One of last year’s most consequential stories for Pennsylvania’s future is one that didn’t happen. The proposed King of Prussia rail extension, which would have linked Southeast Pennsylvania’s two densest and most important commercial centers, long discussed, died an ignominious death. The project held immense promise, offering an alternative to the eternal gridlock that plagues commuters on 76. However, as Kyle Sammin outlined all the way back in 2020 for Broad + Liberty, endless legal hurdles and relentless opposition ultimately led to its demise.

The KOP rail extension, which would have added 4.5 miles to the existing Norristown High-Speed Line, had been stuck in the planning stage since 2013, despite being discussed since the 1970s and receiving over $50 million from SEPTA. Following Leslie Richards’ appointment as the authority’s general manager, the environmental review for the rail extension was at long last completed; the agency awarded contracts for the final design phase of the project in February of last year.

Only a few weeks later, the project was dead. SEPTA was denied matching funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). Of the myriad projects proposed in the Biden Administration’s 2024 budget, SEPTA’s had fallen off the table. The feds expressed concerns about SEPTA’s “ability to finance its share of the project” due to cost overruns — those driven by extensive delays. 

Officials played the blame game, pointing their fingers at Harrisburg and the Collar Counties, but failing to mention the dramatic escalation in funding estimates — from $1.08 billion in 2017 to nearly triple that in 2023 — that caused the feds to hit the brakes.

The failure to build this project — and the millions of dollars and decades wasted — has tangible effects on the daily lives of Philadelphians. Philadelphia ranks a miserable eighth-worst in the country for congestion (worse than both Los Angeles and Miami), and is experiencing a significant backup as our suburbs have grown. 

The breakdown extends well beyond the rail line proposal itself, jeopardizing any major “big idea” for Philadelphia or its surrounding areas, from moving the 76ers arena to Center City to a Roosevelt Boulevard Subway, another project that has been whispered about for decades and that has received a PennDOT-backed study. The organizers of that latter effort told me that the environmental review process “needs to be shortened or expedited for transit projects,” and submitted comments to that effect to PennDOT last December. 

As I pointed out recently in the Charleston Post and Courier, other regions can look at this failure as what not to do. Regions that fail to invest in growth, and the future, are bound to face the consequences of stalling out.

The broader issue of regulations and red tape looms large. The environmental review process was necessary when the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed into law in 1970, but has morphed into a veto mechanism for any project that gathers any form of opposition — that is, all of them. Anyone proposing new infrastructure projects or development should be advocating for major reforms to NEPA.

Until NEPA is reformed, project budgets will amount to nothing but a sunk cost incurred by taxpayers, and future transportation projects will stay in the “theory” phase indefinitely. By the way, the first major reform to NEPA in decades was signed by executive order by then-President Trump in 207. You can add that to the “Trump was Right” list. 

Kyle Sammin said it best while covering the “endless delays” to the KOP rail proposal for B+L in 2020:

The biggest obstacles in railway construction in the 21st century are not geography and weather, but courts, regulators, and endless public consultations… None of the requirements, taken alone, is onerous. Taken together, and exploited by professional activists and neighborhood NIMBY-ers who would rather see nothing built at all, they freeze up development that would benefit the region and the entire country.

At some point in the next decades, our local elected officials, and the federal authorities who wield so much authority over what gets done in the country, will need to regrow the political will to build. That means saying no to endless delays, lawsuits and cost overruns. That, or our region will be left behind as others move into the future. 

Albert Eisenberg is a political strategist and native Philadelphian who runs the political agency BlueStateRed. He is an original founder of Broad + Liberty, and has been featured on RealClearPolitics, Fox, Newsweek, and elsewhere. @Albydelphia.