[EastSideHBG]

Hell yes, that would be awesome!!! I could easily see some mid/high-rises happening too, with the 7th St. "Northern Gateway" corridor set to expand the DT Northward. This section of Cameron St. would blend in so well with that.


Now look at this garbage:

Rail summit reaches no consensus

Counties split on best approach to project

Thursday, June 03, 2004
BY MATT MILLER
Of Our Carlisle Bureau

Commissioners from six midstate counties staged their second summit yesterday, hoping to reach a consensus on the proposed Corridor One commuter rail system.

Instead, they left divided.

After three hours, Dauphin County commissioners said they are leaning in favor of building the full $75.8 million first phase of the line from Lancaster to Harrisburg to Mechanicsburg.

Cumberland County commissioners repeated their call for a $30 million multiyear test of commuter rail on Amtrak's Lancaster-to-Harrisburg line before any commitment is made to Corridor One.

Lancaster County commissioners said they can stomach either option, so long as their county remains an integral part of the system.

The only real agreement during the meeting in Dauphin County's administration center was voiced by Dauphin County Commissioner Nick DiFrancesco.

"There will be absolutely no local tax dollars going into this," DiFrancesco told officials of the Modern Transit Partnership, the group promoting Corridor One. Also, he said, local elected officials must have a controlling voice on an authority MTP wants to form to run the system.

Commissioners from Lebanon, York and Perry counties also attended the meeting.

MTP is urging construction of the first phase of Corridor One with federal and state money.

Bruce Barclay, Cumberland County commission chairman, said the test would be a cost-effective way to see if people will use commuter rail.

DiFrancesco and fellow Dauphin County Commissioner George Hartwick said they aren't sure a test would be useful, but they agreed with MTP President John Ward that the West Shore must be part of any evaluation.

A 6-mile leg of the line would run from Harrisburg to just east of Mechanicsburg.

A test was recommended by a panel that reviewed the Corridor One plan. Two panel members, Jerry Lutin of the New Jersey Transit Authority and Jim Ryan of the Federal Transit Administration, attended yesterday's meeting.

Ryan said there is no data on whether commuter rail will work in a metropolitan area as small as the midstate. A test would be a "low risk" means of getting that information, he said.

Ward said an Amtrak test wouldn't gauge vital West Shore ridership.

About 76,000 commuter trips are made from the West Shore to the East Shore daily, and the Susquehanna River bridges are the region's major traffic "choke points," he said. About 12,000 trips are made daily between Lancaster and Harrisburg, he said.

Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said he fears building Corridor One would devour federal money that could be better used to improve highways.

"It's good to have alternatives," Eichelberger said. "But highways are still going to be carrying the bulk of our traffic."


Okay, now my rants:

Will it work in a metro as small as ours? So I guess the 400,000+ in Lancaster Co., the 230,000+ in Cumberland Co. and the 320,000+ in Dauphin Co. isn't enough people? I know I just did a rough, off the top of my head estimate, but that's nearly 1 million people in those 3 counties alone. Now factor in the people from York, Adams, Lebanon, etc. counties that may use the system... Now is this system going to be serving a smaller area?

Wow, a few of the sprawl-rific NIMBY commisoners are at it again:

Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said he fears building Corridor One would devour federal money that could be better used to improve highways.

HELLO!!! Does somebody not see what is going on in the world around us?!? Sky high gas prices that show no sign of dropping. A very unstable Middle-East. Federal funding drying up. A concrete shortage... We need to develop alternatives NOW because (IMO) highways and cars are the old way. No they will not totally disappear, but they will be a harder and harder thing to have and maintain.


I can go on and on about this but you get my drift. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think Cumberland Co. will have much to say about anything anyway; they aren't as big of a fish as they think they are. I just wish that county would get with the times.