New rail station to open next month

After several months of delay, construction of the new University City Station is nearly complete, bringing rail service to the airport and other destinations to campus. The station will open on April 24, six months after its originally scheduled opening in November. Costing $9 million, the station will provide direct access to the Philadelphia International Airport from a stop under the South Street Bridge. In addition to the R1 Airport Line, the station will be served by other regional rail trains operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority. There will be direct access to SEPTA's R-2 Marcus Hook/Wilmington line and R-3 Media/Elwyn line. Coree Randolph, communications capital projects manager for SEPTA, said the station will be the most modern in the entire SEPTA system. "The design of the station is very unique and very much state-of-the-art," Randolph said. "You can't appreciate the structure unless you go inside. It's quite a grand entrance." And Randolph added that the design caused delays because it took a longer time for the architect to acquire certain materials. "It has an airy design with bolted ceilings, covered platforms, tiled surfaces and glass enclosed waiting gates," she said. According to Randolph, delivery schedules and poor weather conditions contributed to the delayed opening. "We are all working very diligently bringing the station to the University community by April 24," he added. To celebrate the opening, Mayor Ed Rendell will preside over an official ribbon cutting on April 28 with SEPTA general manager Louis Gambaccini and SEPTA board chairman Thomas Hayward. The new rail station should also provide improved service to students who use the airport. A train ticket to the airport will cost $5, cheaper than shuttle services. Lady Liberty Transportation, one of those shuttle services, charges $8. The train stop will be open from 4:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., and tokens and trail passes will be sold between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. In addition to the train station, SEPTA is also in process of creating a "University City Circulator," which would provide bus services between 30th Street Station and the new regional rail stop, as well as other locations in the University city area. Randolph said the loop will be free to customers with trailpasses, transpasses or transfers, but will cost 50 cents for individuals without such passes. She added that the "Circulator" is still on the drawing board because additional capital funding must be found. Randolph said, however, that she hopes to have the buses running by the opening of the new station. University Transportation Manager Ron Ward said the new rail stop will be a great asset to the University. "It will benefit a lot of University employees as well as students," Ward said. "Hopefully it's going to be a pretty heavily used station."

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