One thing was clear at Wednesday’s special Lehigh Valley Transportation Study meeting: Members of the planning organization don’t want to miss the train.
The LVTS, along with representatives from PennDOT, consulting company WSP and the public, took part in the virtual meeting that went over the Lehigh Valley Passenger Rail Feasibility Analysis released in late March.
“I think we need to keep this train on the track,” said Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, a member of the LVTS Coordinating Committee. “The estimate is a 12-year process, and the 12-year process does give us some time for deliberation, certainly, but I think we need to get going.”
The timeline presented in the analysis has 14 steps that are estimated to take 10-12 years before the first train leaves the station. An important initial step is identifying a project sponsor, such as a regional transit authority, which will have to be brought on board. That organization would be responsible for developing a framework for planning, design, funding, constructing and operations for the passenger rail service.
McClure suggested PennDOT.
“They may or may not wish to be, but I think they’ve been a solid partner to this point with respect to the analysis that they have paid for and WSP has performed. I am very pleased with where we are now but I don’t want to lose momentum. I want to get moving now. So if PennDOT doesn’t wish to be our real sponsor and our partner with this, then we’ll need to go and find another one. Maybe it’s Amtrak.”
Brett Webber, an Easton resident and a representative of the Rail Passengers Association, seconded Amtrak.
“Amtrak had been a fairly significant advocate for the route connection to New York previously, and ran demonstration trains,” he said. “So as a partner, I think they would have a lot to say about demand and ridership creation.”
However, Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and LVTS Coordinating Committee secretary, said Amtrak has no interest in that role, though it had a route between the Lehigh Valley and New York in its 2021 expansion plan.
“The reason that we’ve been working with PennDOT on this preliminary study is because Amtrak has refused to do so,” she said.
In discussions, she said, “They told us that they were interested in bus service between this area and potentially Philadelphia … and then bus service between the Lehigh Valley and New York should the commuter data play out.
“They also sent a very clear message that we are on our own, to chart our future on all of these issues.”
Bradley said there are many other potential partners out there, including LANTA and New Jersey Transit.
How many routes?
LANTA Executive Director Owen O’Neil suggested that, compared with passenger rail proposals for Scranton and Reading, the Lehigh Valley has a potential advantage because it has multiple proposed routes and destinations.
Scranton’s proposal has service to New York, while Reading’s goes to Philadelphia. Both were accepted into the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program last year and received $500,000 in federal funding to complete a service plan.
The WSP analysis has five routes for the Lehigh Valley:
- Allentown to New York via Hackettstown: Utilizing the Norfolk Southern Railway to Phillipsburg and Dover & Delaware River Railroad to connect with the N.J. Transit Morris & Essex Line in Hackettstown, New Jersey.
- Allentown to New York via High Bridge: Utilizing the Norfolk Southern Railway to connect with the N.J. Transit Raritan Valley Line in High Bridge, New Jersey.
- Allentown to Philadelphia via Lansdale: Utilizing the Norfolk Southern Railway to Bethlehem, Lehigh Valley Rail Management within Bethlehem, Saucon Rail Trail (SEPTA) to Coopersburg, Upper Bucks Rail Trail (SEPTA) to Quakertown, East Penn Railroad (SEPTA) to Telford, and Pennsylvania Northeastern Railroad (SEPTA) to connect with the SEPTA Lansdale Doylestown Line in Lansdale.
- Allentown to Philadelphia via Norristown: Utilizes the same routes as the above corridor, then connects with the SEPTA Norristown Line in Norristown.
- Allentown to Reading: Utilizes the Norfolk Southern Railway to connect with the planned Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority service between Reading and Philadelphia.
Capital costs would be $450 million to $739 million, with the lines to Philadelphia being more expensive. Track infrastructure is mostly in place for the New York routes, but the Philly routes would require new track to replace sections that were converted to rail trails.
“I guess we’re somewhat blessed with the fact that we have multiple things that we can potentially look at in terms of either going to New York or going to Philadelphia,” O’Neil said. “Most metro areas are kind of looking at one. We definitely are going to have to choose one. So if there’s a particular process that we need to follow, to look at these five potential corridors and say this one is going to be the project; what kind of guidance is there on how we should make that decision in terms of picking a corridor?”
PennDOT representative Angela Watson said there isn’t a process to determine that.
“I think your area is somewhat unique in that there are multiple options, given your location to four city pairs, unlike some other locations where it’s a little more obvious what that city pair is,” she said.
Jeffrey Knueppel, from engineering and consulting firm KCI Technologies and a former general manager of SEPTA, said a single corridor needs to be selected.
“Before you go into the corridor ID process, you really do need to pick a corridor,” he said. “Maybe there’s two of the three that you can decide, but that’s not your primary interest. Otherwise, you’re going to have to do that kind of analysis for ridership demand to determine which corridor to pick and I don’t think you would want to go into the corridor ID program with two corridors. There’s a lot of competition.”
Knueppel hinted Philadelphia could be a smoother choice.
“It’s always a little bit easier to make things happen in your own state,” he said. “I do think that it’s very important that conversations have to go on with New Jersey because it is harder to pull off an effort like this when it covers multiple states.”
Public comments
During the study period, LVTS took questions from the public via its website. There were about 75 submissions.
Liz Hynes, a senior transportation project manager from WSP, said they ranged from the potential economic impact to the use of electric-powered trains.
“Our underlying assumption for this study is that the service would begin with dual-mode locomotives that can operate in both the diesel territory as it exists now and in electric mode through the existing North River tunnel and future Hudson River tunnel,” Hynes said. “And then if the service is successful, the corridor could always be fully electrified sometime in the future without a very large upfront investment.”
Hynes said there were also questions about what other transportation options exist if passenger rail does not move forward.
With the Transportation Improvement Plan taking up most of the agenda for June’s meeting, the next opportunity for discussion of rail service would likely be in July. LVTS Coordinating Committee Chair Rick Molchany said it’s important to move forward with the next steps.
“I think our goal would be to get something on the docket as it relates to the next step for rail in July, knowing that there’s a huge amount of work that we’re doing as the transportation study between now and then, as it relates to the approvals,” Molchany said.
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com .
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