The orange cones are gone.
And they've been replaced with a chain-link fence.
Brace yourself, we're about to enter Pope-Mania.
Actually, after a conversation yesterday with Upper Darby Police Capt. Tom Johnson, I'm felling a lot less dread at what awaits next weekend.
Johnson reached out after I blogged yesterday morning about the orange cones that popped up overnight to prevent people from parking along the R3 railroad tracks on Cottonwood Lane, the little street that runs from the Daily Times building to Oak Avenue, where the Wawa and Primos Train Station sit on either side of the street.
As I figured, the cones were part of the pope preparations. Later in the morning, a SEPTA crew removed the cones and replaced them with a chain-link fence.
It's pretty simple really. On most days, there is no barrier between the street and the railroad tracks. To make sure no one wanders onto those tracks, the fence will be up through the pope weekend.
Primos is one of several 'Ground Zeroes' in terms of regional rail traffic. Only 18 stations on SEPTA's regional rail lines will be in use, and just four in Delaware County. Those are Marcus Hook on the Wilmington Line, Radnor on the R5 Paoli line, and Media and Primos on the R3 Media-Elwyn route.
In other words, basically right in our front parking lot.
We're basically giving our front lot to Upper Darby and SEPTA police, who will use it as a command center. Johnson is the head of that detail.
He confirmed yesterday something a lot of us have been thinking the past week or so. The numbers of people who will be using the regional rails - in particular here in Primos - are not going to come close to the initial estimates.
SEPTA first predicted as many as 10,000 people would descend on the area to get on the trains to be ferried into the city for the massive events tied to the visit by Pope Francis.
Then they started selling the passes. Guess what? The numbers are way down. Tickets will remain on sale through next Thursday, but as of right now, SEPTA reports only selling about 3,400 passes for people using Primos station. And that's for Saturday and Sunday combined. That's a far cry from the 10,000 both days they expected.
For that reason, Upper Darby is no longer going to shut down Oak Avenue, which crosses the tracks at Primos Station. There likely will be a bit of a crunch early in the morning both days, as people arrive to board trains, and again at night when they come back out. But Johnson does not envision much more traffic than a normal work day would see.
I was envisioning trouble getting people into and out of our building. Both Cottonwood and Mildred Avenue the little streets that bring you back to our building from Oak and Providence avenues, are still expected to be closed, but even that may change. That decision will be made later next week.
For now, I feel like we're in good hands with Capt. Johnson.
Any way you look at it, it's going to be a historic weekend. It's time to enjoy the ride, even if the commute might be a bit bumpy.
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