May 28 2015

SEPTA Plans To Spend $154 Million On New Locomotives

SEPTA plans to spend up to $154 million for 18 new Regional Rail locomotives, the authority’s biggest railroad acquisition in a decade.

The electric locomotives would replace eight aging engines operating on the Lansdale-Doylestown, Paoli-Thorndale, Trenton, and Wilmington-Newark lines, and add capacity to other regional lines.

The SEPTA board is expected to approve the purchase on Thursday, with the locomotives to be delivered in 2018.

SEPTA is buying 13 “Cities Sprinter” ACS-64 locomotives to be built by Siemens Industry Inc., the German conglomerate, at its factory in Sacramento, Calif. The price includes an option for five additional locomotives.

Apr 19 2015

Transportation Challenges Rife As Pittsburgh Focuses On Making Fixes

Lori Minetti often feels stranded in her Carrick home.

The closest bus stop used to be across the street. Now it’s almost a mile away, because Port Authority of Allegheny County eliminated the 50 Spencer route four years ago.

She walks one of the farthest distances a city resident must go to catch a bus. It seems even farther to Minetti, who has an arthritic back.

“It’s kind of cloistered me,” said Minetti, 48, a former temp for Downtown companies who no longer works. Her husband uses the couple’s only car for his job as a maintenance worker in Munhall.

May 25 2014

New Jersey-To-Philly Commuters Face Rough Summer

A PATCO Speedline train pulls into Woodcrest station, heading towards Philadelphia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) – Commuters between southern New Jersey and Philadelphia are in for a rough summer.

Work on the tracks and electrical systems on the PATCO Speedline will mean a less frequent schedule for the train line used by 40,000 per day and closed car lanes on the Ben Franklin Bridge, which carries trains – and 100,000 cars daily – over the Delaware River,

“I have no choice but to catch the train because the parking is horrible and expensive over there,” Juanita King, who works as a scheduler at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital, said before she hopped on her train recently at Camden’s Ferry Avenue Station, a popular place for park-and-ride customers from Camden and Gloucester counties.

A round-trip ride from there is $4.50 a day and most of the parking is free.

May 15 2014

Pittsburgh’s Commuters Are Walking The Walk

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Suzy Waldo can never call off work with the excuse that her car won’t start. And she can’t really justify showing up late for her shifts, either.

Ms. Waldo lives five blocks from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh South Side where she is the branch manager, and is among the relatively small but growing number of Pittsburghers who make their daily commutes by foot.

A new Census report looking at data from the past five years ranks Pittsburgh third among large cities with commuters who walk to work.

Five years of data from the American Community Survey show 11.3 percent of Pittsburghers commute by walking — ahead of New York City’s 10.3 percent, and just behind Boston, at 15.1 percent, and Washington, D.C., at 12.1 percent.

May 1 2014

Widespread Flooding Submerges Cars, Causes Major Commute Problems

The logo of the United States National Weather Service. The source page states that is not an “official” version but it looks very close to the version used on NWS’s website. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rain that pounded the Philadelphia region last night and into this morning left widespread flooding that stranded motorists and caused the shutdown of major routes from the western suburbs to South Jersey.

The National Weather Service said around 5 inches fell in most parts of the area, with some places seeing a bit more, such as the 6.56 inches recorded in Spring City, Chester County.

A weather service flood warning is in effect until 12:45 p.m. Authorities are warning that the flood situation is dangerous in many areas as motorists continued to underestimate the severity. Rescue crews were busy throughout the night rescuing stranded drivers.

Even though the flooding had started to recede, crews were still busy rescuing people this morning.

Apr 28 2014

$300M Being Pumped Into I-81Between Wilkes-Barre And Scranton

Locator map of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area in the northeastern part of the of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christopher Santizo faces a challenge every time he drives to class at Luzerne County Community College in Nanticoke.

The 29-year-old graphic design and advertising student who commutes from Duryea, said construction on Interstate 81 routinely has made it difficult to get to class on time.

“I’ve been everywhere from stopped to 45 miles per hour,” he said.

He is among an estimated 70,000 drivers who traverse a half-dozen Pennsylvania Department of Transportation construction projects totaling more than $100 million between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Upon completion of those projects, PennDOT will begin widening the highway near Scranton to the tune of $174 million — ensuring years of additional construction zones.

Dec 29 2013

Town By Town: Abington Homes Offer Good Value

Map of Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One in a continuing series spotlighting real estate markets in the region’s communities.

If Abington can come up with more houses to sell next year, its reputation for affordability – combined with lower Federal Housing Administration mortgage limits – might result in a sales boom.

That’s the opinion of some real estate agents, including Cheryl Miller of Long & Foster’s Blue Bell office, who sells in this Montgomery County township known for its older houses, its hospitals, its 16 neighborhoods (or parts of neighborhoods), Willow Grove Park mall, and traffic that moves at a snail’s pace along Route 611.

Nov 23 2013

Casey Calls For Subway Extension To Navy Yard

Riders board Philadelphia’s Broad Street Subway on the Southbound platform of City Hall Station. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WHAT DO YOU get for the corporate hot spot that seems like it has everything?

How ’bout some underground transit?

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey called yesterday for extending SEPTA’s Broad Street subway line into the Navy Yard, given the area’s dramatic rebirth as a sprawling office park that’s home to about 10,000 workers.

Casey sent a letter to Brigid Hynes-Cherin, the Federal Transportation Agency’s (FTA) regional administrator, urging her to discuss the potential project with SEPTA, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 and the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades.

Jul 31 2013

Legislators: Montco, SE Pa. Need More Transportation Funding

SEPTA logo with text (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note: This is obvious. Just try and drive to work in Montgomery County. Traffic is horrendous!

WHITEMARSH — The House Democratic Policy Committee held a two-hour Wednesday morning at the township building to draw attention to the need to increase transportation funding in the region.

The general consensus among the experts offering testimony was that Pennsylvania, and Southeastern Pennsylvania in particular, needs more state funding for mass transit, road and bridge repairs.

State Rep. Mary Jo Daley, D-148th Dist., said Whitemarsh is a center of transportation with major roadways including Germantown Pike and Ridge Pike and six train stations on the regional rail lines. Daley moderated the hearing.

“I have been a SEPTA rider my entire life,” Daley said. “I’m not sure what it would be like to not have public transportation. It is a really flexible system that benefits the area.”

Jun 20 2013

The 13 Worst Commutes Around Philadelphia

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note: The only thing I would add is that I might start this at Royersford or Collegeville. However, I don’t miss that drive after doing it for almost 20 years!

Commuters who drive on Interstate 676 between I-95 and I-76 or on state Route 611 between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-95 during rush hour spend 125 hours a year sitting in traffic.

Those are the worst commutes in the region, according to a new report from TRIP, a transportation research group backed by advocates for highway improvements.

Besides the lost hours due to congestion, drivers on those stretches of I-676 and Route 611 also waste 54 gallons of gas per year, TRIP’s report found. Here are the routes the organization says are the worst commutes in the Philadelphia region, based on time and fuel lost due to traffic congestion during peak hours:

3. U.S. Route 422 from U.S. 202 to Egypt Road in Montgomery County: Drivers lose 67 hours and 29 gallons of gas annually due to congestion; 64,000 to 83,000 daily drivers

Apr 2 2013

Officials Working To Restore Rail Passenger Service To Philly Zoo

Editor’s note: That just makes sense!

After 100 years of watching trains pass without stopping, Philadelphia Zoo officials are trying to restore passenger rail service to the zoo.

A new study proposes a SEPTA station at 34th Street and Mantua Avenue, a short walk from the zoo’s south entrance.

Although the zoo was built on its West Philadelphia site in 1874 partly because of handy rail access, the original Zoological Garden station at 34th Street and Girard Avenue closed in 1902, a victim of Pennsylvania Railroad expansion.

Now, congested highway access and limited parking have convinced zoo leaders that a new train station would increase attendance and ease traffic.

Aug 9 2012

Easton Moves Forward With Commuter Tax

English: Skyline of Easton, PA from Lafayette College (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Easton City Council approved a commuter tax Wednesday, raising the earned income tax for more than 10,000 people who work in Easton but live outside the city an average of $127.

City officials estimate the new tax will generate $1.35 million, which Easton can use only toward offsetting a $1.8 million increase in pension obligations. The commuter tax, which takes effect Jan. 1, raises the earned income tax for non-Easton residents from 1 percent to 1.75 percent, the same rate city residents pay.

Council’s 6-1 vote came after an impassioned debate between Mayor Sal Panto Jr. and Councilman Jeff Warren, who wrote a recent op-ed piece opposing the commuter tax. Panto accused Warren, the only council member to vote against the tax, of political grandstanding.

“You keep saying you’re against this but you haven’t laid out any alternatives,” Panto told Warren. “What are you coming up with? What is your solution?”

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