Camden County
Camden county is a fairly small county in terms of land area, comprising 220 square miles of New Jersey’s 8700 square miles. However, following in the general spirit of New Jersey, despite Camden’s size it boasts a very high population density at over 2000 people per square mile, which is nearly twice the average in New Jersey. The total population of Camden is over 500,000, most of which is mainly in the northwest half of the county.
This population skew is clear from the diagram above, as the population density is greater for the darker shades of green, and is greatest in the very northwest tip of Camden city, directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Despite the very high crime rate and the lowest per capita income (in New Jersey), the city of Camden is the county seat and still the heart of the county. Camden county holds many of the suburbs to Philadelphia, including Cherry Hill, which is one of the less densely populated municipalities just outside of Camden.
Overall, there are 37 municipalities in Camden county, shown in the map to the right. Again, it is apparent from the map that the majority of the population resides closer to Philadelphia and the northwest region of Camden.
Land Use
Camden county lies in the Delaware River valley area and is a alluvial plain area. It is generally flat and low lying, meaning that it would be excellent in terms of geography for implementing a PRT network. There are minimal hills, and in terms of construction of the PRT paths it is very convenient to not have to worry about highly variable elevation. Approximately half of Camden is developed, while the southern half it primarily rural. The area near Philadelphia is all developed quite expansively, but still has room to grow and for improvement – much of which would be brought on by the PRT network.
Current Transportation in Camden
Right now, the great majority of transportation in Camden is conducted through the driving of automobiles. In fact, 75% of commuters drive to work alone! Another 10% carpool with coworkers or family and another 10% commute by means of public transportation. These figures are evident in the chart below.
Of course, to accommodate all of these drivers, there must be a serious system of roads and highways to move everyone around in a relatively speedy fashion. The main artery used in order to get to Philadelphia is the connection between 676 and route 30, which takes you directly from Camden to Philadelphia. 295 also runs Northeast to Southwest through the eastern portion of Camden county. However, the very nature of driving, which includes rush hour traffic and accidents, prevents this network of roads from being as effective as it may have originally been planned; ultimately resulting in the notorious New Jersey traffic jams.
To alleviate some of this traffic and the resulting headaches, as well as offering an alternative means of transportation, there is some public transportation available in Camden. Most of this deals with transportation from the cities and suburbs of Philadelphia. There are numerous methods of travel from Camden to Philadelphia, including the NJ Transit line going all the way from Atlantic City to Philadelphia and
passing through Camden on the way. This line also branches off to incorporate Cherry Hill, a large suburb of Philadelphia, into the rail line going into the city.
Also available in terms of light rail service is the Patco Speedline, illustrated below and keeping the region moving! The PATCO line is another alternative to getting to Philadelphia for work and play, offering different stations than those of the NJ Transit
Lines. The PATCO system also offers a ferry service across the Delaware River to get to Philadelphia and back again to New Jersey. This is another convenient alternative, but is only offered half of the year due to the winter weather in the Northeast.
Yet another form of public transportation is the bus system in place in the various municipalities of Camden. This bus service, however, is not comprehensive in any sense and is geared to offer a helping hand to the elderly.
These bus systems are periodic, but not periodic enough to offer a real alternative to commuting or transportation. Furthermore, some of the bus services are offered only to the elderly or disabled. They offer weekly fixed-route shopping routes and bi-monthly mall shopping visits, which sounds nice, but it means that the buses are in operation only one or two days a week and reservations are sometimes required a day in advance.
Thus, it seems that the busing system is not a transportation alternative, but rather a convenience offered to those who are unable to transport themselves in cars.
PRT in Camden County
A PRT network in Camden would be able to serve the county extremely well. The northwestern part of the county will reap the majority of the benefits of the expansive system, as it is the mostly densely populated and served by the most stations, while the southeastern section will also be served quite well by the network even though it is less populated. Approximately 90% of the county is within 3/8 of a mile of a station, and once they arrive at a station a PRT car will pick them up and take them anywhere they please within the glorious state of New Jersey. In Camden, there are a total of 312 stations and 239 interchanges, connected by 330.55 miles of track, which will hopefully connect the 500,000 people of Camden.
An example of how the track will be laid out is given below.
As you can see, there are a series of loops going around smaller communities that are connected to each other with smaller loops made up of stations located in between the larger loops. There are also numerous cut-throughs in the larger loops so t hat you don’t have to make the full loop in order to get to the other side of the community. I think this sort of network will be extremely efficient in transporting passengers around the county, because there is a minimum of complicated interchanges where traffic will inevitably congest flow. So, if everyone is moving in the same direction within a loop, there shouldn’t be many traffic problems.
One of my first priorities in constructing this network of PRT track was making sure that there were stations at basically every school, hospital, public park, golf course, and mall. This alone made up more than 100 stations and covered a large part of the county already. From that point, I tried to fill in the gaps using the 3/8 mile guideline and construct the PRT network in an efficient and organized manner. Not every location in the county has a station within 3/8 of a mile, because it is not always worth the cost of $1M to put a station on a farm to serve one family. Also, I tried to avoid putting lots of track through parks and just locating the stations around entrances.
A very important part of the PRT system will be to serve the schools as a replacement for the bus system that has traditionally been used throughout America.
Almost one-third of the Camden population is enrolled in school, from nursery school to middle school all the way to graduate school. Making sure that these students are able to get to school on time every day will be a top priority to ensure that they receive their education.
Perhaps an even greater priority (not to put a damper on education) is allowing the 225,000 commuters to get to work every day. The distribution of travel time to work is
provided in this table and ideally, the PRT network would be able to reduce the mean travel time of 28 minutes. Even if the travel time was not decreased, the PRT system would improve travel merely by the fact that travel stress would practically disappear. You would enter the destination of your travels when you got on the PRT car and you could sit quietly and read a book or work on your laptop in a safe, stress less environment.
Service to housing is the top priority because in order to get to work and school, the PRT stations have to be close to where the residents of Camden county actually live. There are roughly 180,000 households in the county, the great majority of which are in the extensively serviced area in the northwest half of Camden. In these areas, the stations are closer together than the 3/8 mile guideline to provide easier access to the residents and to offer a good incentive to using the PRT system instead of driving.
Another integral part of the Camden county PRT network would be the integration of the PRT system with current forms of public transportation going to Philadelphia. Since the PRT would only be in New Jersey, it would most likely not be able to cross the river into Pennsylvania, so it is very necessary to have PRT stations going to train stations so that commuters can still get to Philadelphia easily without having to drive to the train station or ferry port. The bus system however, since it is very limited, would most likely be cancelled, with the superior PRT network replacing it entirely.
The PRT network would service all of the 20 parks of Camden county as well as the many golf courses and various other forms of entertainment.
Value of PRT in Camden
The potential value of the PRT network in Camden is immense. Based on the number of stations, interchanges and miles of track, the entire PRT system would cost slightly less than $1 Billion to build, assuming that a station, interchange and mile of non-urban track would each cost $1M and a mile of urban track would cost $3M. With over 500,000 people in the county, this comes out to about $2,000 per person in the county, which is extremely low compared to different counties in New Jersey. Despite this cost, the potential benefit is tremendous. The city of Camden would be entirely revitalized by a solid transportation network that offered reliable service. Travel within Camden and the rest of New Jersey would become much less plagued with traffic and the environmental costs associated with driving would be practically eliminated. There seem to be an endless number of positive externalities associated with the PRT system, including, but not limited to: being better for the environment, decreasing automobile accidents which result in both traffic and human loss, saving time, alleviating stress associated with driving and getting lost, saving money by spending less on oil and car maintenance, which leads to spending more money on other goods and boosting the New Jersey economy immensely. It seems like the PRT system, although clearly decades away from being implemented, is a win-win situation for everyone involved, especially the state of New Jersey.