PATCO Changes Repair Schedule To Ease High Speed Line Delays
By David Madden
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) - Some good news -- sort of -- for those of you who use the PATCO High Speed Line to get to and from Center City Philadelphia. Officials are changing their plans for delaying service over the Ben Franklin Bridge as track replacement work goes on. Those changes take effect today.
They'll still go to single track service over the span just after the Friday morning rush hour. So you'll still see 30 minute gaps, not to mention crowded trains, on the way home and over the weekend. But they'll go back to regular service on Monday morning, instead of Tuesday.
John Hanson, CEO of the Delaware River Port Authority, says, "We are trying very hard to balance the needs of the project to rehabilitate the tracks and the needs of the passengers."
Don't get used to it. Sometime after Memorial Day, they'll be single tracking for a period of two months straight.
Hanson hopes riders will understand, "Despite the best efforts that we can do and the best outcomes that we can hope for, during the periods of outages, there will be some service delays, there will be crowding on the train."
The $103 million project itself isn't expected to be complete for about two more years.
