Save Cornwells Heights
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Thursday, September 1, 2005
This
morning I had the honor and the privilege of attending and briefly speaking at
a breakfast meeting of the Bucks County
Transportation Management Association in Newtown. Hosted by Bensalem’s Mayor DiGirolamo and featuring guest speaker
Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, the discussion repeatedly returned
to the theme of the importance of keeping Amtrak service actually in
Bucks County, not only for the sake of existing commuters, but, with perhaps
even more long-term importance, for the sake of serving as a catalyst to the
future economic development of Lower Bucks and Northeast Philadelphia.
Once
in mid-meeting, and again at its conclusion, Mayor DiGirolamo requested that
all of the approximately 80 civic and business leaders present at the breakfast
write to Mr. David Gunn, the president and CEO of Amtrak, protesting Amtrak’s currently
planned abandonment of the Cornwells Heights station stop in Bensalem, and
pointing out to him that it is only for lack of even minimal promotion and
support from Amtrak that the Cornwells Heights station’s ridership has not grown
dramatically since Amtrak service began there in 1997.
The
web address of this very website, www.savecornwellsheights.com,
was given out to all in attendance, and I will soon be preparing a portion of
this site to give a concise issue-by-issue summary of the many reasons it is
very wrong to close the station, and very right to promote it well. Ridership will grow rapidly when both New
Yorkers and Bucks/Philadelphians realize that working in New York from homes
within 30 minutes of the finest offerings of the great city of Philadelphia is
not only practical, but also a great way to live.
I
have met with reporter Brian Scheid of the Bucks County Courier Times twice
this week, first on Monday to initially help explain the Cornwells Heights
emergency situation, and again when he visited the boarding of the 8:11 train
at Cornwells Heights yesterday. He
indicates that the Courier Times is very interested in covering the Amtrak
pullout story, as well as our resistance to same.
He published
a front
page story in the Courier Times on Wednesday, and has published another prominently
situated story today.
Thank
you, Brian, and thanks to the Bucks County Courier Times for breaking and
covering this story. We intend to
deliver your readers a happy ending ASAP.
It
has been called to my attention that, especially for those who know the ropes
and live nearby, commuting through Trenton is not a bad option at all. For many in Bucks County, Trenton will
remain a better commuting hub than Cornwells Heights, even if only for simple
geographical reasons. Trenton is closer
to most parts of Bucks County than the Cornwells Heights station is, and,
barring the development of a new Delaware River Rift Valley, will ever remain
so. Not having actually practiced
commuting through Trenton myself, I may have already portrayed the conditions
there to be more difficult for commuting than they actually are. Hyperbole, when promoting a cause, can
backfire and cloud the issues, so I do here now state that I will make a very serious
effort to understand and portray the tradeoffs between Trenton commuting and
Cornwells Heights commuting in such a way that it will not be seen as an “us
against them” situation.
Bucks
County will be best served if its residents understand well their commuting options
and associated choice of residency. As
a first rule of thumb, given that gas prices are accelerating upwards, if it
takes you less gas to commute from your house to New York through Trenton than
through Cornwells Heights, that may well be the better commuting hub for you. Cornwells Heights, by that criterion, may be
the better choice for Lower Bucks residents from about Levittown south, and
also for points west of the station out into Montgomery County, and also for
portions of New Jersey near the Delaware bridges (especially Betsy Ross and
Tacony-Palmyra), and also for all of Northeast Philadelphia. And gas is only one of the
considerations. Frequency and availability
of service is another. Trenton will most
likely always have more trains to and from New York than will Cornwells Heights
– even if Cornwells ridership grows ten-fold, and more and more trains stop in
Bensalem. If the gas cost test is not
clearly determinate of commuting hub preference, the fact that monthly New
Jersey Transit passes to New York City from Trenton (currently $320, plus
implied $90 parking = $410) cost less than equivalent Amtrak passes from
Cornwells Heights ($555) may help make the decision.
I
have heard from one very intelligent, capable, and helpful Bucks County
commuter who assures me that he can make it from his home, slightly north of
the Oxford Valley Mall, to standing on Trenton’s train platform in 17
minutes. He makes it home in 20. This is actually better than I had thought
it could have been from that location, and I stand corrected. Those times may also have something to do
with the particular hours he chooses to make the commute, so don’t necessarily
assume that Oxford Valley commute times are always at that mark. Veteran commuters always know the best
tricks, and your travel times may differ, as mine did, the first few times I
tested the Trenton run.
All
this said, I still believe that it would cost me nearly $2,000 and 8,000 more
miles of highway driving each year if I am to be forced to drive to Trenton in
order to commute to New York. The $2000
figure is based on a complete “hidden cost” analysis which includes having to
replace my car more often and pay for more maintenance in the meantime. The main Trenton commuter garage for monthly
pass holders is almost exactly 17 miles north of the intersection of Bensalem’s
section of Street Road with Interstate 95.
The Cornwells Heights park-and-ride is almost exactly 1 mile south. (17-1) * 2 = 32. 32 * 5 = 160. 160 * 52 = 8320. Discounting vacation days and holidays, I
really really am still looking at 8,000 miles of extra driving every year.
If
you live in Yardley, by all means use Trenton.
If you live near where I do, consider the Cornwells Heights park-and-ride
in Bensalem.
In
the next few days, there will be an editorial shift in focus in the way new news
is presented on this site. If you
thought you read an article once before, consider going back and looking at it
again. I will be embedding many more textual
“hyperlinks,” which is to say, making various words and phrases that you may
have seen before in inert form “clickable,” so that it is easier to drill down
to core issues from broader statements and ideas. My response to Amtrak’s quotation about promoting its rail service
– the quotation having appeared in yesterday morning’s Bucks County Courier
Times – will most likely remain on this main web page for a good while, but
with more and more clickable words and phrases so that it is easier to see the fundamentals
of the arguments put forth therein.
In
other words, please come back and click on anything that looks new. Most web browsers are set up to highlight
links that have never been clicked-upon differently from links which have been
previously viewed.
Anyone
who wants to communicate with me directly, regarding the issues raised and
discussed on this website, is welcomed and encouraged to do so by writing to
me, Rick Booth, at rick@savecornwellsheights.com.
Washington’s
Amtrak Bureaucracy Says
to
Bucks County’s Cornwells Heights Station…
“We
promote our service. We don’t advertise
Union Station in Washington, D.C., and people use that.”
My
response to Amtrak’s cavalier statement of the day is…
Dear
Amtrak,
Begging to differ, how does Amtrak consider itself to be “promoting its service” by not sending a single promotional supply – like schedules – to the Cornwells Heights station for the past two years? The station manager there doesn’t even know when your trains will stop, and the word “Amtrak” cannot be found anywhere at that station on either side of the tracks!
Further
begging to differ, how does Amtrak consider itself to be “promoting its
service” by placing its only Northeast Corridor schedules in New York’s Penn
Station that list Cornwells Heights as a stop… in the Acela waiting area
and in the exclusive Club Acela?
Every publicly available Northeast Corridor train schedule in New York
City’s Penn Station, aside from the ones in the Acela lockdown zones, says the
Northeast Corridor stops at Trenton – because you have let New Jersey
Transit print all the Northeast Corridor schedules for us ordinary
Manhattan commuters, and Cornwells Heights is not in New Jersey!
And
finally, how is it that the only map I can find at Penn Station showing
commuting routes out of New York City shows a black, meandering, stationless
rail line connecting Trenton to Philadelphia? Could it have something to do with the fact that it is
distributed by New Jersey Transit?
Not to belabor the point, Amtrak, but we’re absolutely, positively not in New Jersey. We’re not even on the one map that shows the Northeast Corridor crossing the Delaware into Pennsylvania from New Jersey.
Now
seriously, Amtrak, how did you think New York urbanites were ever going
to discover the pleasures of suburbia and those 800 free empty
parking spaces that were specifically built for them at your station, sitting
there completely unused since 1997, 62 minutes from the heart of Manhattan
aboard your very own trains? There’s a
rat race for Northeast Corridor parking and access all the way from Princeton
Junction down to Trenton. None of them
know that if they would just relax for about 11 more minutes on their Amtrak
train instead of running off at Trenton to get to their cars in the two
seven-story parking garages there, they would discover Northeast Corridor
Commuting Heaven at Cornwells Heights.
I am literally wheels-down sitting in my own home, petting the dog and
raiding the fridge, before most of the
Trenton commuters have reached the Trenton city limits (which virtually all of
them do, especially considering that two thirds of them drove in there from
Bucks County, Pennsylvania!).
Begging
your pardon, Amtrak, but does your Union Station in Washington, D.C. run up
against these sorts of problems, too?
Right
now, I’m pretty busy saving the best New York City commuting location south of
Princeton Junction from extinction.
Once I’m able to get over the hump with saving Cornwells Heights, I’d be
glad to help out you guys down there in Washington, too!
-- Rick
Booth, 4-year veteran
Pennsylvania-to-New York City Amtrak commuter
P.S. Today, I’m putting my money where my mouth
is: $50 to the first person to find another Northeast Corridor Amtrak station
that can’t even give away free parking to, say, 500 or more commuters. (I’m trying to be sporting here. We have 800, but I don’t want to set the bar
too high.) $10 to every single person who is first to put me in touch with a
station manager at a stop serviced by Amtrak trains, where they haven’t
received any Amtrak schedules for two or more years. (This is not limited to the Northeast
Corridor. Amtrak lists over 800
stations around the country on their website.
Surely a few more of them have gotten lost in the shuffle. I doubt that I’m going to be out much more
than a few hundred dollars, but you never know.)
P.P.S. This site is not just about Cornwells
Heights. It’s about bringing Amtrak
back on track in general. If they treat
their finest hidden gem this badly, I can only imagine the nonsense that goes
on around the rest of the country. I’m
sure Amtrak wastes tons of money needlessly (considering the lost revenue of
covertly running a station on the Northeast Corridor for eight years), and they
really do need to be reformed and saved from themselves, but they may need
continued public support and a change in management in order to realize the
dream. Amtrak runs wonderful trains,
which is just the thing we need right now, with gas prices going through the
roof. I am energetically
pro-Amtrak-service. I am energetically
anti-Amtrak-service-resource-management-stupidity. I’ll be glad to help them out as best I can, when I go to
Washington.
Dear
reader, as a temporary measure to get the word out today in particular, and to
help you understand better what has led to this enormous wronging of Bucks
County, please visit the following archive links to the four previous days of
updates to this site.
Thank
you for visiting, and come again soon.
I’ll be roasting Amtrak as hard and as fast as I can, up to the point
that they realize I’m on their side.
-- Rick
Booth