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Germantown Ave's Abandoned Tracks (was: Rockaway Beach Line's Abandoned Tracks...)

Posted by WillD on Sun Jul 30 17:29:55 2006, in response to Re: WillD lacks experience and perspective, posted by RonInBayside on Sun Jul 30 12:29:28 2006.

No, it has less effect on tires, but not "minimal." It chews them up more slowly, but that still isn't good.

Really? What extended first hand experience do you have with the newly installed rail on the Rt15 or Subway Surface lines? It's important to note that most of this reconstruction has been done since 2002, by which time I do believe you would not be a resident of Philadelphia.

reactivating the line were desirable overall (cost-benefit). SEPTA has decided it is not, and I agree.

It's in SEPTA's capital budget, so somebody somewhere in SEPTA thinks it's worth the effort. You can hide behind SEPTA's inept attitude toward fixed guideway transit, but it's clear that when the Rt15 can be returned to service for somewhere around 10 or 15 million dollars a mile it's hard to see how the 23 or 56 could have an undesirable cost/benefit ratio. For little more than what the three generations of bus fleets for the 23 would cost over 40 years you could likely rebuild the 23 and equip it with one generation of LRVs which would reduce operational costs relative to the bus fleets. Unless you're going to start BSing about emergency vehicles inducing a cost which cannot be quantified it's pretty hard to argue with those numbers.

You don't know why the Streets Dept. put the rails back in. It could be that the Mayor wants to preserve the trolley option (and make sure voters know it) even if some of his own engineers do not fully agree with it (I don't know what their opinions are and neither do you).

Actually I do, and if you paid attention to the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local media perhaps you would too. For those members who weren't paying attention the tracks are being replaced because the Chestnut Hill merchants along Germantown Ave feel that the 23's tracks increase the attraction of their business district. This is in marked contrast to the business owners along Torresdale Avenue, who blamed the 56's decrepit track for their decline and wouldn't hear of track replacement. Now Torresdale Avenue has been paved, and the businesses are still in decline as their potential customers drive to Cottman Center and Franklin Mills.

If you think that Mayor Street, or his undoubted replacement, Michael Nutter, actually gives a crap about Philadelphia's transit then why don't I just sell you Germantown Avenue? You can make the check out to "Cash" and there's no need to fill in any specific dollar amount, just sign it. I am going to need you to refinance your house and deposit that money in your checking account before the transaction can go through.

Because Germantown is already traffic-laden. When I lived there I saw at least a half-dozen police cars and other emergency vehicles trying to negotiate Germantown Av.

Well at least you finally admit that emergency vehicles don't use Germantown Avenue because it's already an insanely congested. I notice that you're still being vague as to how many vehicles you saw. Is that a half dozen vehicles a minute, an hour, a day or, per week? A half dozen emergency vehicles with lights flashing per day seems to be about right from the time I've spent along Germantown Avenue. That's in stark contrast to Chew Ave, Stenton Ave, or Lincoln Drive, where it's quite common to see upwards of a dozen emergency vehicles just during a 6 to 7 hour midday period. And if you want a street which is truely crowded with emergency vehicle traffic then Chestnut St around 37th would certainly be up there, since I once counted 50 ambulance, fire, and police vehicles travelling with their lights on in a 20 hour period (yes, most were ambulances likely going to HUP). By comparison Germantown Avenue is just too narrow and congested for emergency vehicles and since ordinary traffic isn't going to attempt the manuvers a police officer would try why not run LRVs there?

True part of the time, not all of it. The bus, additionally, can pull over at at intersection if the light is green and pedestrians are not directly in the way. This results in the bus blocking the pedestrian crosswalk while the police officer or ambulance passes.

Most of the time the cross streets to Germantown are around 20 to 30 feet wide. A few somewhat major cross streets like Chelten and Upsal may have two traffic lanes, a pair of parking lanes, and maybe even a Bike lane for somewhere between 45 and 50 feet of width, but other streets like Walnut and Washington Lanes, and most other cross streets usually have some form of three lanes, be it two traffic lanes and a parking lane, or vice versa. These three lane roads are usually 30 feet wide or less and, even if the bus stop and corner parking requirements on Germantown are respected, would present difficulties to 40 foot buses to use, and would be next to impossible for the 60 foot buses you've advocated to negotiate.

Is there a law against SEPTA creating a new depot for the 56?

Not at all. I've frequently suggested SEPTA build a new LRV depot on Midvale's sprawling grounds, which would place the 23 and 56's depot at the western end of the 56. However, if you build that depot for the 56 alone then you're incurring a fixed cost which is not spread among the passengers for both lines, so the all important dollar per passenger number would go up. Also since you initially called for the 23 to be completely destroyed without leaving any sort of diversion route you'd either be forced to replicate Woodland Depot's actions at Midvale, or truck LRVs between Midvale and Woodland for heavy work. But at least you saw how stupid it sounded to isolate one line from the rest of the network:

If we were to accept your argument that the new tracks are not harmful to tires, then we can do this: Remove the catenary and substation infrastructure needed for Germantown av per se, because maintaining that costs more than any "tow benefit" you get, but you can still tow the disabled trolley with a diesel vehicle while the trolley stays on the tracks

::Smacks head on desk:: WHAT? What happened to your "Trolleybuses can use the 23's power infrastructure" argument? Once again you're giving in to your NCL tendancies and advocating the destruction of a perfectly good transit infrastructure.

I can't believe I friggin have to hold your hand and form your arguments for you, but this should work. Have SEPTA build the Midvale Rt56 depot, and restore the 56 to LRV operation. Then convert the 23 to Trolleybus operation with the operations shared between Southern Depot and Midvale, which would require installing wire at Midvale and a deadhead route out of the depot to Germantown Ave. Then tear up all track between Mermaid Loop (or perhaps Germantown Depot) and Erie Ave or so, for your bus. This leaves the track between Mermaid or Germantown Depot and Chestnut Hill Loops for a potential future tourist trolley to distribute shoppers throughout the Chestnut Hill commercial district. South of Erie you'd at least need the tracks down to Girard to access the rest of the network, but I'd argue that everything south of there should be retained, even if it's just for a future historic trolley or something. Now that you definitely have tracks between Erie and Girard on Germantown, 11th, and 12th you need a vehicle to tow your LRV between Midvale and Woodland Depots. If the 56 is done with a catenary and pantograph system then this vehicle would need both a pantograph and a trolley pole.

An LRV being towed out of Midvale would have the tow vehicle use a pantograph down Erie to either Germantown or Old York Rd, wherever the 23 Diversion Route had a junction with the 56's track on Erie. Wherever the towed LRV joins the Route 23 ETB, be it Germantown and Erie (and Broad), or Germantown and Old York (and Rising Sun Ave), the tow vehicle would drop it's pantograph and the pole would be raised to contact the left ETB wire. This would provide power between Erie and Girard Avenue, at which point a special trolley frog would be placed which would automatically divert the tow vehicle's trolley pole onto the diverging route for Girard Ave. From there south to Woodland the vehicle would either use a trolley pole if the Subway Surface overhead remains unimproved, or a pantograph if SEPTA actually gets around to fixing it up.

Seems a hell of a lot easier (and cheaper) to me to just bring back the 23 as an LRV than to go through all those contortions just to avoid a major cost.

You have a long way to go before you mature as a professional engineer, Will. You do some pretty nifty things now but you know just enough to get yourself and others in trouble if you tried making supervisory or higher-level policy decisions.

Better to be a "could someday be" than a "never was". :)

Oh, and while posting on subchat is harmless and fun (usually) I hope you understand when you need to keep your mouth shut at work.

Hell no! I yelled "get me a shovel" at my boss at the Philly Water Dept (who is now head of the Load Control) after a disagreement over what was in a sand filled sewer cover. I asserted it was a valve, while he was under the impression it was a stuck sanitary sewer water cover, but called in the Vacuum Truck crew and it turned out to be a valve. When I worked for a survey crew I had a running political debate with my Crew Chief. And just the other day I got yelled at by my current employer for cursing and saying "Nobody thinks around here".

Of course if I was working at somewhere I actually wanted to spend an extended period with I might look at it somewhat differently.

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