfers are easy. 5 seems too much, but a round route with spokes works well for some of the largest systems in the world like Moscow and gets you anywhere with a max of 2 changes..
So glad this video came up in my RUclips recommendations! I moved back home to the Philly burbs (Montgomery county just outside northeast Philadelphia) after COVID enabled work from home. The KOP line sounded a little sus from what I read in the news, but until this video I had never heard of the idea of the Roosevelt Boulevard subway! I live just off Red Lion road so if there were a stop there enabling easier access to more stops downtown than the few regional rail stations like 30th street and Suburban Stations, that would be fantastic! I just subbed so I’ll check your back catalog, but please let us know whatever can be done to advocate this project!
I would bet a sizeable chunk of change that SEPTA will Screw the Pooch on the Roosevelt Blvd job too. They will make it light rail, or even worse, a busway. Like MTA just did for the Brooklyn Express.
This is just another example of the lack of planning in the Philadelphia region. The extension looks more like a shuttle service with the mall as an intermediate stop. So sad.
Transfers aren't necessaraly bad . The Tokyo Metro and JR lines all have many transfers depending on where you are going . But if your transfer includes long waits then it will not work .
It's US public transit's chicken and egg problem writ large. No ridership to justify dense, frequent service, and no incentive to use (and thus falling ridership) when the service is so infrequent as to be unusable.
Although today, my comment might seem absurd. 10 or 20 years from now, or less, it won't be so "ridiculous". That is, to ban cars altogether, at least in some areas. And/or tax the use of private vehicles so high, it will force people into public transportation. The use of private vehicles in the 21st century is the #1 cause of deforestation in urban areas, the #1 cause of air pollution, the #1 cause of noise pollution ( try to find someplace in the US that you can't hear the roar of freeways 24/7. I even heard the noise on top of the appalachian trail!), adds to americans already outstanding anti-social behavior, and worst of all, is so cruel and unfair to the elderly, youth, handicapped, and poor or indigent americans who daily have to suffer from the absolute lack of public transportation to about 70 to 80 % of the country! Ban cars, period!
W I think its crazy how in philadelphia suburbs, something like this can even be considered. I'm from the Boston area and I would kill for this kind of extension near me (on already existing tracks in a place where it actually makes sense btw)
Boston also had its fair share of transit cancellations such as the Green Line extension to arborway. The red line was also originally supposed to go through Arlington and Lexington all the way to Route 128 along what’s now the minuteman bike path. The Silver Line also has a bunch of cancelled or downgraded projects around it. I guess we did get the GLX. Only took thirty years but it’s here. At least we’re getting new commuter rail extensions to the South Shore. Would be nice if some of new projects would be on time and on budget in the densest areas of the state but I guess that’s too much to ask…
It really can't because of property values with points A and B that make sense. The only reason this was "viable" is that it went from a poor area, through poor areas, and thus was not actually practical as it would stand unused except by petty criminals.
Interesting that I76 is a two lane highway with a shoulder. Here in the UK, that’d be “only” a dual carriageway, not a “proper” motorway (with special motorway rules). Heck, having a hard shoulder at all is sadly increasingly a novelty in England. Most multi-lane highways with shoulders have had the shoulders used up for a “free” lane. There has been a lot of controversy as this directly caused vehicle deaths, when the “system” to mark the outermost lane as blocked on the LED signage didn’t recognise a car broke down in that lane. Also sometimes drivers ignore those signs because the lane looks free and then they have a fatal accident. So it’s just terrible all round, on top of the baseline awfulness from feeding lane inflation.
I’m glad bright line has the vision to actually redevelop along their stations as that’s the only way they are going to stay solvent. Occasional riders can love to have a train option, but they will not provide the revenue
That's because Germany already built everything more popular than that and their project costs are cheaper. It doesn't work the same in the US where there are some huge potential riderships with no lines whatsoever.
The emphasis is on "street car": The Norristown High Speed Line is build to metro standards and is akin to the DLR what the Broad Street and Market-Frankfort Lines are to the London Underground. Except the DLR used existing rails so it was relatively cheap compared to the KOP extension which is all new.
Of the 12 SEPTA City Bus Routes that you displayed, 7 of them do not even reach Center City, but has a major connection with either the Broad Street Line, the Market-Frankford Line, or both, and only one Bus Route stays west of the Schuylkill River, the 52, and the 21 & G are the only Bus Routes on this list that cross the Schuylkill.
Tbh, I think spending money on a dumb public transit project is still better than allocating more resources to building more car infrastructure. At least there is a possibility that it will be somewhat useful eventually. It's not like they're gonna use that money for something sensible now. It'll be wasted on even dumber shit so the cancellation is NOT a success. The Roosevelt Subway would make total sense which is exactly why it won't happen :D
There are probably thousands of empty commercial parking lots fenced off and rotting away because there are no businesses that use them. I know where I live there's a ton of these and it's a shame so much land is wasted to car infrastructure instead of making our public transit better
@@jerrymiller9039 cars are one of the worst forms of transportation and it's awful that the infrastructure is solely based on these metal death machines instead of y'know, walkable cities
While the idea of the Schuylkill Valley Metro is dead, isn't the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Commission looking into restoring service from Center City to Reading thru Norristown, KOP, Phoenixville, and Pottstown? I know it's AMTRAK and not SEPTA, but is there any chance it ever becomes reality?
as a philly resident, honestly i wish we'd just wasting time thinking up new projects and just run our train and bus service more frequently. If anything is going to attract regular ridership, that's it.
A very common issue. I was kind of astonished to find that most US public transport services apparenmtly don't run to the clock, either. Fair enough to not have a fixed time table if the trains/busses/whatever show up 'every five minutes (or less) from 6am to 11pm' or some such (like, Actually show up, not just 'are supposed to but don't'), but when they nominally come every 15 or 30 minutes, or once an hour... and they don't even have an actual schedule of 'depart A at 9am, arrive B at 9:15 (plus or minus a couple of minutes), leave B at 9:25 (if it's a bus there's quite a few stops between A and B where it only stops if there's someone there, but it should be at least Reasonably consistent about when it passes those points relative to A and B at a given time of day (variation over the course of the day due to traffic patterns is expected)), Arrive C at 9:45 (plus or minus a couple of minutes)/ Depart C at 9:55, Every Time (baring major breakdowns that see the vehicle replaced or the particular run cancled, at least, and those should be actively prevented wherever possible, naturally.) Serously, if you can't manage high frequency, at least have a reliable timetable! Even just that will improve ridership if it's not already the case.
The road construction and motor vehicle manufacturers started killing mass transit even before the 1955 National Highway Defense Act . The 2 previously mentioned lobbies increasingly bought up bus, transit and longer rail lines . My grandmother told me back in the 1920s & 30s & first half of the 1940s ,even in our medium sized important manufacturing town ( since Reagan Rust Belt town) , buses and trams ran 24/7 , 365, no bus (or tram stop downtown ) was further away than a couple blocks . We also had a large state and national train station which from you could ride to our closest two largest cities 6 to 10 times per day or night and south, southwest and southeast 4 or 5x a day or night .US has been a private motor vehicle based transportation system for 70 some years and it sucks !
KOP is one of the biggest malls in the country. The traffic around the area is absolutely awful. Thousands of people from the city works there. Not everyone lives in center city. Most transportation systems have transfers.
As a german i find it werid that theres something called the King of Prussia extension to a transit line in the US i coudn't imagine that there would be something like the George Washington street in germany
I love your observation! In America we are a melting pot of all things from all over the world. I believe King of Prussia was named to honor a king who opposed British imperialism.
@@krone5 a lot of stuff is named after european things, york in england (former new amsterdam, now new york). you'll also find a lot of hamburgs in north and south america
Out of curiosity ... Wasn't there once a railroad called the Reading Railroad? I could swear I read that name on my Monopoly board. Didn't it go to Reading PA? And also all the way east to almost New York City? In fact, isn't there still a place in center-city Philadelphia called Reading Terminal Market? I know that the Reading was acquired by Conrail in 1976, and that Conrail is in the freight business, not passengers. But what happened to the Reading's tracks and right-of-way? Couldn't that be used to jump-start a rail connection between Philadelphia and Reading?
There was indeed a Reading Railroad, and its corporate descendant now runs movie theaters in California. Go figure. The tracks are still there on the line to Reading (and beyond to Harrisburg, Pottsville, etc.). And pretty much all of the New York line is still intact aside from the last bit into the New Jersey waterfront (replaced by a connection to Penn Station Newark) (also a tiny little connector in New Jersey is out and the freight lines are disconnected from the passenger lines). The biggest obstacle to restoring passenger service to Reading is that the line is now very heavily used by freight trains. The paralleling Pennsylvania Railroad Schuylkill branch was abandoned by Conrail as redundant in 1976, and then it closed the PRR's "Low Grade" freight system because it meant relying on Amtrak for a few stretches and Amtrak was raising the track fees. As a result, all rail traffic into Philadelphia from the west comes down that one line.
Having lived in and around Northeast Philly for most of my life, holy shit is the roosevelt extension the thing everyone in my family has been begging for since I can remember. We just LOVE to take 1 to 2 buses and the El just to get to North Philly without a car -_-
6:56 yeah I live in Bridgeport, my kid goes to school right off Henderson road, I have to drive into KOP every other day just to get groceries from ALDI and whatnot, and I still had never heard of this project except for perhaps one mailer I vaguely remember getting in the mail a few years ago asking for comments
Toronto has actually accomplished something very similar to the KoP extension. The Line 1 extensions into York Region (current and future) are more of a waste in that they run to less dense, suburban areas. The Vaughan extension has been criticised because the area is basically big-box stores and parking lots. Even with new planned residential buildings and TOD, there might still not be enough ridership. Ever. Then there is Line 4, which is really the line to nowhere, it is the least used of the TTC lines. David Gunn, he of Amtrak and MTA Grumman fame, even said it was a waste and that the city should have expanded transit in downtown. And these costly projects have continually taken higher priority over the Ontario/Relief line, which would run actually run downtown and help alleviate Line 1 and Line 2 crowding.
I lived in Lansdale for years. What we need is high speed transit in an east-west direction, running from W Trenton, to I95 at Newtown, past the industrial parks in Horsham and Warminster, (put a station on 611) Ambler & 309, plymoth mtg mall, KOP mall, paoli, West Chester, concordville. 50k+ riders a day.
The money saved on KOP cancellation could be used to extend the Morristown/Manayunk Line to Reading. This line would still serve KOP by the way of the old Valley Forge stop( This stop is located in Valley Forge National Park-The old station building is still there). This line would also serve Phoenixville, Pottstown, and the final stop into Reading. This line extension wouldn't need 4 billion dollars.
So what does a metro/tram/light rail do that a bus can't? Here in San Jose they just sit empty, take up twice as much scarce road real estate, and are a taxpayer's money sink. Such a colossal waste for politicians to bring a 'je ne sais quoi' sensation to voters.
Excellent video good sir the bit of hummer at the end was very good as well as a pro welder i would like to offer my services to oversee all rail connections 😊. But good plug👍
So the name King of Prussia comes from the King of Prussia Inn originally constructed by Welsh Quakers, who in turn named it after King Frederick II because he supported Washington during the revolution. As a National Park/National Historical Park enjoyer, I'd rather see the Pottsville Line restored up to Pottstown so that Valley Forge or Valley Forge Park stations (or both) would reopen, that way the park would attract more people and is easier to get to by transit means. Plus Valley Forge Park station is on the eastern end by KOP so it would help the KOP people too. Not to mention the line would be connected directly to Center City as shown by Manayunk/Norristown And yeah, that Jacksonville Skyway is...something to say the least! I mean sure both the Miami Metromover and the Skyway are free and yes the Metromover is successful, but the Metromover is successful because it supplements Metrorail as well as Brightline. The Skyway only supplements a BRT and not a proper system. A Jacksonville system HAD potential in the 70s, but the US government then was like "Build people mover, it moves people lol"
I remember when the King of Prussia Mall opened in the 1960s. I worked at an office park (200 N Warner Rd) in the 1980s. Horrible planning. It’s a suburban disaster.
Oh I know what you’re talking about. I live in the region. I’m glad they canceled it. We don’t have billions of dollars to give out. And malls are losing popularity today. It would’ve been another big waste of money. The better project would be to rebuild the former Reading railroad Bethlehem branch. The purpose would be to take the thousands of motorists off the Pennsylvania Turnpike northeastern extension. It’s utterly amazing how many people are commuting into Philadelphia at 4:30 am via the turnpike. Take this traffic off the turnpike and and septa makes money. And there will be less greenhouse gas emissions from the motor vehicle traffic.
I wonder r u gonna do another ratings video for cities anytime soon??? I really wanna see u talk bout cities like Baltimore, St Louis, Detroit, etc. tbh!
SEPTA has been a disaster since its birth in the 1960s. It combined very very old train and bus lines, a militant union and political cronyism. Fares were never integrated and most of the systems are just falling apart. Adding another line would be the height of folly given the overwhelming operational and crime that afflicts the current operation. Fix the trains and buses and rationalize the fares and collection systems first. Run buses from 69th street or Norristown or Center City Phila, its the best you can hope for.
SEPTA used to run commuter trains from the old Reading Terminal into Reading & Pottsville and Bethlehem until the end of the 1970’s, it was dropped and/or cut back to Norristown and Lansdale. That was a mistake SEPTA made. The I-76 from King of Prussia to center city Philadelphia and even into Southern New Jersey to Turnersville is as parking lot and for that matter most metro areas nationwide freeway/expressways that were built after World War II and many interstates are now parking lots.
Those outlying branch lines were cut when the commuter tunnel opened. They used diesels which can't operate in the commuter tunnel. SEPTA didn't have the $$$ to string catenary so they walked away from those lines.😢
My old turf! Used to ride a two-car train with internal engine, much like these, from Reading down to Philly in the 1960s when I was growing up in the “Pretzel Capital.” Makes such sense to restore the full line. I can imagine it would bring new life to Reading, which I just saw ranks third from the bottom among cities in terms of average income among the top 5%. Better than the poorest city in the US, as it used to be. And my dad used to call 76 the “Sure Kill Expressway.” I remember those jams well, and experience them every time I visit from Seattle, where we definitely have our share.
You know, after looking at the sector in Google maps, I think that car infested hellhole might be somewhat generous. There's probably more square footage occupied by roads in that neighborhood than there is in all of the buildings served by those roads.
I was a Tow Truck Driver in the Philadelphia area for a Longggg Timeeee. Since I was a child and PTC changed to SEPTA it SUCKTAS!!!! I was just there about 3 weeks ago and it was at least 8 years since I was home. I would love to see what would happen to the Boulevard. The 5th and Butler Express!!!!
Ah, Cities: Skylines. The city building game that punishes you for building a city. Honestly, I just ignore those complaints and make sure my healthcare system can handle the additional workload caused by noise sickness.
I'm from Philly and I can tell you that it made no sense for Septa to spend money on that system. Years ago Septa was going to extend the Broad street subway up through Roosevelt Blvd. If anything they should spend the money finishing what they started on this. They already started building the tunnels years ago. Northeast Philly is highly populated and King of Prussia isn't. Either that or spend the money fixing They're current problems.
But they legally can't divert the money. When a project is suspended / cancelled its funding has to be sent to other regions whose projects are similarly far along in planning &/or construction. BSS, RB, etc. are still at the talking stage.
Alan, Awesome video! I have comment and a question. 1. Thank you for singing the "KYW". That is certainly a nod to the locals! :) 2. Given the way that SEPTA is made up, how likely is it that we will see them go forward with the Roosevelt Blvd Extension? I personally would love to see that, as I HATE the Boulevard, but you do mention that this has been tried several times before, and to no avail. I'm just curious about that. Thanks!
idk. It does seem like it would be a nice idea to have a train connection to the mall, especially because I live close to a Norristown High Speed Line station. The issue is that whole King of Prussia area was built up between the 1950s and 1970s, when cars and car culture and all that was very much a part of life (as exemplified by films such as American Graffiti) so basically the best way and the way that most people have gotten to the mall is by driving, otherwise the mall wouldn't spend an emperor's ransom on parking garages. I do think a rail line to there would be faster than driving at some points though.
Great video! I'm glad it was canceled because it never made sense anyway. There is a slight possibility that the Sixers will move their operations into the Navy Yard instead of Center City. If that is the case, then it's finally time to extend the BSS one stop south.
I agree with you on both counts. They need to just forget building in Chinatown, build it and extend the Broad Street line there then people from the Northeast can go straight to the Sixers games!!
SEPTA had started, the abandoned a project to extend the Market-Frankford line to Northeast Philly in the early 60's. In fact I believe some of the tunnels still exist from that line.
Underneath Roosevelt Blvd and Adams. And the boule is built in a way so that the subway can be built in the middle. Now when they gonna complete that? Question is will they complete it in my lifetime?
I get so pissed when I see a rail line that they spent billions of dollars to elevate just go over some roads in a low density area. Naw dawg, put the rail lines on the ground and build bridges or tunnels for the cars with the road budget. That way we can have much more transit with much less money.
It would be a lot cheaper in general too since cars can manage a lot steeper inclines than rail traffic so you'd need much less space and supports for those elevation changes.
The I-76 expressway, a/k/a affectionately as the "Surekill Crawl-way." Did unsay $3 BILLION fir 4 miles???!!! How many miles of the M-F El extension up the "Boulevard" would that buy? Former RR rider here😊
KOP is a great place for a transit project as a destination, but it would need to come from the right place and 69th st isn't it. Center City via R5 branching off to KOP would work.
I grew up in King of Prussia and still have family in the area, so I know the area well. What should be built instead of the NHSL extension is an extension of the Norristown Regional Rail line from DeKalb Street station. The railroad right of way exists all the way to approximately where the First Avenue station on the Norristown High Speed Line extension would have been (First & American) - via existing Norfolk Southern (formerly Reading) tracks that have room for at least one more track and an abandoned rail branch into the industrial park from the north. From there, a new viaduct would be necessary to cross the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a larger (probably elevated) terminus station in the area of the mall. That viaduct would be one cause of serious expense - a second cause would be that there's a "pinch point" in the local road system where the abandoned rail branch crosses Valley Forge Road next to Trout Creek. A transit project would be saddled with completely rebuilding, straightening, widening, and elevating that road as well as connecting roads in the area (at least Beidler Road and 5th Avenue). An additional possible area of expense is electrification beyond Norristown, as SEPTA Regional Rail is entirely electric (12kV 25Hz overhead) and diesel power cannot be used in the center city tunnel. Looking to Europe (at least the UK), there are a couple of possibilities to avoid that - bi-mode diesel/electric multiple unit trains are already working (e.g., British Rail class 800 and 802), and battery/electric multiple unit trains are coming (e.g., British Rail class 777/1).
I have mixed feelings about the cancellation bc on one hand, yeah there are much better projects for septa to fund. but selfishly on the other... I live out near KoP and now I don't get train :( Interesting development tho. Hope Roosevelt line finally gets built. And Schuylkill Valley Metro... eventually.
The Roosevelt Blvd. subway extension, which should be tried as an elevated line to save costs over tunnelling, is a great idea with strong ridership potential. But good lucck getting the local match or getting the Pennsylvania legislature to back it. I think the Broad St line should also be extended into the Navy Yard, but SEPTA rejected that too. SEPTA does have a good plan to upgrade most of the rest of its subway stations to ADA compliance.
As an avid thomas the tank engine enthusiast, a professional Halloween engineer costume wearer, (overalls, genuine hat, and painted mustache starting at age 4), and someone who screamed choo choo after finishing a chug chant at their first college frat party wearing a thomas costume, and lastly, someone who copies all of your well thought out positions, i feel i am also qualified for the board. Although I have also considered applying for Pete's position as well.
Do you think the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority could possibly be the ones to bring the SVM style route back into light? They just applied for federal funding for research towards the project. It being Berks, Montco, and chester, two of whom 76 runs through - and everyone knows how much of a shitshow 76 is as of traffic volume - and everyone wants to "fix traffic for 76" - an SVM trail is certainly something that could help right? I live in philly, commute to phoenixville, I use 76, I hate 76, I want good train infrastructure......
Did anyone survey a majority of the people living/working along the proposed route, how many times each week they would get out of their cars to ride the thing, at what acceptable fare and frequency? Did anyone ask how replacement rails, rail cars and stations would be funded once the 30 to 40 life-span of those things was exceeded?
... If that Roosevelt Blvd. subway actually happens, they NEED to also allow it to be used as a pedestrian underpass! That road is SO scary to cross on foot!
the fact that road is 6 lanes each way in a city is insane. I wonder if the subway would also allow them to ditch the inner 6 and just have a big median over the cut and covered subway that is trees and grass like some kind of linear park.
The need to get to KOP (or any other mall for that matter) was supplanted by E commerce. And very few people need to get from that area to downtown Philly, certainly not enough to even worry about whether they'd had to suffer the inconvenience of changing trains halfway through the journey.
K of P is reinventing itself away from retail. That area is still full of "destinations" that would have benefited from better transit. Also high-tech employers have been yelling for years that their workers need better transit, esp. from the western 'burbs to University City. Just not a billion bucks per mile.
Vancouver BC did it with the Skytrain with the Millennium Line extension but it branches off the existing Expo 86 line. Now they've even added another extension very recently to a line with less ridership than this "shopping mall line"
Maybe but he’s got his hands full here in Philly with SEPTA and the board members who don’t even live in the city at all and don’t even use the system they run
@@markkrull556 there really should be a rule or law that says you at least have to use the system that you’re making decisions for on a regular basis. Like at least once a week.
As someone who grew up in KOP, I was hype to see an opinion of why the extension plan sucked that wasn't solely the dogwhistle of "it'll shuttle in crime from Philly". I'd like to visit my family more often, but christ, doing so reminds me how strongly I hate that area!! I lived ~19yrs wedged in between 2 highways!! My radicalization began quite young & only got worse LOL. Would like to hear thoughts on the Amtrak lines in PA if you're ever interested in talking about that. Keep it up (:
Grew up in KofP and traffic was terrible even 30 years ago. My father commented from KofP to Villanova every day for work. When we moved to Texas, we lived nearly twice as far from his place of work but he got there in almost 1/2 the time.
@@scotchsunday Fair enough, just by Philly standards it's not considered much and there's plenty of local roads etc. I'd consider that a very easy commute, especially given how unaffordable living in Villanova is.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Here I am in south western Zimbabwe being invested in the first world problems of eastern Pennsylvania. This is fascinating stuff.
It’s a beautifully small world isn’t it!
And here I am in eastern Pennsylvania wishing you all the best in south western Zimbabwe
Lol pretty sure most people who watch this video aren’t from Pennsylvania and will never affect them.
You may laugh but I'm actually excited that the Boulevard line is in every mayoral candidate's manifesto and so it may finally happen. In the meantime, excuse me while I go play "choose your adventure" to decide which potholes will do the least damage to my car whilst running today's errands.
Yes, you have people who want European style public transit in North America and it just won't work. Compared to the U.S. Europe in tiny and very densely populated, and doesn't,t have the space to build larger roads so public transit works for them. The U.S. is huge, and outside of major cities sparely populated, and there is plenty of space for huge road systems. Plus Americans are used to having the freedom of coming and going as they please so most will not put up with a train or bus schedule dictating their travel.
Being from Detroit, it blows my mind that there are cities in the US that have such mass transit systems. Metro Detroit is the very definition of an apocalyptic suburban nightmare from which there is no escape.
What's sad is that Detroit had so much transit that was ripped up by corruption involving the auto industry.
Exactly. You can't increase density because of all the cars in the suburbs and problems in the city; you can't revert it to farmland because the ground is poisoned.
@@edwardmiessner6502 you can, and by doing so you can decrease the cars and reduce the city's problems.
I think it’s a bit more nuanced than that personally, because of the massive difference between the inner and outer ring suburbs.
Transit to/from the city for Dearborn, Hamtramck, Harper Woods, the Pointes, etc. would be possible. Debatable, but possible.
As soon as you try and move past that first moat of suburbs, everything changes. People would need to drive to the station anyway, and what’s the point getting out of your car if you’re already driving?
Uhhh... Who's gonna tell him (about European and East Asian cities)?
I love the fact that your name is known by the SEPTA board - keep speaking truth to power.
SEPTA = Serving Every Philadelphia Traveler Awfully.
Isn't SEPTA a disease?
I had a friend that referred to Septa as: Subject Every Person To Agrivation.
To me, this project fits that!
i love learning about cancelled rail lines on the other side of the world
advent of passenger revenue service by robo shuttles:
• ruclips.net/video/RFmAyzt4XFc/видео.html
• ruclips.net/video/60BHKecm_aQ/видео.html
• ruclips.net/video/60BHKecm_aQ/видео.html
Same. Even if the other part of the world is over by where you’re at.
I’m learning about canceled rail lines 20 miles from my house
Been to KOP once. Your description as a "car infested hell hole" is spot on.
Ok, so why not advocate to improve that? It's bad even for drivers and plenty of improvements are being attempted, but if you, or anyone is just going to write it off because that is true now, we're just going to get more bad developments practices instead of QoL improvements that isn't focused on auto ridership.
Is it bad that I don't think it's that bad, and that I cringe more when I see videos from other creators featuring stroads that are 8+ lanes wide? Like, the mall is awful, but you can mostly dodge the mall even if you're driving down 202 at rush hour. There's one light (202/Gulph) where it transitions from highway to arterial that's really bad, and because that same spot is right next to the convergence of two major highways that's also really bad, but it's not any more car-infested than anywhere else around here...unless your definition of car-infested is simply that everyone drives. And, well, that's American suburbs for you.
The solution to KOP is to add the best, most expensive rail transit ever. The trains will speed the shoplifters, looters, carjackers and thugs to this deluxe shopping and business mecca. Within three years it will all be gone. And then you can run the trains as an amusement park ride for kids with nothing better to do.
@@jaylewis5035 Bruh, you really think people are going to shoplift and take their "loot" with them on a fucking train?? What's wrong with you?
@@jaylewis5035 I know you're being sarcastic, but people DO actually think running trains to the suburbs will somehow cause criminals to decide to commute by rail for the purpose of doing crime.
So...
Leaving aside the dogwhistle I personally see imbedded in that idea?
l those trains are going to be heavily equipped with monitored CCTV cameras.
That's life in the 21'st century.
So your hypothetical burglars or robbers get on the train, on camera, with a bunch of looted stuff...and a bunch of other people looking at them. Camera phones will come out, calls will be made.
Now, carjacking? The majority of carjacking occurs very near where the perp lives. As do most crimes.
Not 20 miles away.
Street criminals tend to have poor impulse control, otherwise they'd go be white collar criminals instead.
One more thing:
You're not thinking of the low-wage workers who are helping to make your cushy suburban life possible.
You're requiring people who make quite little to ALSO keep a car on the road.
Edit: I mean, they can't afford places to live that are handy to the stores, shops, daycare facilities, nursing homes, and so on.
If there's no public transit for, say, all those workers in the mall? The stores will have to pay more to keep anyone. Prices might go up. Stores might go kaput.
Huge win. I hope the funds are reallocated smartly and other programs get accelerated
Lol no, we can’t have well allocated funds in America
@@GenericUrbanism sorry I forgot :(
They won’t it’ll be spent on welfare for criminals&druggies
lol
Let's hope!
...that's all we'll get anyway is hope
Navy Yard extension and RBS would be the most logical rail extensions if SEPTA is going to do any line expansions. Hopefully they'll move on to doing what they should have this entire time.
That and frequency
Agreed!!!
Navy yard extension doesn't make since IMO, or rather it should be behind RBS and turning RR into rapid transit. No one lives in the Navy yard even though it has a lot of corperate campuses, servicing places where people actually live is more useful.
The Feds have already poo-pooed the Navy Yard in the past, and RBS will also be going nowhere unless SEPTA can figure out how to prevent project costs increasing five-fold over the decade it takes to plan anything these days.
@@openphoto Yeah totally, but that's my point. No one lives there, just works there. I'd rather RR lines that service neighborhoods in the city limits where a lot of people live, become rapid transit lines. I would 100% get rid of my car of the R6 ran at least every 15 minutes, all day every day.
I'm a bit concerned about how they said "paused" instead of "cancelled", though IDK if that's just to appease supporters or if they actually intend on "resuming" it at any point (hopefully not). And yeah, I used to commute out there from West Philly using NHSL and unless you drive for the last mile, your commute gets twice as long anyhow. hardly matters if the station is right next to the mall or not cause all the offices in the area are spread out.
in my XP whenever anything is 'paused', its not gonna resume ever again.
Yeah, that's corporate speak. It's toast.
It basically means that in the unlikely event that there is a change in tone and they can find some funding for it (new federal government perhaps), then they'll still build it. Chances of this happening however are close to nil.
I've seen some articles say paused while others say cancelled. I'm assuming the latter.
@@azuarc This isn't a corporation, this is a government agency...and almost nothing gets cancelled at that level....just paused for decades on end. Just look at the 2nd Ave subway in New York if you don't believe me.
I just love how you always strike a perfect balance between being highly serious on one hand, and a qualified shitposter/memer on the other. Top-tier content as always!
is the good shit
While completely ignoring the hellacious social situation the keeps white people off the transit system. The system itself, while ugly as hell, is actually comprehensive. If people felt safe on the system, they could get to virtually any place in the region from any other place.
Also an unpopular opinion, I’ll happily pay 0.5% more in local wage taxes to get the Roosevelt Blvd extension built.
I mean, the entire thing could be paid if even a single rich fucker paid their actual taxes, but sure. Just saying, it might be just as effective to rob the nearest billionaire for the funds lol
@@monsieurdorgat6864 It would be interesting if there was a single billionaire who cared enough about their city to fund these kinds of infrastructure projects.
@@astrosquirrel08108 you never become a billionaire by being a good person, sure you can get double digit millions and have a soul, but to become a billionaire you have to screw as many people over as possible, minimize taxes through BS loopholes, and buy off politicians. No such thing as an ethical caring billionaire.
That's a slippery slope, you could argue for 10 good projects and suddenly it's 5% extra tax. Your taxes really should already be enough to cover this kind of thing.
@@astrosquirrel08108 This is why we shouldn't leave it up to whether they care or not.
If they want to keep living in the society that makes them rich and powerful, they're going to have to contribute.
I definitely understand that one-seat argument. Where I'm at on Long Island, I live along the western Montauk Branch and because of it, direct service to and from Penn is very limited so I'm stuck changing at either Jamaica or Babylon. This is because of a number of factors, firstly the branch is not electrified (they could at least electrify it between Babylon and Speonk where they have a yard) and most of it is single-track. The LIRR has 160 miles of diesel territory and only 22 percent of its fleet is diesel. Said diesel fleet keeps breaking down, and only a small amount of said diesel fleet can turn on electric mode to enter Penn. However, there was light at the end of the tunnel for a bit when in 2021, the LIRR partnered with Alstom to test batteries (the US's first) on the Oyster Bay Branch on electric trains so they could run on the diesel branches. But while initially successful, this proved to be too expensive, and the experiment ceased in July 2022.
And an example of transit that goes to a mall DONE RIGHT is Newport station on the HBLR in Jersey City. Unlike other malls in the US, Newport Centre is very much a thriving mall (they still have SEARS!) and it's mostly thanks to transit. It's the most popular stop on the HBLR (which stretches across Hudson County from North Bergen to Bayonne) by far, and that's on top of the mall being near a PATH station! The HBLR also connects to the PATH at Exchange Place and Hoboken Terminal as well. Private Spanish shuttles from Union City and the GWB also go to Newport.
The issue here is Montauk, it’s simply too far away 😂
Your both spot on 😂😂😂😂 lived in NYC many years
A solution for diesel replacement that doe not require electrifying the rail is looming on the horizon. Canadian Pacific is trialing hydrogen fuel cell locomotives.. Fuel cells engineered by (30+ years of experience) Ballard Energy. Range before refueling is something like 700? kilometers.
This is the most elaborate job application I've ever seen
Heading out to Temple next week for an admitted grad student event. Thanks for giving me some good ice breakers for discussions with my fellow transit nerd peers.
I’m also a temple student and transit nerd! There are dozens of us
Temple? Wear protection. (And good luck with grad studies).
10 thousand some daily riders on the KOP extension vs 120k projected daily riders for Roosevelt blvd line for the same price is all you need to hear. Suburbs need better transit access but not to the detriment of Philadelphians
The RBS will cost *dramatically* more that the KOP project.
Should be busses bicycles and cars to the park and ride and solar panels over the park and ride car park .
That way the park and ride makes money all the time .
@Prince Sid this is true, and unfortunately the cost-benefit analysis is probably pretty hard to determine as the Blvd transports many different types of people doing different things. I hope they're at least crunching numbers.
same old, same old: the inner city always ends up having to subsidise the outlying suburbs.
As a Philadelphian who may need to work in KOP and does not drive, having a KOP extension would potentially change my life. Lol 😛
LGA Airtrain in NYC is also canceled. This week was a bad week for transit boondoggles lol.
I used to live in Reading. I hoped so much for a train ride into Philadelphia. Instead I had to drive to King of Prussia Mall and ride a bus in. That bus was always stuck in the grid-locked traffic of 76. It sucked. At least I wasn't the one driving but I would have absolutely loved a straight train ride in.
Spending this much would have been crazy considering SEPTA can quickly run buses from Norristown Transportation Center to King of Prussia (under 4 miles) with the flexibility of stopping at major job centers.
I really like Philly, and I have ridden on virtually all of Septa’s various transportation ( including the commuter lines). I have also traveled on the Patco line out to NJ. I’ve driven to King of Prussia and have tried to get into Center City using I-76; it took nearly 2 hours at the height of rush hour on the rainiest Friday --what a total nightmare! But once I was able to park the car, I used the public transportation to all the places I wanted to see.
Just use the train at norristown
I used to ride the Septa R5 line from Exton in Chester County to 8th Street in Philly every day back in the 90s. This was just after the Blue Route finally got finished and right around the time the Rt 30 by-pass went in. King of Prussia was such a hell hole you could feel the anger radiating off it as far out as Blue Bell. Ugh, the memories! I live in the Netherlands now where transit works and we have no traffic. Nice to know that good ol' PA is still stuck in the past. Thanks for the great video.
Now we need to convince septa to build the Roosevelt subway.
Send them multiple emails per week. Encourage others to do the same.
Funny part is the Norristown High Speed tramway line runs out there, within maybe a mile of the KoP Mall. I had to use it to get to work for awhile in the late 90's. There was never any reason for a spur to the mall to cost anywhere near as much as they claimed. Most of that money was meant to line someone's pockets.
Lived in Western Montco for almost 20 years. This good video barely scratched the surface of how messed up this area is. it’s not just the Schuylkill. There are THREE major highways that all intersect at KOP and feed into the Schuylkill. When this project was fast-tracked, it wasn’t for the mall. It was for the hi-rises planned at and around the KOP golf course next to the mall. Well, the hi-rises are now there, the developers and politicians have their money, the suburbs have exploded even more and there is still no effective transportation solution - rail and/or roads - to serve the area.
As someone who lives in w montco I rather go to the outlets of Lehigh valley than philly because I can’t drive yet and public transport takes twice as long than driving to center city
I used to drive Roosevelt Blvd and I have a lot of sympathy for all the "Road Warriors" who have to drive on the Blvd. It is Philadelphia's 75 MPH stroad version of Mad Max's Fury Road, but with more crazy drivers, accidents, and the daily hit & runs. SEPTA needs to do the Roosevelt Subway!!
I've been on it once. What I would really like to know is how anyone gets on it at all the in-ramps with no merge lanes... and I am a fairly assertive driver!
Not 75, sadly. Now with 'road works when flashing' and automatic camera tickets for tired commuters to enjoy if they don't notice the blinkenlights in the bright morning sun at 8am when no construction worker has ever been on the job site in the history of Philadelphia. It's nearly an 8th Amendment violation in that it is an unusually cruel, but sadly usual for commuters who have to use it, punishment for being from or working in Philadelphia. The accidents is mostly a) frequent stop lights leading to rear ends in the rain, and b) people who just carelessly cross a multi-lane highway and expect cars to stop in time or make them rich.
The solution, sadly, is not a rail line, but an elevated roadway without those incessant stoplights and cross traffic. Can't be done because construction on that scale would kill the commute for years.
Unfortunately that will never ever happen because they just do not have the money. People think just because this project is cancelled we will finally get the Roosevelt Blvd subway, but the reason this project was cancelled was because SEPTA was found to not have enough capital to get any investment
Merritt Taylor whose family then owned the Red Arrow lines wanted to do this when he had the Red Arrow buy two recently abandoned electric streamliners that had tap cars. This was in 1964.
Those were the famous Electroliners, operated by the North Shore system from 1941 till 1963. They were designed to be able to operate both as high-speed interurbans and on the Chicago "L" tracks.
The Taylors bought the two trainsets when the North Shore ceased operation, with the intent of using them on new service to the Exton area with a possible spur to KoP. The proposed Exton line was to run parallel to (or possibly inside) the rebuilt highway from KoP to Exton. However that being the car-crazed 1960s, any and all attempts to modify the highway plans and fund rail service failed.
The 'Liners were then relegated to service on the P&W tracks from 69th Street to Norristown. However the P&W's rails and power system weren't up to handling the big, juice-hungry trainsets, forcing their use to be limited to a couple of afternoon "premium" express runs before they were discontinued. I confess to sometimes adjusting my work hours just so I stood a chance of catching one of the two daily trips!
Fortunately SEPTA (which absorbed Red Arrow in 1970) had a rare flash of sensitivity, and sold both sets to museums that restored them.
ruclips.net/video/-KZkUZ9BPrY/видео.html
3:55 OMG Thank you for that statement.
I'm from Lancaster. Please keep up these updates about PA transit, they're very interesting.
This guy would make for a really good executive for Septa or any other railroad or railway in America.
It would be an improvement, since Alan actually sees and anticipates flaws in the system now whereas current leadership will first notice today's shortcomings 30 years from now.
The problem is that your group of big-wig know it alls with a "college degree" doesn't want someone like Alan refuting their ideologies.
It's a scheme cos if your transit network is damn near perfect, there isn't a need for the planning & development board to solve these issues
Please cover the recently proposed incredibly stupid "autonomous vehicle lane" proposal between Ann Arbor and Detroit.
We almost had regional rail in SE MI, but rich white people in the Detroit suburbs voted it down Wayne (Detroit) and Washtenaw (Ann Arbor) counties voted for it (the latter by a large margin), Oakland county was basically a tie, but Macomb county crushed it, causing the plan to fail.
And now they want to make a special highway lane for autonomous cars. It makes me want to scream.
That's probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Sorry you lost out on something good because of all the NIMBY's
Part of the problem is the unfair division of seats on the SEPTA Board. 2 seats per county is very tilted towards the suburbs. A more fair division would be 4 seats for Philadelphia, 2 for Montgomery, 2 for Bucks, 1 for Delaware, and 1 for Chester.
The title of "worst transit project" is a pretty bold claim, considering some of the decisions Seattle's getting ready to make on its light rail system. I'd love it if you'd spend some time talking about the West Seattle/Ballard light extension currently in planning.
Instead of a hub station, our light rail network is poised to be broken up into a multitude of tiny lines - you talked about a "one seat ride", well, many trips here are poised to require *three to five transfers*. And I'm not talking regional trips - I'm talking about trips inside the city, in the same county, on the same light rail / bus system.
Damn! Worst decision making than SEPTA! Now that’s really bad
Not a problem if the service is frequent and transfers are easy. 5 seems too much, but a round route with spokes works well for some of the largest systems in the world like Moscow and gets you anywhere with a max of 2 changes..
I think the Sydney monorail has to be the absolute worst.
So glad this video came up in my RUclips recommendations! I moved back home to the Philly burbs (Montgomery county just outside northeast Philadelphia) after COVID enabled work from home. The KOP line sounded a little sus from what I read in the news, but until this video I had never heard of the idea of the Roosevelt Boulevard subway! I live just off Red Lion road so if there were a stop there enabling easier access to more stops downtown than the few regional rail stations like 30th street and Suburban Stations, that would be fantastic! I just subbed so I’ll check your back catalog, but please let us know whatever can be done to advocate this project!
I would bet a sizeable chunk of change that SEPTA will Screw the Pooch on the Roosevelt Blvd job too. They will make it light rail, or even worse, a busway. Like MTA just did for the Brooklyn Express.
Brooklyn Express? Is that the Interborough Express?
@@edwardmiessner6502 Yes, sorry, my bad, I was too lazy to look it up & my retired brain is too fried to remember basic stuff.
They made it a light rail, not a busway
This is just another example of the lack of planning in the Philadelphia region. The extension looks more like a shuttle service with the mall as an intermediate stop. So sad.
Transfers aren't necessaraly bad . The Tokyo Metro and JR lines all have many transfers depending on where you are going . But if your transfer includes long waits then it will not work .
It's US public transit's chicken and egg problem writ large. No ridership to justify dense, frequent service, and no incentive to use (and thus falling ridership) when the service is so infrequent as to be unusable.
Although today, my comment might seem absurd. 10 or 20 years from now, or less, it won't be so "ridiculous". That is, to ban cars altogether, at least in some areas. And/or tax the use of private vehicles so high, it will force people into public transportation. The use of private vehicles in the 21st century is the #1 cause of deforestation in urban areas, the #1 cause of air pollution, the #1 cause of noise pollution ( try to find someplace in the US that you can't hear the roar of freeways 24/7. I even heard the noise on top of the appalachian trail!), adds to americans already outstanding anti-social behavior, and worst of all, is so cruel and unfair to the elderly, youth, handicapped, and poor or indigent americans who daily have to suffer from the absolute lack of public transportation to about 70 to 80 % of the country! Ban cars, period!
W
I think its crazy how in philadelphia suburbs, something like this can even be considered. I'm from the Boston area and I would kill for this kind of extension near me (on already existing tracks in a place where it actually makes sense btw)
Real first
草
Boston also had its fair share of transit cancellations such as the Green Line extension to arborway. The red line was also originally supposed to go through Arlington and Lexington all the way to Route 128 along what’s now the minuteman bike path. The Silver Line also has a bunch of cancelled or downgraded projects around it. I guess we did get the GLX. Only took thirty years but it’s here. At least we’re getting new commuter rail extensions to the South Shore. Would be nice if some of new projects would be on time and on budget in the densest areas of the state but I guess that’s too much to ask…
Fairmount Line?
It really can't because of property values with points A and B that make sense. The only reason this was "viable" is that it went from a poor area, through poor areas, and thus was not actually practical as it would stand unused except by petty criminals.
Interesting that I76 is a two lane highway with a shoulder. Here in the UK, that’d be “only” a dual carriageway, not a “proper” motorway (with special motorway rules).
Heck, having a hard shoulder at all is sadly increasingly a novelty in England. Most multi-lane highways with shoulders have had the shoulders used up for a “free” lane. There has been a lot of controversy as this directly caused vehicle deaths, when the “system” to mark the outermost lane as blocked on the LED signage didn’t recognise a car broke down in that lane. Also sometimes drivers ignore those signs because the lane looks free and then they have a fatal accident. So it’s just terrible all round, on top of the baseline awfulness from feeding lane inflation.
I’m glad bright line has the vision to actually redevelop along their stations as that’s the only way they are going to stay solvent. Occasional riders can love to have a train option, but they will not provide the revenue
That Roosevelt Boulevard Line looks so sweet! Fingers crossed I want it yesterday!!!
If a line in Germany gets about 9000 passengers per day, installing some light rail or at least a street car is not uncommon.
The real problem is that that kind of project in Germany won't cost $3Bn.
That's because Germany already built everything more popular than that and their project costs are cheaper. It doesn't work the same in the US where there are some huge potential riderships with no lines whatsoever.
yeah, but you don't spend "an entirely new tunneled metro line" or "center city tunnel"-amounts of money on it
The emphasis is on "street car": The Norristown High Speed Line is build to metro standards and is akin to the DLR what the Broad Street and Market-Frankfort Lines are to the London Underground. Except the DLR used existing rails so it was relatively cheap compared to the KOP extension which is all new.
Why would it be cheaper in Germany?
Of the 12 SEPTA City Bus Routes that you displayed, 7 of them do not even reach Center City, but has a major connection with either the Broad Street Line, the Market-Frankford Line, or both, and only one Bus Route stays west of the Schuylkill River, the 52, and the 21 & G are the only Bus Routes on this list that cross the Schuylkill.
Tbh, I think spending money on a dumb public transit project is still better than allocating more resources to building more car infrastructure. At least there is a possibility that it will be somewhat useful eventually. It's not like they're gonna use that money for something sensible now. It'll be wasted on even dumber shit so the cancellation is NOT a success. The Roosevelt Subway would make total sense which is exactly why it won't happen :D
Yeah. We're assuming cancelling this project would mean its funds going into Septa in general. I'm not sure if that's how government budgets work.
The FTA will send that money to other transit agencies who applied for the grant
There are probably thousands of empty commercial parking lots fenced off and rotting away because there are no businesses that use them. I know where I live there's a ton of these and it's a shame so much land is wasted to car infrastructure instead of making our public transit better
People prefer cars so government should focus on making car use more convenient
@@jerrymiller9039 cars are one of the worst forms of transportation and it's awful that the infrastructure is solely based on these metal death machines instead of y'know, walkable cities
While the idea of the Schuylkill Valley Metro is dead, isn't the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Commission looking into restoring service from Center City to Reading thru Norristown, KOP, Phoenixville, and Pottstown? I know it's AMTRAK and not SEPTA, but is there any chance it ever becomes reality?
as a philly resident, honestly i wish we'd just wasting time thinking up new projects and just run our train and bus service more frequently. If anything is going to attract regular ridership, that's it.
A very common issue.
I was kind of astonished to find that most US public transport services apparenmtly don't run to the clock, either. Fair enough to not have a fixed time table if the trains/busses/whatever show up 'every five minutes (or less) from 6am to 11pm' or some such (like, Actually show up, not just 'are supposed to but don't'), but when they nominally come every 15 or 30 minutes, or once an hour... and they don't even have an actual schedule of 'depart A at 9am, arrive B at 9:15 (plus or minus a couple of minutes), leave B at 9:25 (if it's a bus there's quite a few stops between A and B where it only stops if there's someone there, but it should be at least Reasonably consistent about when it passes those points relative to A and B at a given time of day (variation over the course of the day due to traffic patterns is expected)), Arrive C at 9:45 (plus or minus a couple of minutes)/ Depart C at 9:55, Every Time (baring major breakdowns that see the vehicle replaced or the particular run cancled, at least, and those should be actively prevented wherever possible, naturally.)
Serously, if you can't manage high frequency, at least have a reliable timetable! Even just that will improve ridership if it's not already the case.
The road construction and motor vehicle manufacturers started killing mass transit even before the 1955 National Highway Defense Act . The 2 previously mentioned lobbies increasingly bought up bus, transit and longer rail lines . My grandmother told me back in the 1920s & 30s & first half of the 1940s ,even in our medium sized important manufacturing town ( since Reagan Rust Belt town) , buses and trams ran 24/7 , 365, no bus (or tram stop downtown ) was further away than a couple blocks . We also had a large state and national train station which from you could ride to our closest two largest cities 6 to 10 times per day or night and south, southwest and southeast 4 or 5x a day or night .US has been a private motor vehicle based transportation system for 70 some years and it sucks !
The people relying on public transit are not the same people that can afford to shop at King of Prussia Mall.
And the mall probably doesn't want those people anyway.
What about mall workers?
Have you ever been to Philly? Just about everyone rides SEPTA.
KOP is one of the biggest malls in the country. The traffic around the area is absolutely awful. Thousands of people from the city works there. Not everyone lives in center city. Most transportation systems have transfers.
As a person who lives in the Philly area it’s very exciting to see stuff actually get done. Hopefully these funds are used correctly
Septa getting things done? Septa running on time? HAHA
@@m.e.5313 Funds used correctly in the Philly region???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
As a german i find it werid that theres something called the King of Prussia extension to a transit line in the US i coudn't imagine that there would be something like the George Washington street in germany
There were a lot of German or Prussian settlers to PA, so you may get names that reflect on them from time to time, best example is pittsburgh.
I love your observation! In America we are a melting pot of all things from all over the world. I believe King of Prussia was named to honor a king who opposed British imperialism.
I had the same thought last week. KoP is named after an inn by that name. Lots of migration post Napoleon and 1848.
Ah i see thanks for your explanations i never thought about it but it makes sense that the immigration resultet in parts of germany arriving in the us
@@krone5 a lot of stuff is named after european things, york in england (former new amsterdam, now new york). you'll also find a lot of hamburgs in north and south america
Out of curiosity ... Wasn't there once a railroad called the Reading Railroad? I could swear I read that name on my Monopoly board. Didn't it go to Reading PA? And also all the way east to almost New York City? In fact, isn't there still a place in center-city Philadelphia called Reading Terminal Market?
I know that the Reading was acquired by Conrail in 1976, and that Conrail is in the freight business, not passengers. But what happened to the Reading's tracks and right-of-way? Couldn't that be used to jump-start a rail connection between Philadelphia and Reading?
There was indeed a Reading Railroad, and its corporate descendant now runs movie theaters in California. Go figure.
The tracks are still there on the line to Reading (and beyond to Harrisburg, Pottsville, etc.). And pretty much all of the New York line is still intact aside from the last bit into the New Jersey waterfront (replaced by a connection to Penn Station Newark) (also a tiny little connector in New Jersey is out and the freight lines are disconnected from the passenger lines).
The biggest obstacle to restoring passenger service to Reading is that the line is now very heavily used by freight trains. The paralleling Pennsylvania Railroad Schuylkill branch was abandoned by Conrail as redundant in 1976, and then it closed the PRR's "Low Grade" freight system because it meant relying on Amtrak for a few stretches and Amtrak was raising the track fees. As a result, all rail traffic into Philadelphia from the west comes down that one line.
Having lived in and around Northeast Philly for most of my life, holy shit is the roosevelt extension the thing everyone in my family has been begging for since I can remember. We just LOVE to take 1 to 2 buses and the El just to get to North Philly without a car -_-
6:56 yeah I live in Bridgeport, my kid goes to school right off Henderson road, I have to drive into KOP every other day just to get groceries from ALDI and whatnot, and I still had never heard of this project except for perhaps one mailer I vaguely remember getting in the mail a few years ago asking for comments
Toronto has actually accomplished something very similar to the KoP extension.
The Line 1 extensions into York Region (current and future) are more of a waste in that they run to less dense, suburban areas. The Vaughan extension has been criticised because the area is basically big-box stores and parking lots. Even with new planned residential buildings and TOD, there might still not be enough ridership. Ever.
Then there is Line 4, which is really the line to nowhere, it is the least used of the TTC lines. David Gunn, he of Amtrak and MTA Grumman fame, even said it was a waste and that the city should have expanded transit in downtown.
And these costly projects have continually taken higher priority over the Ontario/Relief line, which would run actually run downtown and help alleviate Line 1 and Line 2 crowding.
I lived in Lansdale for years. What we need is high speed transit in an east-west direction, running from W Trenton, to I95 at Newtown, past the industrial parks in Horsham and Warminster, (put a station on 611) Ambler & 309, plymoth mtg mall, KOP mall, paoli, West Chester, concordville. 50k+ riders a day.
The money saved on KOP cancellation could be used to extend the Morristown/Manayunk Line to Reading. This line would still serve KOP by the way of the old Valley Forge stop( This stop is located in Valley Forge National Park-The old station building is still there). This line would also serve Phoenixville, Pottstown, and the final stop into Reading. This line extension wouldn't need 4 billion dollars.
So what does a metro/tram/light rail do that a bus can't? Here in San Jose they just sit empty, take up twice as much scarce road real estate, and are a taxpayer's money sink. Such a colossal waste for politicians to bring a 'je ne sais quoi' sensation to voters.
They avoid traffic and don't pollute
I lost it at the it’s always sunny intro
Excellent video good sir the bit of hummer at the end was very good as well as a pro welder i would like to offer my services to oversee all rail connections 😊. But good plug👍
So the name King of Prussia comes from the King of Prussia Inn originally constructed by Welsh Quakers, who in turn named it after King Frederick II because he supported Washington during the revolution. As a National Park/National Historical Park enjoyer, I'd rather see the Pottsville Line restored up to Pottstown so that Valley Forge or Valley Forge Park stations (or both) would reopen, that way the park would attract more people and is easier to get to by transit means. Plus Valley Forge Park station is on the eastern end by KOP so it would help the KOP people too. Not to mention the line would be connected directly to Center City as shown by Manayunk/Norristown
And yeah, that Jacksonville Skyway is...something to say the least! I mean sure both the Miami Metromover and the Skyway are free and yes the Metromover is successful, but the Metromover is successful because it supplements Metrorail as well as Brightline. The Skyway only supplements a BRT and not a proper system. A Jacksonville system HAD potential in the 70s, but the US government then was like "Build people mover, it moves people lol"
What are you doing here kim
I remember when the King of Prussia Mall opened in the 1960s. I worked at an office park (200 N Warner Rd) in the 1980s. Horrible planning. It’s a suburban disaster.
Cost overruns without actually building it?
Yes, this is America after all
American transit!
- endless feasibility studies
- legalized bribery, aka lobbying
- crony capitalism
So there you have it.
Oh I know what you’re talking about. I live in the region. I’m glad they canceled it. We don’t have billions of dollars to give out. And malls are losing popularity today. It would’ve been another big waste of money. The better project would be to rebuild the former Reading railroad Bethlehem branch. The purpose would be to take the thousands of motorists off the Pennsylvania Turnpike northeastern extension. It’s utterly amazing how many people are commuting into Philadelphia at 4:30 am via the turnpike. Take this traffic off the turnpike and and septa makes money. And there will be less greenhouse gas emissions from the motor vehicle traffic.
I wonder r u gonna do another ratings video for cities anytime soon??? I really wanna see u talk bout cities like Baltimore, St Louis, Detroit, etc. tbh!
SEPTA has been a disaster since its birth in the 1960s. It combined very very old train and bus lines, a militant union and political cronyism. Fares were never integrated and most of the systems are just falling apart. Adding another line would be the height of folly given the overwhelming operational and crime that afflicts the current operation. Fix the trains and buses and rationalize the fares and collection systems first. Run buses
from 69th street or Norristown or Center City Phila, its the best you can hope for.
Maybe the money can be put towards a new rail project
SEPTA used to run commuter trains from the old Reading Terminal into Reading & Pottsville and Bethlehem until the end of the 1970’s, it was dropped and/or cut back to Norristown and Lansdale. That was a mistake SEPTA made. The I-76 from King of Prussia to center city Philadelphia and even into Southern New Jersey to Turnersville is as parking lot and for that matter most metro areas nationwide freeway/expressways that were built after World War II and many interstates are now parking lots.
Those outlying branch lines were cut when the commuter tunnel opened. They used diesels which can't operate in the commuter tunnel. SEPTA didn't have the $$$ to string catenary so they walked away from those lines.😢
My old turf! Used to ride a two-car train with internal engine, much like these, from Reading down to Philly in the 1960s when I was growing up in the
“Pretzel Capital.” Makes such sense to restore the full line. I can imagine it would bring new life to Reading, which I just saw ranks third from the bottom among cities in terms of average income among the top 5%. Better than the poorest city in the US, as it used to be. And my dad used to call 76 the “Sure Kill Expressway.” I remember those jams well, and experience them every time I visit from Seattle, where we definitely have our share.
Rt 123, 124, and 125 go to King of Prussia too; with two going from Center City, and it scheduled to take less than an hour to get there.
You know, after looking at the sector in Google maps, I think that car infested hellhole might be somewhat generous. There's probably more square footage occupied by roads in that neighborhood than there is in all of the buildings served by those roads.
There was no 'hub' for people to get to, which means that it is basically a bus stop.
I was a Tow Truck Driver in the Philadelphia area for a Longggg Timeeee. Since I was a child and PTC changed to SEPTA it SUCKTAS!!!! I was just there about 3 weeks ago and it was at least 8 years since I was home. I would love to see what would happen to the Boulevard. The 5th and Butler Express!!!!
In Cities Skylines density around stations would just result in noise complaints anyway lol.
Ah, Cities: Skylines. The city building game that punishes you for building a city.
Honestly, I just ignore those complaints and make sure my healthcare system can handle the additional workload caused by noise sickness.
@@VestedUTuber Yeah I'm tempted to just edit the game and change the noise pollution levels of train stations to what they actually are in real life.
I'm from Philly and I can tell you that it made no sense for Septa to spend money on that system. Years ago Septa was going to extend the Broad street subway up through Roosevelt Blvd. If anything they should spend the money finishing what they started on this. They already started building the tunnels years ago. Northeast Philly is highly populated and King of Prussia isn't. Either that or spend the money fixing They're current problems.
But they legally can't divert the money. When a project is suspended / cancelled its funding has to be sent to other regions whose projects are similarly far along in planning &/or construction. BSS, RB, etc. are still at the talking stage.
Alan, Awesome video! I have comment and a question.
1. Thank you for singing the "KYW". That is certainly a nod to the locals! :)
2. Given the way that SEPTA is made up, how likely is it that we will see them go forward with the Roosevelt Blvd Extension? I personally would love to see that, as I HATE the Boulevard, but you do mention that this has been tried several times before, and to no avail. I'm just curious about that.
Thanks!
idk. It does seem like it would be a nice idea to have a train connection to the mall, especially because I live close to a Norristown High Speed Line station. The issue is that whole King of Prussia area was built up between the 1950s and 1970s, when cars and car culture and all that was very much a part of life (as exemplified by films such as American Graffiti) so basically the best way and the way that most people have gotten to the mall is by driving, otherwise the mall wouldn't spend an emperor's ransom on parking garages. I do think a rail line to there would be faster than driving at some points though.
Great video! I'm glad it was canceled because it never made sense anyway. There is a slight possibility that the Sixers will move their operations into the Navy Yard instead of Center City. If that is the case, then it's finally time to extend the BSS one stop south.
I agree with you on both counts. They need to just forget building in Chinatown, build it and extend the Broad Street line there then people from the Northeast can go straight to the Sixers games!!
I thought the Sixers were looking to build a new arena in Center City?... Dunno where... but this is news to me about Navy Yard
SEPTA had started, the abandoned a project to extend the Market-Frankford line to Northeast Philly in the early 60's. In fact I believe some of the tunnels still exist from that line.
Underneath Roosevelt Blvd and Adams. And the boule is built in a way so that the subway can be built in the middle.
Now when they gonna complete that? Question is will they complete it in my lifetime?
I get so pissed when I see a rail line that they spent billions of dollars to elevate just go over some roads in a low density area. Naw dawg, put the rail lines on the ground and build bridges or tunnels for the cars with the road budget. That way we can have much more transit with much less money.
It would be a lot cheaper in general too since cars can manage a lot steeper inclines than rail traffic so you'd need much less space and supports for those elevation changes.
The I-76 expressway, a/k/a affectionately as the "Surekill Crawl-way."
Did unsay $3 BILLION fir 4 miles???!!! How many miles of the M-F El extension up the "Boulevard" would that buy?
Former RR rider here😊
"Worst transit in the US"... I think Elon Musk and his Vegas Loop could have a word.
Plus....KOP is a complete traffic Nightmare! Still trying to understand WHY anyone would ever purchase property in this area.
I wish we coud just stop selling new cars and slowly demolish the highway system,
One can dream...
I just watched this to see all the place names near where I grew up 50 years ago, and got an enjoyable transit vid out of it, too! Thanks!
King of Prussia seemed like a bad place for this type of expensive transit project anyway good to hear 👍
KOP is a great place for a transit project as a destination, but it would need to come from the right place and 69th st isn't it. Center City via R5 branching off to KOP would work.
I grew up in King of Prussia and still have family in the area, so I know the area well. What should be built instead of the NHSL extension is an extension of the Norristown Regional Rail line from DeKalb Street station. The railroad right of way exists all the way to approximately where the First Avenue station on the Norristown High Speed Line extension would have been (First & American) - via existing Norfolk Southern (formerly Reading) tracks that have room for at least one more track and an abandoned rail branch into the industrial park from the north. From there, a new viaduct would be necessary to cross the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a larger (probably elevated) terminus station in the area of the mall. That viaduct would be one cause of serious expense - a second cause would be that there's a "pinch point" in the local road system where the abandoned rail branch crosses Valley Forge Road next to Trout Creek. A transit project would be saddled with completely rebuilding, straightening, widening, and elevating that road as well as connecting roads in the area (at least Beidler Road and 5th Avenue). An additional possible area of expense is electrification beyond Norristown, as SEPTA Regional Rail is entirely electric (12kV 25Hz overhead) and diesel power cannot be used in the center city tunnel. Looking to Europe (at least the UK), there are a couple of possibilities to avoid that - bi-mode diesel/electric multiple unit trains are already working (e.g., British Rail class 800 and 802), and battery/electric multiple unit trains are coming (e.g., British Rail class 777/1).
I have mixed feelings about the cancellation bc on one hand, yeah there are much better projects for septa to fund. but selfishly on the other... I live out near KoP and now I don't get train :(
Interesting development tho. Hope Roosevelt line finally gets built. And Schuylkill Valley Metro... eventually.
SRPRA
The Roosevelt Blvd. subway extension, which should be tried as an elevated line to save costs over tunnelling, is a great idea with strong ridership potential. But good lucck getting the local match or getting the Pennsylvania legislature to back it. I think the Broad St line should also be extended into the Navy Yard, but SEPTA rejected that too. SEPTA does have a good plan to upgrade most of the rest of its subway stations to ADA compliance.
As an avid thomas the tank engine enthusiast, a professional Halloween engineer costume wearer, (overalls, genuine hat, and painted mustache starting at age 4), and someone who screamed choo choo after finishing a chug chant at their first college frat party wearing a thomas costume, and lastly, someone who copies all of your well thought out positions, i feel i am also qualified for the board. Although I have also considered applying for Pete's position as well.
Based Behavior
Do you think the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority could possibly be the ones to bring the SVM style route back into light? They just applied for federal funding for research towards the project. It being Berks, Montco, and chester, two of whom 76 runs through - and everyone knows how much of a shitshow 76 is as of traffic volume - and everyone wants to "fix traffic for 76" - an SVM trail is certainly something that could help right? I live in philly, commute to phoenixville, I use 76, I hate 76, I want good train infrastructure......
Well, CLEARLY from the animations, the big problem is it didn't stop at any stations. 😉
Did anyone survey a majority of the people living/working along the proposed route, how many times each week they would get out of their cars to ride the thing, at what acceptable fare and frequency?
Did anyone ask how replacement rails, rail cars and stations would be funded once the 30 to 40 life-span of those things was exceeded?
... If that Roosevelt Blvd. subway actually happens, they NEED to also allow it to be used as a pedestrian underpass! That road is SO scary to cross on foot!
the fact that road is 6 lanes each way in a city is insane. I wonder if the subway would also allow them to ditch the inner 6 and just have a big median over the cut and covered subway that is trees and grass like some kind of linear park.
@@filanfyretracker Doubtful. Drivers are still going to want those inner "fast lanes," I'm sure.
The need to get to KOP (or any other mall for that matter) was supplanted by E commerce. And very few people need to get from that area to downtown Philly, certainly not enough to even worry about whether they'd had to suffer the inconvenience of changing trains halfway through the journey.
K of P is reinventing itself away from retail. That area is still full of "destinations" that would have benefited from better transit. Also high-tech employers have been yelling for years that their workers need better transit, esp. from the western 'burbs to University City.
Just not a billion bucks per mile.
Now this is a certified hood classic
Vancouver BC did it with the Skytrain with the Millennium Line extension but it branches off the existing Expo 86 line. Now they've even added another extension very recently to a line with less ridership than this "shopping mall line"
Dude, we really need someone like you out here in California!
Yeah, forget ‘bout SEPTA. Appoint Alan to the LA Metro board!
Maybe but he’s got his hands full here in Philly with SEPTA and the board members who don’t even live in the city at all and don’t even use the system they run
@@markkrull556 there really should be a rule or law that says you at least have to use the system that you’re making decisions for on a regular basis. Like at least once a week.
We would gladly take Alan around St. Louis on the Bi-State board for the STL Metro system.
6:26 - They got my man so gassed up, he's flexin'. lol
As someone who grew up in KOP, I was hype to see an opinion of why the extension plan sucked that wasn't solely the dogwhistle of "it'll shuttle in crime from Philly". I'd like to visit my family more often, but christ, doing so reminds me how strongly I hate that area!! I lived ~19yrs wedged in between 2 highways!! My radicalization began quite young & only got worse LOL. Would like to hear thoughts on the Amtrak lines in PA if you're ever interested in talking about that. Keep it up (:
Grew up in KofP and traffic was terrible even 30 years ago. My father commented from KofP to Villanova every day for work. When we moved to Texas, we lived nearly twice as far from his place of work but he got there in almost 1/2 the time.
KOP to Villanova shouldn't have been bad at all, 15-25 mins tops.
@@paulie-g Yeah, and 25 minutes for a 6 mile commute is nearly twice as long as his 11 mile 14 minute commute was after he moved.
@@scotchsunday Fair enough, just by Philly standards it's not considered much and there's plenty of local roads etc. I'd consider that a very easy commute, especially given how unaffordable living in Villanova is.
Liam is mad. Yay liam.
What about the plan for a station in Phoenixville? Aren't they throwing a station there?
That’s what i was thinking. You’re talking about the schuklkill river passenger rail project right?