I appreciate that SEPTA posts customer service representatives throughout the system to help befuddled riders. But I do wish they would staff their kiosks more often. Yesterday afternoon, for example, I passed three separate empty kiosks as I walked from the regional rail in 30th Street to the Market Frankfort El across the street.

A lot of people tell me they don't ride SEPTA because it's dirty.  Sure, SEPTA's dirty, but so are cities.  What do you expect?

Last weekend and this weekend, El riders going to West Philly and beyond have to transfer to shuttle buses.  In the past, we had to take the El out to 46th Street (or transfer to the shuttle buses at 40th Street).  But this month, SEPTA has shut down everything west of 30th Street for two straight weekends.

The extension of the shuttle buses will allow crews to install train signal cables at the subway portal at 44th Street and inside the tunnel at 40th Street Station as part of the Market Street Elevated (MSE) reconstruction project. Rail mounted work cars will assist with this installation.

As a result, regular Market-Frankford Line train service will only operate between Frankford Transportation Center and 30th Street Station during impacted weekends.

Since I moved, I've become mostly a trolley and bus guy.  But I remember how irksome the darn shuttle buses were.  Not too much longer, they say....

SEPTA announced last month that it would now be selling NJ Transit tickets.

For occasional trips, joint tickets can be purchased at over 80 NJ Transit Stations, the NJ Transit Ticket Machines at Amtrak 30th Street Station, and from SEPTA Ticket Offices at Market East and Suburban Station. Coming this fall, customers will also be able to purchase joint tickets at SEPTA’s 30th Street Station Ticket Office.

Nice to see a little interagency cooperation, right? Because as my experience last Saturday showed, traveling between SEPTA and NJ Transit can be a mess.

I got to 30th Street 20 minutes before my R7 to Trenton would leave. From there, I hoped to catch NJ Transit to Elizabeth to have dinner with my little brother. I waited in line for several minutes before getting to the agent.

"Elizabeth, New Jersey, via Trenton on the R7," I asked.

"TO THE MACHINE!" barked the agent, pointing to an NJ Transit machine down the corridor.

"But what about the SEPTA-NJ Transit partnership?" I asked.

"TO THE MACHINE!" she barked again.

So I went to the machine. And after waiting about 10 minutes, found that it had been programmed not to sell tickets originating at 30th Street. I was only able to purchase my Trenton to Elizabeth ticket.

Back in line to the SEPTA agent. As I waited, the train departure time came and went. Luckily, the train was running late. The SEPTA agent sold me my R7 ticket--the ticket she couldn't have sold me earlier--and I rushed to catch the train.

(The only upside to this story? Both the SEPTA conductor AND the NJ Transit conductor failed to collect my ticket. I now have a free ride to use in the future.)