During the April 6th meeting of Conshohocken’s Borough Council, representatives of SEPTA made a presentation about the planned surface parking lot and garage planned for the riverfront near the new train station.

As we have extensively reported in the past, SEPTA is moving the Conshohocken Train Station slightly upriver and adding a crossing at Oak Street. The new station will be between the railroad tracks and the Matson Mill apartment community that is currently under construction.

The new surface parking lot will have a total of 191 spaces. The garage will have 343 spaces. The garage will be built to allow for an additional two levels to be built in the future. According to the SEPTA website, there are currently 118 parking spaces available at the station.

Once completed (without the potential future two floors) there will be an additional 418 parking spaces available at the station. Why so many?

All of the new apartments will be within walking distance of the station. The two new office buildings will bring commuters into town, but they will come by train after parking elsewhere or park at the office building’s garage.

SEPTA’s selection of Conshohocken for the garage wasn’t driven by the need for more parking due to what has been the historical use of the station. As the slide from the presentation states, the “garage location was selected to coincide with the objectives of the PennDOT I-76 congestion management project.”

MoreThanTheCurve.com has reported on this PennDOT plan before. PennDOT has been installing digital signage along I-76 that will eventually share drive times and the train schedule into Center City to encourage drivers to leave the highway, drive over the bridge into Conshohocken, and park at the station to take the train.