I WILL SAY THIS AS A LOCAL. PEOPLE HERE ARE VERY ANGRY ABOUT THIS STATION. The politicians local and state, and SEPTA, MARC, and Amtrak promised us the world and we got shafted. The station itself is amazing. We love the parking lot and the inside of the station. However, the original plans of the station were to have completely covered access when making the transition between the inside of the station and the tracks. As you know, that did not happen. If its raining hard and you in the station waiting for the train, you still need to walk outside and you will get soaked on your way to and from the train when it arrives or is departing. Most SEPTA stations on the system have a shelter right on the tracks. It was rumored Norfolk Southern, that has a train yard right after the station protested to have a small part of the track covered over the station. Second. SEPTA only provides service to Delaware because Delaware subsidizes the service through state tax dollars and pays SEPTA to provide the service. SEPTA runs more trains on the line but terminate in Marcus Hook PA. The State of Delaware was "supposed to" authorize more funding to SEPTA so that trains operate between Center City Philadelphia and Newark DE all day instead of rush hour only after completion of the station. THAT did not happen. The State of Delaware was also "supposed to" authorize more funding for SEPTA to have weekend trains, which would make Newark become a "weekend getaway" for people in the Philadelphia region who want to take the train to Newark to walk the town and shop. It would also allow University of Delaware students to go on trips to the city or home and back on the weekends. THAT did not happen either. The City of Newark, which already operates a very small and barely used bus system, was "supposed to" dedicate city funds, while also receive funding from the State of Delaware and New Caste Count to run a 24 hour City of Newark express, limited stop, shuttle bus from the station and the park and ride at Delaware Route 4 and College Ave to the Newark Transportation Center between Main Street and Delaware Ave in town. THAT did not happen. The City of Newark and the University of Delaware were "supposed to" work together to dedicate funds build an actual bus station with a climate controlled fully indoor shelter at the Newark Transportation Center in town. Then also work with Greyhound to bring them there. THAT also did not happen. Lastly, the State of Delaware, the State of Maryland, and the City of Elkton MD was "supposed to" continue to work with MARC during and after the station construction to bring MARC service to Newark Station in addition to MARC, the State of Maryland, and the City of Elkton MD dedicating funds to build a new station in Elkton for a stop there. THAT also did not happen and MARC does not even have any plans to extend its service to Newark DE other than talks. That original plan was to also build a station on the MARC side of the line in Northeast MD (a town) and Charlestown MD, which would have been between Elkton and Newark. So yea, us locals here are pretty mad. The station is nice but it is locked up on the weekends and when trains are not running and you still have to take a bus or drive to Wilmington on the weekends to catch a train. We are very frustrated. Instead of putting Newark on the map as a major transportation and a gateway to Philadelphia, they built the station and basically told us we should be happy with that and to not complain about all the stuff that they chose not to do. Lots of BS involved in building this station. The private company who built it laughed all the way to the bank with all the government funds they were awarded to build the station while the locals who wanted better transit got shafted !!!

I used to work for the town. The whole justification for the bus route is ADA access and parking minimums. There used to be a surface lot where the expansion was. The town didn't want the courthouse to be built without including parking so they settled on the pennington garage being built. Ironically, the pennington garage is barely used during the working hours.

What an awesome crossover! I’ve never been to Leesburg but seems like a very pretty place. Though I don’t know about it being better than ALX lol

Worcester Cathedral in England was built in 1050, only 726 years before the USA even thought about becaming a country.

This is why nova is cringe

If it was actually named after Robert E Lee, there would be a movement to change it. Dude might be related, but it’s not him so it’s fine

It's a shuttle for people on jury duty, a pool of people which often skews elderly. People can be mobility challenged without needing a wheelchair.

Loudoun Transit is an utter enigma. A bus system in the richest county in the United States, whose busiest routes are strange affairs like the courthouse shuttle. Glad to see more Loudoun Transit (or just local bus) content and I wish I could have been there!

I have a pretty good idea why this shuttle exists: court time is really, really expensive and hard to get. And it makes sense to spend money to remove every possible obstacle from people making it to court. Subsidizing a bus so that there is a smaller chance that someone will get delayed 15 minutes and a hearing has to be delayed for another 3 months actually makes sense. This is the same reason a lot of rural transit agencies have long routes to towns with hospitals---subsidizing a bus route for $100 an hour for three people makes a lot more sense than subsidizing an ambulance for $1000 an hour for one person.

Having traffic lights turn off at night is pretty common in small towns. Theres not many in the DMV, but theres one in College Park

I feel like this exists because some local politician didn't want to walk 2 blocks...

Welcome to Leesburg! Did not even know this shuttle existed, but I do know Loudoun County Transit does operate several routes solely in Leesburg (I'm pretty sure). I also did Amazon delivery for a while, but also grew to not enjoying it mostly because I was delivering in the dark too much 😂)

The cutest bus route on Earth.

We are cooler then Alexandria

This was so fun to film with you! Thanks for letting me tag along! Excellent video, as always!

Then the system has failed badly

Why doesn’t your videos get more views, keep on going 🔥🔥🔥

7:25 - To the south of this SEPTA station had been Newark Chrysler Assembly plant.

Any guess when the rail festival will be in 2025? 👀

Amazing Vid👍 Got here from your Instagram page. 😅

Great Video Sammy, keep up the good work

Joe Biden:I did that !

@JoeBiden

So my home is sub par land use? Okay Gen Z.

Great video! I used to live in Bristow and frequented old town a lot. I now live in Fairfax which is much busier and sometimes still visit some restaurants in the Manassas area. Looking forward to more VRE service to Manassas.

@4:45 it's the "number" of trains, not "amount" trainsets are countable, discrete values.

So is the MARC line feasible since the MD state line is less than a few miles away, if that?

Manassas is a very Lovely City. It Reminds me of Falls Church in many ways. The people are friendly. And they got a great restaurant scene. Hopefully they continue to improve its transit connection. Thankfully the VRE has its plans set. Not sure about PRTC/OmniRide’s future plans.

excellent. we need more immigration to former confederate areas to moderate them.

Too bad it has poor connectivity to nearby towns VRE is pathetic and regional bus service doesn’t exist

There needs to be more Amtrak trains stopping at the Newark,DE than just 3 in each direction. 15 Amtrak trains in each direction stopping in Newark,DE would be reasonable.

I love the trial into urbanism content! A bit heavy on the demography in my opinion, but I imagine that has to do with the school project angle. I hope to see more like this!

Awesome video! Love the deep dive into Manassas!

Maybe a similar video about Leesburg, VA? Seems to have a larger downtown space (but no easy DC transit connection)

Very interesting video! I definitely have a thing for smaller towns off the beaten (tourist) paths. I had no idea that towns being their own political entity outside of counties was so rare in the US. Here in Germany it‘s practically the norm for all cities of over 100.000 people (and some below that figure) to be independent. It feels wrong for cities like Chicago to still be county seat of something, instead of standing on their own. If you‘re interested in seeing a comparable commuter belt environment in my neck of the woods, including towns very similarly sized to Manassas, my second most recent video dives into that

MARC wants to turn back trains at Silver Spring. Would be weird for Brunswick trains to do the one stop, but it would make sense for some Manasses trains to do. I also guess MARC Cumberland service would be kind of like Metra’s Rockford service with maybe a few more stops (Union, maybe Silver Spring, Rockville, express to Brunswick, then local would probably be the best stopping pattern-although I think the Cumberland service is more centered on people beyond Brunswick to sporting events and people closer in to be able to do weekend day trips to Harper’s Ferry)

I live near Harrisburg which is a decently sized metro area (43rd in the nation), yet I consider all DC suburbs to be walkable compared to Pennsylvania suburbs for the sole reason that they have sidewalks. In PA our suburbs feel very rural so even though an area is developed, the roads are usually windy “country-like” roads surrounded by trees making walking anywhere dangerous since almost no roads have sidewalks. Consider yourself lucky to be in an area like that because Pennsylvania suburban sprawl consists of building development all separate from each other along a country road and not upgrading the infrastructure or taking down trees.

Super informative view of Manassas! Thanks for the great data driven overview!!! Would you live in one of the inner Old Town North or South neighborhoods??

Another banger, great job! I live in another independent city in VA, Richmond City and I'm lowkey fascinated as to why that isn't a more common setup. Maybe you could do a video about the pros and cons in the future.

I love this video and I am glad I found it. You earned a sub! I love Newark as I went to undergrad at UD and grew up about 20ish minutes from Newark.

I thought building a spur of the Manassas Line to Dulles Airport would have been a better investment than the Silver Line, but alas, that was never on the drawing board. I do think that Manassas and Culpeper are underrated due to their Amtrak Crescent Line and NEC service. Manassas obviously has VRE too, but until it is expanded from commuter-only, it adds little value to me.

Ah, so this is a project for school? I was wondering why it was slightly different content. I like it, especially that you managed to take some dry data and present it in an interesting way. I understand more about the region than when I started! It would be interesting to see more content like this, although of course trains and transit are my favorite content.

I love the old clip when you was a kid.