1. Its obvious that you don't know how the Philly network is laid out , the Amtrak plan bypasses several tight curves in Philly and Wilmington and Baltimore that can't be straighten out. They tried coming up with plans to straighten it out but deemed them to be even more costly then the Tunnel plan.
Doubling speeds at Zoo Interlocking is more than sufficient and isn't going to cost us $20 billion, and that's the only horrendous curve that the ridiculous tunnel to the Airport will actually bypass. I'll grant you that Wilmington and Baltimore don't look great from a distance, but I'm not entirely sure how a tunnel through Philadelphia is going to fix either of those better than the $20 billion freed up from NOT building the tunnel would?
2. Market East is located within the Downtown Hub of Philly along with nearby Suburban Station unlike 30th Street which is located within West Philly / University City. So it was a great thing that Amtrak choose this route , it would spur massive economic growth in Center City Philly and even nearby Camden which is tied into Market East by the PATCO High Speed line. A Market East station would be used more and carriers more weight then 30th Street. Both Center City Stations are more used then 30th Street. As for Connections you can take the Regional Rail or Subway to 30th Street both of which run every 6-10mins and takes 5 mins.
Which, you know, logically means that you could take any of the Regional Rail options or a sanely-rerouted Keystone between those two (three) stations as well.
3. The Keystone Reverse is fine and does not need to be eliminated , it takes 5 mins at most...although they tack on a mini layover. But the locomotive does not need to be switched like Regional they use Push-Pulls. The Current Septa Tunnel would be too congested once Septa starts expanding its network and on top of that it has 2 sharp curves where the speed limit is 10mph and the clearance is very low so if Amtrak wanted to run double decker high speed units it couldn't. The Tunnels are also tighter then Amtrak Standards if i'm not mistaken....
Okay, so high-speed rail to Market East is going to be great and wonderful and worth every penny, development's going to go off like gangbusters ... but the zero-cost, zero-effort, zero-thought-required reroute of the Keystones into Market East via the Commuter Tunnel is unnecessary? Pissing 5 minutes out of a 15~20 minute layover into a cumbersome directional reverse is A-OK?
If sending more intercity traffic over to Market East is a good idea, then so is rerouting the Keystones, because you then zip out of 30th Street in 30 seconds, spend a minute at Suburban and have a 10~15 minute layover in Market East instead. And if sending more intercity traffic over to Market East is a bad idea, then the entire prevailing argument for this tunnel goes up in smoke and we shouldn't do it anyway. So which one is it? Either way, you're contradicting yourself.
4. Amtrak with the help of PA and Maryland does plan on expanding its network but out of Harrisburg and not Philly. SEPA is Septas dept , Interstate links like the proposed Harrisburg - Baltimore Penn or Harrisburg - New York via Reading and Allentown are Amtrak's dept. Then there's the Proposed Harrisburg Regional Rail Network....which is a whole different topic. Theres also the planned Delaware Downstate/Eastern Shore line.
Amtrak plans a lot of things. That doesn't mean all of them make sense, or are guaranteed to happen. And as much as you or I or anyone else would like it to not be the case, Amtrak doesn't exist in a vacuum either - there are real-world constraints and limitations on what they can and cannot do.
A reroute of the Keystone to eliminate the directional reverse and pick up one or both of Suburban and Market East Stations is something that can be done tomorrow morning. Hell, if the numbers are even THERE for this tunnel, making that change now is going to demonstrate a demand for sinking the outrageous capital cost into said tunnel!
But I don't think there's nearly enough demand for rerouting HSR into Market East. I don't think the numbers come even close to lining up - not today, not in ten years and not in 2050 when this thing has a realistic chance of getting built. It's a fundamentally flawed concept whose primary goal is solve an operational/political problem (in this case, having to play ball with SEPTA) by pouring unlimited amounts of money and concrete onto it. That's not a winning strategy.
5. The Airport line is a mess and has extremely tight curves , which why Amtrak didn't use the line and opted for its own line which will allow speeds up to 180mph not 80mph. Its the line and the capacities along with Curves on the line which cannot be fixed...it was built for Septa and not Amtrak.....
There's no reason to go to the Airport at all, that's the problem. The Airport Line exists, and it's more than sufficient for getting people from Philadelphia Airport to Philadelphia itself - but people trying to make an air-to-rail connection already have an infinitely better option in KBWI and a still much better option in KEWR. KPHL brings absolutely nothing to the table that isn't already provided by KBWI and/or KEWR.
The Tunnel and other Bypasses are needed to shave large amounts of time of the NEC journey...
Curve straightening, interlocking upgrades, saner dispatching practices, and maybe some strategically located bypasses are needed to shave time off of the trip.
This tunnel isn't.
