The Philadelphia Inquirer published an opinion piece from its editorial board on May 25th titled “Kudos for SEPTA as it shows signs of getting back on track.” In the piece, the board praises SEPTA for some steps it has recently taken to clean up its stations, hiring more transit police officers to improve safety, and overall listening more to what its customers want.
The board then addresses the recent tabling of the parking garage in Conshohocken SEPTA was to build with PennDOT and mentions MoreThanTheCurve.com. From the editorial:
A better way to grow ridership, in Conshohocken and elsewhere, would be to encourage better land usage near the station, rather than contributing to the current glut of empty parking spaces. SEPTA could also investigate renting spots from one of the nearby garages, as proposed by local Conshohocken outlet MoreThanTheCurve.
While we are at it, the parking needs have changed along the riverfront and aren’t likely coming back to what they were pre-pandemic. The borough should be proactive and change the parking requirements in the zoning code and incentivize the owners of the office properties to convert portions of the existing parking to passive or active open space. A parking bank also needs to be created for the existing garages and surface lots and there needs to be a system put in place to incentivize sharing.