READING, Pa. — The agency working to launch Amtrak service between Reading and Philadelphia has approved the hiring of a consultant to work on the study required as part of that process.
WFMZ-TV reports that the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority voted on Monday to award a contract to infrastructure consulting firm AECOM to begin preparation of the Service Development Plan for the route. That document is required for routes selected for the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program; the $500,000 grant that came with selection is intended to help fund that plan. The Reading-Philadelphia route was one of 69 selected for the program earlier this month [see “Full list of passenger routes …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 8, 2023].
Authority Executive Director Tom Frawley said the agency has 10 business days to negotiate terms of the contract with AECOM, including the final dollar value.
The Service Development Plan is intended to outline details of starting the passenger service, including the timeline and estimated cost.
Excellent – another study.
Failed to notice mention of a consultation study(s) for a density factors in this corridor.
Why can’t they just dust off all the studies that have been done for the last 20 years? All you need is to rebuild a few of the station platforms on the old Reading Railroad mainline and get the NS to allow the trains. The NS has been the biggest stumbling block in all of this.
I’m retired from a federal agency. Is that a consultant to study a proposed Philadelphia to Reading Passenger line, or a Consultant to find a consultant to do the work, or a consultant to consult on a consultant to find a consultant.
This may seam like a joke (and it is meant to be), working the federal bureaucracy is like walking a maze. They make you take 20 steps to accomplish a task that could be done in 1 or 2 steps.
Layers of contractors and consultants are part of the game. Strip out professional expertise in public agencies, convert staff to contract administrators and dumb down the rest. The model is the DOD. We end up with ZERO miles of HSR while China has 42,000 km mostly built in the past 15 years.
Government exists to make certain the minimum amount of work is done for the maximum amount of money.