A real estate developer wants to build 600 homes and a commercial area on a "couple of old parking lots" in a former industrial site along New Jersey's Delaware River shoreline.

The developer, however, can't get financing until he gets an agreement that New Jersey Transit's River LINE trains will stop there.

Such is the power of transit to influence economic development, Alfred Fazio, general manager of the River LINE said Wednesday.

Fazio was preaching to the choir. His audience of about 50 planners, officials and business leaders at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square was assembled by the Modern Transit Partnership. The partnership has tried for nine years to establish a commuter rail line between Lancaster and Harrisburg. Read more