‘BRIDGE TO FUTURE DEVELOPMENT’
County, SEPTA officials tout project’s connections
“By creating additional parking capacity within the footprint of our station, we can make SEPTA access easier for riders who use their car first as part of their commute.” — SEPTA General Manager Jeff Knueppel
Five days after a soft opening, SEPTA and local dignitaries made it official, formally cutting the ribbon on the transit agency’s new parking garage Friday morning.
“The Lansdale parking garage represents a bridge to future development, literally and figuratively,” said SEPTA General Manager Jeff Knueppel.
“The buzzword for this is ‘smart growth,’ but I like to think of it as a very practical approach to working together, and creating the best possible outcomes to benefit residents, business, and transit,” he said.
Under construction since late 2015, the five-story, 680-space parking garage was informally opened to customers Monday, and SEPTA, state, and local officials held a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday morning while touting the benefits the garage will bring.
“By creating additional parking capacity within the footprint of our station, we can make SEPTA access easier for riders who use their car first as part of their commute,” Knueppel said.
“With 680 spaces, 800 total with our surface lot, they’re not going to have to worry about getting to the station before the last space is taken. And I can tell you, that’s a worry, and so this is great to have this kind of capacity here,” he said.
The $42 million garage was largely empty beyond the first floor during the ceremony Friday morning, and an LED counter near the garage’s driveway entrance showed roughly 500 spaces were still available for incoming drivers.
Val Arkoosh, chair of the Montgomery County Commissioners, said the close proximity of the garage to downtown Lansdale, and an extension of the Liberty Bell trail which will
run along the nearby rail tracks, were just some of the reasons the county contributed nearly $1 million to the project.
“Lansdale really is a town built on transit. It’s the third-busiest SEPTA rail station in the Philadelphia suburbs — over 3,600 riders each day get on or off at three different stations in Lansdale, so it’s great to have this new asset here,” Arkoosh said.
“The garage is really a mega-regional investment. It serves both the local North Penn community, and people further up the (Route) 309 corridor in other counties. People are going to be coming from Bucks County, from Lehigh County, all of whom are already using this station, but now they’ll be able to do so much more easily...and they’ll maybe drive a little bit slower, because they’re not going to be quite so worried about getting that last parking spot,” she said.
The garage was included on long-term regional improvement plans developed by both the county, in its Montco 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s project planning lists.
“Our 2040 plan envisions economically viable, sustainable, connected communities, and this garage meets every single one of those goals,” Arkoosh said.
“The goal here is not just to continue to take over open land and build new things on it, but to build new projects in places where there’s already development; to build them better, and give people housing that is walking distance from public transportation, and from a beautiful Main Street like we have here in Lansdale,” she said.
Toby Fauver, PennDOT’s Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Transportation, said he expects the garage to help trigger job creation and other economic development in Lansdale — and he was impressed with the relatively short timeline from design to done.
“Now that Jeff’s done one in three years, four years
from the time we talked about funding, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be doing them in two years,” Fauver said; “If you have the cash,” Knueppel replied.
State Rep. Bob Godshall said he was “absolutely tickled to death” to see the garage complete, and said he hopes it helps cut down on rush hour traffic between the North Penn area and Philadelphia.
“With all of the traffic problems that we have in this area, it’s going to be a great help. It’s just a heck of a lot easier than the roads, and the roads are over-burdened,” he said.
Borough council President Denton Burnell said the garage, combined with the plans council approved this week for construction of apartments atop the nearby Madison Parking Lot, were two big signs of continued growth and momentum in town.
“It’s ironic to think of a place to park as an amenity that fosters forward movement, but this garage is just that for Lansdale: an asset that works well with everything around it,” Burnell said.
“We’ve seen significant momentum in the past few years here in Lansdale, and the addition of a parking garage in the heart of downtown is an important piece of the puzzle,” he said.
As he spoke, Burnell was interrupted by the honking horn of a train pulling past the garage and into the station, and Knueppel said he predicted that arrival because he often rides from the nearby Ninth Street station. Burnell said, despite complaints on social media during the first week the garage has been open, he hopes the benefits to town and region outweigh the negatives.
“I’m just very excited that we’re finally here, and that it’s open. It’s a somewhat controversial topic to some, but I’m very excited about what’s going to happen across the way” at the Madison Lot, he said.
“Once those two are working in tandem, I think we’ll see some very nice momentum. It’s a huge step,” Burnell said.
Following the ribbon cutting, officials posed for photos in front of the garage entrance, and borough council members climbed the five flights of stairs to the garage’s top floor to enjoy never-before-seen views of the town from above. Back on the ground, Burnell said his family took their last train trip into Philadelphia, and their next may not be far off.
“It’s super easy to get downtown from here, just an hour’s trip. And now it’s much easier,” he said.
Addressing some of those
early complaints, Knueppel and Robert Lund, SEPTA’s Assistant General Manager for Engineering, Maintenance and Construction, said the garage will be open only on weekdays until all work is complete, with exceptions on Saturdays for large regional events like the NFL Draft and Penn Relays in Philadelphia this coming weekend. Parking within the garage will be free until June 18, and after then will cost the standard SEPTA rate of $2 per day.
The Rotary Club of North Penn is planning its annual Lansdale Day festivities on June 3, and Knueppel said the garage should be fully operational by then, and if not, SEPTA can keep it open Saturday for the borough.
“I would imagine it will be open. If the borough requests it, we’ll do it. It’s going to be a great asset for the community, as well as for us,” Knueppel said.
Lund said within the next week the additional parking at Ninth Street and Pennbrook will be closed, and the elevator within the garage will likely take another month to complete. Signs will be posted on the first floor detailing exactly what is meant by “fuel efficient” vehicles, for which several parking spaces are reserved — hybrids, electric vehicles, or those that run on alternative fuels, he said.
And SEPTA is not done making improvements in the area: Lund said the agency is looking to go out for bid sometime this spring for a project on Railroad Avenue, to create a dedicated bus stop and trail path on the stretch of street between the train tracks and the borough municipal building.
“Hopefully some time in the summer will be the start of construction. It’s all coming together,” Lund said.
Knueppel said the opening of the garage was one more sign of an increasingly close relationship between SEPTA and the borough, which included the use of Lansdale’s Pennbrook station as a transit point during the visit of Pope Francis in 2015, and the opening of the Ninth Street station later that year, after work on the garage began.
“I think what’s exciting is that we’re driving development. You often think of transit agencies as being slow to react and to make things happen, and whether it’s at Ninth Street or here, we’re helping to drive development and smart growth here,” Knueppel said.
“We worked together, and everyone listened, and we came up with a really great project,” he said.
SEPTA statistics show that the number of inbound rail riders boarding at the main Lansdale station has grown from roughly 600 per week in 1996 to more than 1,400 per week in 2015, an increase that Knueppel said could only grow larger now that SEPTA has authorized the purchase of twolevel passenger cars, and the borough continues to develop.
“We are very proud to support smart growth for a forward-thinking community like Lansdale, and we look forward to welcoming everybody to the new parking garage,” Knueppel said.
“One of the biggest problems for our customers is that anxiety over getting a parking space, and so for them, this is a big deal,” he said.
For more on the SEPTA garage visit http://septa. org/rebuilding/parking/ lansdale.html.