While the Lehigh Valley Passenger Rail Feasibility Analysis was received with great fanfare Wednesday, the message was clear — it will be a marathon and not a sprint to the finish line.
The more than 50-page document gave a preliminary look at bringing passenger train service back to the Valley, after it ended in 1981. There’s plenty of information to digest, enough that members of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study and the public will be given a few weeks to do so.
A second meeting for further discussion will be scheduled for May.
Here are five takeaways from the analysis:
The 14 steps
According to the analysis prepared by consulting group WSP for PennDOT, it will take 10-12 years before the first passenger trains roll out of the Lehigh Valley, provided there aren’t any unforeseen problems.
The report had a checklist of the 14 steps (and how much they cost) needed to achieve that goal:
- Identification of project sponsor, the organization or authority who will be responsible for it
- Feasibility study ($100,000 to $250,000)
- Alternative analysis ($1 million to $3 million)
- Operational feasibility assessment by partner railroad ($350,000 to $1 million)
- Initiate advanced conceptual engineering ($2 million to $4 million)
- Execution of preliminary memorandum of understanding between sponsor and right of way owner. ($250,000 to $375,000)
- Environmental clearance ($1 million to $8 million)
- Preliminary engineering ($15 million to $25 million)
- Permits and approvals ($1 million)
- Equipment procurement ($2 million)
- Final design ($35 million to $50 million)
- Construction. ($250 million-plus)
- Testing and commissioning. ($2 million)
- Operation of service
(If you’ve made it this far, pass go and collect $200. You don’t need to add that to the estimated $310 million it will cost at a minimum.)
Sharing the tracks
The good news? There’s plenty of already existing infrastructure for future passenger trains heading from the Lehigh Valley to either New York, Philadelphia and Reading.
The bad news? Those tracks are already being used and are very, very busy. Plus, the owners of the tracks will have to give their approval before any new passenger trains use them.
Armando Pigman, a transportation planner with WSP, calls it a “double-edged sword.”
A big part of the process will be reaching agreements with Norfolk Southern Railway along with New Jersey Transit, SEPTA and possibly Amtrak. Pigman said it will take work to find a way to fit those extra trains, which could have up to six cars each.
“There’s a lot of freight traffic there that passenger trains would have to contend for slots,” Pigman said. “Beyond freight train concerns, we have possible conflicts with New Jersey Transit and Amtrak. The deeper you get into New Jersey, the more complex the rail networks get, the more passenger trains you get that you will then have to find slots to fit your trips into.”
For runs to Philadelphia, tracks south of Lansdale would have to be shared with SEPTA heading toward Center City. An alternative route via Norristown would feature a similar problem going to 30th Street Station.
Securing right of way from the track’s owner would be one of the middle steps in the process of establishing service. The report says other metropolitan areas have successfully started passenger rail service after negotiating with Class I freight railroads such as Norfolk Southern.
Those options include buying the ROW and letting the freight railroad pay access fees; leasing the tracks with an annual fee; or simply paying an access fee.
Liz Hynes, a senior transportation project manager from WSP, said Norfolk Southern, SEPTA or New Jersey Transit were not contacted for the analysis.
Trail to rail
Hikers, joggers and bikers who like to use rail trails may not like what the future may hold.
Going toward Philadelphia, a new track would have to be put down over a 12-mile stretch of former railroad that was converted to rail-trail — the Saucon Rail Trail from Hellertown to Coopersburg, which connects with the Upper Bucks Rail Trail in Springfield and Richland townships.
That’s the line commuter trains used to run from Bethlehem to Philadelphia. That service ended in 1981 and the final train passed through in 1984.
The property is owned by SEPTA, which spent $2 million to remove the tracks in 2008. The agency then signed a 30-year lease with Lehigh Valley municipalities to create the Saucon Rail Trail, which opened in 2011.
Yet another layer of negotiations may have to be done with those local governments.
“Use of this line requires total reconstruction of the ROW and a new signaling system to make it suitable for passenger rail operations,” the WSP analysis said.
The report said there are tracks remaining between Shelly in Richland Township and Lansdale.
Getting through Bethlehem
An area of concern was how and where passenger trains would pass through Bethlehem.
“The rail network here in Bethlehem is one of the more complex aspects of the rail network that we’ve looked at anywhere in the study,” Pigman said. “There’s a lot of yards that you have to contend with. There’s a lot of major industrial operations. There’s a lot of warehouses. There’s an inland port that we understand is going to be built and then there’s an interchange yard between all these industries by the [former] steel mill. So you really have to figure out how to navigate passenger trains operationally through all this complex freight operations here and once it gets out from Bethlehem.”
The report said the two viable corridors out of the Lehigh Valley both require use of freight tracks. Passenger trains may find themselves stuck at a potential choke point at the Allentown freight yard along the Lehigh River where the track speed limit is 20 mph.
One suggestion is to terminate service in south Bethlehem, with a new station near Wind Creek casino.
The open area east of the casino offers an opportunity as a Bethlehem station site, the report said, adding that locating the terminal there would let a Philadelphia-based service avoid interaction with the main freight line.
Which route is more popular?
One consideration that will go into the process is which way commuters from the Lehigh Valley go.
The LVTS, using census data, said 7,923 Valley residents work in Philadelphia, 3,747 work in New York and 634 work in Reading.
A detailed analysis of potential passenger demand is a part of the long process. The WSP report used maps to show the number of people living within a mile of the rail corridors and work locations within 5 miles.
However, Hynes said those basic statistics don’t tell the whole story. What if you live near the train station, but the timetable doesn’t fit your work hours? You would likely use your car instead.
So while there are fewer New York commuters, a chance for them to avoid driving all the way to Manhattan may make that route more viable than one to Philadelphia.
“I think you all know driving into northeast New Jersey and especially driving all the way into the city is pretty terrible and costly, especially when you factor in tolls, parking and congestion pricing,” Hynes said. “So it may be that a New York train service would be more popular even though there aren’t as many people making that trip overall.
“But the main takeaway here is that we do not know that kind of ridership demand analysis hasn’t been done yet,” she said. “That would be something that would come in future steps.”
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.
