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Monday, February 8, 2010
3:00PM

Federal Funding Possible for New DRPA Rail Projects

Posted by AuthorColin at Date3:00 PM in under

There's a policy change happening at the Federal Transit Administration, and it could mean new funding opportunities for DRPA's expansions in Center City and South Jersey.

Under funding guidelines enacted during the Bush administration, neither of these projects would have met FTA metrics for cost-effectiveness as measured by reductions in commuting time or new riders attracted. But at yesterday's Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the Obama administration will revise the guidelines to weigh other factors more heavily.

The projects include a streetcar system that would operate from a reopened Franklin Square Station down Delaware Avenue, as well as a spur along Market Street to City Hall Station. The other project is a new branch of the PATCO Speedline connecting to Rowan University, Glassboro, and eventually Millville. The latter line last saw commuter service in 1976.

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12:30PM

Filling in the Center City Tunnel Will be in the 2011 Budget

Posted by AuthorColin at Date12:30 PM in under

25 years after the victory of combining two separate rail systems into a single system with Center City as a midpoint rather than an endpoint, we’ve pushed as far as we possibly could from that dream.

Multiple sources are reporting that as soon as Joe Casey signs off on it, we could see an end to Vukan Vuchic’s R designators as early as July. The plan was initially announced at the February 2 Citizen Advisory Committee meeting.

There’s often been complaints of the “confusion” caused by having two of each line, but I never bought that argument. Every subway and bus goes in two different directions, and no one gets confused. What really brings on the confusion is simply how the lines are operated. Roughly 1/3 of trains travel from end to end on their paired lines, so the pairings have become meaningless. One has to wonder if operations would run differently had the Swampoodle Connection been built and the pairing system been fully implemented.

The Transport Politic pulls no punches and calls it, “a waste of transit capacity on a grand scale, and a disappointment for the agency’s 130,000 daily riders.” SEPTA truly is wasting the potential of what could be the best regional rail system in the country. Unfortunately, rather than invest the time, effort, and money into analyzing ridership patterns and figuring out how to better adapt the current system to take full advantage of being able to through-route trains from suburb to suburb, SEPTA is going to take the path of least resistance and simply eliminate any notion of through-routing.

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Friday, February 5, 2010
10:31AM

New Storm Policy Effective This Weekend

Posted by AuthorColin at Date10:31 AM under

There's important news regarding the impending snowstorm this weekend. SEPTA has announced their new storm policy which represents an effort to prevent customers from being stranded in vehicles or at stations.

SEPTA will use GPS monitoring of trains and buses to try and predict trouble spots, and then cancel service based on predicted problems. They will update SEPTA.org and notify the news media at least one hour before actually stopping any service.

Good luck everyone, and stay warm this weekend.

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Monday, February 1, 2010
9:04AM

Rough Morning

Posted by AuthorColin at Date9:04 AM in under , ,

(Hat tip to @brimil for the photo)

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Thursday, January 28, 2010
11:13AM

Feedback: SEPTA Homepage

Posted by AuthorColin at Date11:13 AM in under

The SEPTA homepage which I called "premature" has been up for a few months now, and the bugs are getting fixed. Most of the maps now link you to the right place, and there's no more blank pages randomly popping up. Unfortunately, there's still a reflection under the SEPTA logo.

So, what do you think, now that the design has had a chance to sink in. It was panned at first, but has it grown on you? Have you found any show-stopping bugs that still remain? Leave your comments.

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Friday, January 22, 2010
2:00PM

Feedback: Pot, Meet Kettle. SEPTA sues goldman Sachs, alleging Greed

Posted by AuthorColin at Date2:00 PM in

SEPTA filed a lawsuit in Delaware this week against financial firm Goldman Sachs, alleging they pay their executives too much and their stockholders too little. SEPTA holds about $1M in Goldman stock.

This all comes down to one of the big contentions from last November’s strike: the pension plan. SEPTA feels that Goldman’s fees are excessive and that the company is not meeting its obligation to shareholders. The pension fund is currently said to be sound but not fully funded, and may require increased contributions in the future to remain so.

I’m going to agree with SEPTA on this one. Perhaps I’m slightly biased because I loathe a certain former Goldman-executive-turned-NJ-governor, but they certainly have a point:

"No reasonable director would approve, year in and year out, of awarding management almost 50 percent of net revenues as compensation," SEPTA officials said in the Delaware Chancery Court suit.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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1:00PM

Guest Post: SEPTA Tees

Posted by AuthorColin at Date1:00 PM in

Today's guest post comes to you courtesy of my pal Mikey Il.

Do you "Rep Hard?" Do you "Rep Local?" Are you a diehard Philadelphian? Do you find yourself being "that guy" - you know, the one that wears a band t-shirt while watching them live in concert? When your password routinely expires on your job's computer network, do you find yourself changing it to a series of subway stops with a corresponding, intersecting bus route? Well, if that's the case – then I have some news for you.

Cheesesteak Tees (formerly Agent Orange, formerly Agent Aloha) on South Street has a selection of three t-shirts you might be interested in. The design is a simple list of left-aligned Helvetica (or is it Arial?) text on a colored tee. The three colors correspond with the trolleys, Market-Frankford El and Broad Street Line, with lists of the stops.

So, if you do manage to get to heaven on the Frankford El, this is the way to go in style.

Mikey Il has no association with Cheesesteak Tees and SEPTA Watch isn't getting any sort of kickback for this post.

Want to write a guest post? Send it in, and if we like it, we'll publish it.

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12:47PM

Followup: House Arrest in Subway Assault

Posted by AuthorColin at Date12:47 PM in under ,

Shortly after the beating death of Sean Conroy in 2008, there was another, slightly less publicized attack.

A week after the murder of Conroy, 36, a Starbucks manager, another group of five teens was arrested in the assault of a 23-year-old woman near the concourse of the Eighth Street station on the Market-Frankford El.

…

The victim, 23-year-old Tyesha Tazwell, was injured but survived. And Stanley Poland, convicted of punching her several times in the face, was sentenced by a Philadelphia judge yesterday to 111/2 to 23 months of house arrest.

The judge decided to be lenient on Poland because he had no adult record, a 3.9 GPA, was a valedictorian, had several scholarships, and was entering premed studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

While I feel the system worked here, this is still a random act of violence. Normal, stable people don’t commit random acts of violence like this.

If you scroll through the comments on Philly.com you will find calls for kicking him out of college, locking him up and throwing away the key, etc. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be a good solution. Destroying an 18 year-old’s life when he has no previous record will likely doom him to a life of even more crime and trap him in the system eternally. I wouldn’t, however, simply impose house arrest. There should be mandatory counseling and evaluation during and after the house arrest.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010
3:30PM

Bicycle Survey

Posted by AuthorColin at Date3:30 PM under

Do you ride a bike? Do you take SEPTA? They want your opinion. SEPTA's current survey is about bicycles and SEPTA. If you have a few minutes, fill it out.

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2:00PM

SEPTA to the Navy Yard

Posted by AuthorColin at Date2:00 PM under ,

An editorial on Philly.com today talks about expanding the Broad Street Subway into the Navy Yard.

This is certainly a project that has been talked about going back as far as the earliest days of the Broad Street Subway, but like many transit projects in Philadelphia (Arch Street Subway anyone?) it never quite came to be. Until now. Maybe.

Like many other areas of our fair city, the Navy Yard is seeing a resurgence. Tastykake is about to be a major new tennant. Urban Outfitters will find a home there as well. This is on top of the already 8,000 people who work there.

The author argues, and I believe rightly so, that it's the perfect time to talk about an expansion. The Obama administration is handing out money for major infrastructure projects. PIDC conducted a feasibility study last year with SEPTA and the DVRPCC, with the outcome that the expansion is something that could happen.

Frankly, there's no reason for it NOT to happen. If the Navy Yard is about to explode once more with corporate growth, it only makes sense to invest the money now to make it even more accessible.

Plus, it would bring us one step closer to an expansion that most definitely should happen one day, and that's an expansion across the river to Gloucester City, NJ. This would also make Gloucester City a vital transit link in the region, because within the next ten years the PATCO expansion to Glassboro and Millville will be starting with Camden, Gloucester City, and Woodbury. It would make jobs at the Navy Yard and South Philadelphia more attractive to South Jersey residents because they would be able to get into South Philadelphia without having to take PATCO into Center City or NJ Transit to 30th Street.

The Broad Street Subway hasn't seen a significant enhancement since the expansion to Pattison in 1973. The potential for explosive growth is there and it would be foolish to not try and harness it.

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