It's Our City is a project that uses TV, Radio and Web
to promote civic engagement in the Philadelphia region.Light rail plan announced for Philadelphia’s Market Street
Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:33 pm - by Alan Tu. Filed under: Community.
A plan announced today calls for bringing light rail on Market Street to connect City Hall and the Delaware River waterfront within six years.
That’s the plan. The reality is that the plan still must undergo environmental impact studies and it has to be paid for. The price tag is $500 million.
The good news is if it does get built, it would finally make it easy for Liberty Bell tourists to effortlessly to visit the waterfront. Right now, the city and the Delaware river are cutoff by Interstate 95 which runs North and South hugging the west side of the waterway.
According to a statement released by the Delaware River Port Authority, the light rail would make stops at Independence Mall, the Market East Regional Rail Station, and City Hall.
The light rail would also make it easy for New Jersey PATCO riders to visit the waterfront by switching trains at 8th and Market Street.
PATCO Vice Chair Jeff Nash says this project will benefit both states. “A direct connection to the Philadelphia waterfront will provide easy access for our customers to attend events and view the attractions on Penn’s Landing…This new service will enhance the synergy of the waterfronts in both states.”
I’d hate to have a store front on Market Street during the construction, but I think it’ll be nice to ride when it’s done. Let us know what you think. If you had $500,000 that had to be used to improve public transportation in Center City, would it be this project?
October 26th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Still would be great if there was a connection for this or something that connected to the Philadelphia Zoo. Heck, can’t someone finance a stop on the regional rail line that runs right by the Zoo?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Maybe I can help.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:54 am
“make stops at Independence Mall, the Market East Regional Rail Station, and City Hall”
Doesn’t the Market - Frankford line do this already? Doesn’t PATCO already connect at Market East? What a collosal waste of money.
And these is already a regional rail stop at the zoo, and a trolley stop as well. What more do you want?
October 27th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Wait, GladIMoved, *which* regional rail stops at the zoo?
October 27th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Dumb…why not put the trolly on a street that doesn’t already have train service?
October 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Why not just spend the money fixing up the subway instead? Maybe an easy route from the waterfront to the art museum? As has already been stated- we already have transportation on this route–many different kinds, too! How about putting I-95 under some earth so we can actually enjoy the waterfront? Then maybe there’d be more reason to build something to get us there.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Agreed, the Market-Frankford EL already accomplishes all this. Why are we wasting money on redundancy?
October 27th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Hmm. Convenient shuttles for ths casinos perhaps? Too bad the casino idea is already bombing in Pittsburgh. But, hey, maybe it will work in Philadelphia? I mean, who doesn’t want to ride along beneath I-95 on a monorail? Think of the view!
October 27th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I love the points you guys bring up. I would say that for tourists, I think light rail is less intimidating to ride than having to find the subway. Although that might not sound like a big deal here, I do think light rail would be more inviting to out-of-towners. I would like to see this light rail track extended to the Art Museum. To MJA I agree that a lid over I-95 would really be nice.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
This idea is terrible. It serve no one and is simply a political project. To duplicate service in a city that lack so many needed transit route? Who will ride this line? For $500,000,000.00 to duplicate the 25 and the MFL? Don’t NJT buses service the NJT to PHL run? Then add that to the poverty cry from DRPA and the increase to $5 tolls? You can’t bury 95 by the way. You have to build 95 into a tunnel and that’s an easy 3 billion.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
This is a great idea, especially the line on the surface of Market Street. The modern street cars would operate in the curb lanes and provide a swift, direct link to the waterfront attractions along Delaware Ave. It would also link the proposed casinos to Center City. However, I urge the planners to build this proposed DRPA system to the same track gauge as SEPTA’s present trolley lines. While it’s true that SEPTA’s current management isn’t always trolley friendly, this could change at some future date. It would be tragic to build and isolate this system by using a seperate track gauge. The opportunities are endless in the future to incorporate this system into SEPTA’s trolley system. One example is what happened in New Orleans a few years ago.
A huge amount of money was spent to regauge their Riverfront street car line to match the track gauge of the other street car lines. In addition, much money was spent to regauge the street cars used on the very popular Riverfront line to match the street cars on the other lines. Now, New Orleans has one unified street car system and it works very well. This problem can be avoided in Philadelphia, before the lines are built, by making sure the systems are compatable.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Wonderful news from the Department of Redundancy Department.
Lame.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
A Market Street to the Riverfront trolley line makes a lot of sense, and it must be an integral part of the SEPTA system to be fully effective. This means it ought to be the same gauge as SEPTA’s trolley lines and not railroad standard gauge used by PATCO.
However, it might have a special low cost transfer to/from the PATCO Hi-Speed Line rather than the relatively expensive joint fare between PATCO and SEPTA to encourage use.
Billincherryhill.
November 1st, 2009 at 3:41 am
Why not use retored PCC trolley cars on this line like San Francisco’s F line which runs on their Market Street to Fishermens Wharf and other tourist spots. It is hugely successful, another interesting concept would be to copy what Tampa, FL has done and use replica trolleys. They fit in great with the historic neighborhoods they serve and the tourists love them. The Tampa Trolleys have modern amenities (air conditioning, handi-cap accesibility,etc), yet have a distinct 1920’s appearance. It’s about time Philadelphia caught up with the rest of the world in building new light rail and trolley lines instead of abandoning them. Philly is only 30 years behind the times.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Can’t get behind this one. Agree with the folks about using the existing PATCO and MFL lines in some way to connect to the waterfront. This is basically a traffic stopping (and I’m not always opposed to traffic stopping!) trolley line designed to make it easier for folks to get from hotels in Center City to the casinos on either end of the waterfront.
January 12th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Why would we spend $500M to provide rail service to a street serviced by buses and the subway? Wanna get tourists down Market Street easily, make it easier and friendlier to take the services already there. We don’t have the money to provide rail service to the Art Museum or the Zoo, how on earth can we justify doubling up services? It makes a pretty rendering but this has pork barrel spending all over it. This makes Alaska’s bridge to no where look like a good idea.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
This idea makes no sense building a light rail on Market street that is already served by the Blue line, keep the project running along the waterfront and constuct connections to the blue line, Patco, the 15 trolley etc, and take the money to finally build either a elevated light rail or train line that connects North broad street with the Northeast via the Roosevelt boulevard medium, thats a major corridor that really needs to be opened up, Septa still has dozens of light rail tracks and cannataries all over the city, retore them, philadelphia really needs a subway or el that sevices theNortheast via the roosevelt boulevard..
May 30th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Why not just modify the PHLASH bus route to go on down Columbus Blvd instead of ending at Penn’s Landing? It already goes to the Art Museum and City Hall. As everyone else here is saying, waste of money.