There's actually some cool news coming out of the latest meeting of the Delaware River Port Authority, Paul Nussbaum of The Inquirer reports that the movement to reopen 'ghost station' beneath Franklin Square is moving forward. Closed since 1979, DRPA set aside $500K in the 2015 capital budget to "reexamine" reopening the PATCO station at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge. DRPA said it would take $12M to renovate the station.
We have to admit, we kind of feel sorry for old Franklin Station. It's currently being used as a "occasional" storage facility for work being done in the PATCO tunnels. It's also been opened, closed and reopened a bunch of times since debuting in 1936.
The area around Franklin Square is brimming with activity and an active Franklin Station could be a boon for Old City, Chinatown and even Independence Mall. John Dougherty, who is leading the charge to have it reopened, said that 900,000 visitors are expected to grace Franklin Square this year. That's quite incredible when you considers it's kind of an absolute nightmare to walk to from anywhere. Let's hope that 2015 is the year we get some hard evidence that the station will be permanently reopened once again.
· Port authority in new push to reopen PATCO's 'ghost station' [The Inky]
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