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| Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday (317122) | |||
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Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday |
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Posted by WillD on Fri Sep 29 15:59:57 2006, in response to Re: MANY SEPTA PHOTOS from last Tuesday, posted by julie_profumo on Fri Sep 29 12:37:10 2006. I believe it's Philadelphia's Building Code which probibits an elevated rail line from being constructed with an open truss below the tracks. The elevated must be constructed in such a manner that debris from the trains cannot fall on traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular, below the tracks. The PTC built the El between 63rd and 24th streets differently than the short section of el from 63rd to just east of Millbourne station. I can't find a picture of the actual transition, which is just east of the western platform end at 63rd St Station, but you can fairly easily see that the tracks to the west of 63rd are quite different in construction from the tracks to the east. The reason for the change at 63rd St is that that's where the Philadelphia/Delaware County border is, and the PTC wasn't about to spend any more money than they had to to complete the line to 69th.If SEPTA and the City of Philadelphia wanted to eliminate blight from Market Street between 63rd and 40th Sts they would have rebuilt the old elevated as a cut and cover subway. For all the massive problems the elevated reconstruction has created, for all the cost overruns it's been responsible for, and for all the businesses along Market St which have closed down they could have just underpinned the el, ripped up Market Street and had a subway from Millbourne through to Front and Market. Hell, if they felt like blowing a few more million dollars they probably could have bought up the first row of buildings on either side, torn them down, built a 4 track subway into the city, covered the subway with a 4 lane arterial over it and it STILL would have had a less detrimental effect on the neighborhood than the Market Street El's reconstruction. |
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