Regional rail (and baseball!) to come to West Chester?

Came across this little item, buried in the middle of the latest entry on SEPTA Watch:

The suburbs turning to transit oriented development?
In a sign that suburban communities are getting more serious about transit oriented development, there have been several recent reports about communities looking to improve their regional rail stations.
...
Meanwhile, West Chester University, which last saw trains come to town in 1986, is begging SEPTA to restore service back to its town.

What? That would be awesome! I've spent many hours staring out the R5 window, concentrating my envy on little villages like Malvern that seem to be constructed around their train stations. I would kill to be able to walk or bicycle to a stop in West Chester, and it seems like there are plenty other people like me. Check out the petition going around WCU (via the Quad):

A petition has been started in hopes of convincing SEPTA to restore rail service to the West Chester area, a means of transportation that could change student commutes to campus and into Philadelphia.

Service was discontinued in 1986, a tough period for SEPTA economically, when rail maintenance was impossible to upkeep. However, over 20 years later, John Mckinstry, a faculty member of the Westtown Friends School, has begun a project to urge SEPTA to restore their rail service as times have changed since the 80s.
...
SEPTA is aware of the petition and the desire for rail service to be restored to West Chester and the surrounding area, but they are not the decision-maker in the situation. It is the county that needs to have the interest and therefore make a deal with Septa as the agent, according to Mckinstry.

Okay, fair enough. If we want the R3 to come back to West Chester, we've got to do it as a community. Personally, I'm down for however many borough council and town meetings that are needed to get this project off the ground. But wait, what's this other pressing tidbit of local gossip?

Mayor Richard Yoder of West Chester has interest in the petition, even as a part of making West Chester the home of a new minor league baseball team, and rail service would help in allowing fans to come to the games.

Zuh? Minor league baseball? Like, as in a Phillies affiliate playing down the street from me? Holy crap, I seldom agree with anything Mr. Yoder has done as mayor of this town, but if this is true, then allow me to be the first to jump on board this bandwagon. Hopefully, this is more than just a throwaway comment by Yoder to that Quad reporter, because it's the only place on the Internet that I can find mention of such a venture.

R3 stations and minor league baseball stadiums - if you build it, they will come!

Sign the petition!

Man, I'ma double you up

While on the way to Exton Station this morning, I was listening to this report on KYW: (I know the link says ABC but I couldn't find the story on 1060's website yet)

Detectives tell Action News that someone shot the person near the concourse at 15th and JFK.
Officers found the victim in a stairway at around 2 a.m.
The victim died a short time later at a local hospital. Right now, police are looking for the shooter.
SEPTA officials say, the investigation will not affect the morning commute.

I knew 15th and JFK was the address of the buildings where I work, but either I wasn't really awake or didn't really think twice about it. It hit me when I got off the train and was walking through the Suburban Station underground and heard this exchange:

Homeless Dude who holds the door for people at Dunkin Donuts: "Man, I'm a double you up."

Other dude: (inaudible)

Homeless Dude: "Some guy got killed down here last night, man. Yeah, I was down here when it happened."

Now, I know this might sound callous, but being in Center City and commuting to the 'burbs each day is a little like living in a bubble within the City of Philadelphia. When you hear about "the killin's" as Milton Street put it so eloquently a couple weeks ago, it's on the radio, it's on TV, it's in the newspapers, but it's not a common topic of conversation outside your workplace. In fact, it still seems like it's happening in another area. Hell, look at this map from the Inquirer that maps the incidents in the city from 2006. Up until now, these shootings HAVE been happening somewhere else -- there are dozens of blocks that make up that blank area that represents where I've been going to work every day for the past six months.

But today, some dude was shot and killed in a spot I walk through every day, six hours before I walked through there. And while it might still seem to be some sort of surreal, alien issue to me that I only hear about on the news, to the folks who can't just hop on a train out of town every day at 5PM it's a fact of life.