>>1770503Side Note:
They could've done Case Study #2 Cheap And Easy/Dirty, but this way used federal $ to enable future expansions, if that's how they decide to proceed.
Like the Lackawanna Cutoff, the line was already built, rails were already down, and it even still had the old station still intact at Lenni, PA, about 2 miles down track from the current terminus. They could have done this. Granted, there's no ADA measures there, no platform for wheelchairs or ramps to get up that platform, or roof. It's about as basic as it can get, and old Catenary arms, track wasn't welded, and the retaining wall weren't the best, and it would have slowed service, possibly even made it unreliable. The station at Lenni was just an asphalt lot and raised bit of asphalt and a sign, but a bike trail plugs right into it, and Lenni is a town that people might be able to walk to the station from. Would have had some ridership from this, and might've boosted the struggling small town's fortunes.
SEPTA didn't go this route.
Instead, SEPTA's building a whole new station a few blocks out along US Route 1, so that you'll have no choice (currently, anyways) but to drive to the station unless you live at the planned apartment block/pods that they're building next to it on top of the old Franklin Mint Museum with 600 dedicated spots, because fuck biking along U.S. 1.
Side note, the Octoraro Line and Chester Line (neither electrified) tied in at the old Lenni Station, which is a half mile from the Wawa station in PA, so the Octoraro will probably become a rail-trail bike-access point for the station, because the '71 hurricane absolutely turbo-fucked both Octoraro and the Chester line into non-existence. Be neat to see two rail trails from two separate lines converge on the old station, and that might boost ridership and encourage SEPTA to keep expanding.
Case Study #3 is the California High Speed Rail and we all have talked about that to fucking death.
DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, OP?
