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SEPTA Takes Delivery Of Last New Silverliner Car

By Joel Mathis   3/21/2013 Comments  1    |  
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The Inquirer reports:
 
 
SEPTA received its last Silverliner V railcar on Wednesday, completing the long-delayed delivery of 120 new cars purchased in 2006 for $274 million.
 
 
The total cost, including spare parts and associated training and management, is $330 million.
 
 
The last railcar was nearly three years late, as production snags - including material delays, design flaws, labor-management disputes, and workmanship problems - put delivery far behind schedule.
 
Yes, but doesn't Regional Rail feel so much more luxurious now?

New “Cultural Corridor Line” Would Speed Philadelphians Between City’s Top Attractions

By Joel Mathis   3/18/2013 Comments  6    |  
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The bright bloggers at the Philadelphia Planning Department offer a preview of the "Cultural Corridor Line," a "rapid bus line" that would transfer passengers speedily between the Delaware Waterfront, past the Barnes and Philadelphia Art Museum, all the way to the Mann Music Center. The line is being proposed as part of the full Central District Plan scheduled for release on Tuesday.
 
 
 
 
The planners write:
 
The Cultural Corridor Line will not only connect important attractions, but its service will fill an important transit function – bringing rapid service to the northwestern Center City for the first time (the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Logan Square and Fairmount neighborhoods). To do
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The New Pope Must Ride SEPTA

By Dan McQuade   3/15/2013 Comments  0    |  
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"Habemus Papam," Cardinal Jean-Louis Pierre Tauran said from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on Wednesday. Nobody knew what he meant, because it has been oh-so-long since high school Latin. Anyway, we have a pope!
 
 
As you can tell from this screenshot from the local news, people in Philadelphia were quite enthralled by the whole process:
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Say Goodbye to Tokens, Hello to Fare Hikes

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood   3/14/2013 Comments  2    |  
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Starting July 1, as SEPTA's been warning us, fare hikes will increase. Cash payments for city transit will go from really convenient $2 to not convenient $2.25. Tokens will cost $1.80 instead of $1.55. But if all goes according to plan, all that change-fumbling will be short-lived, as "smart cards" are set to replace tokens altogether by the end of the year. (Some 'contactless' credit cards and smartphones will also be equipped to pay SEPTA fares.) Then, on July 1, 2014, when the new system is fully implemented, and tokens are completely phased out, fares will rise again, to $2.50
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These Philadelphians Really Don’t Like the Flower Show

By Dan McQuade   3/08/2013 Comments  1    |  
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I only have bits and pieces, but what I remember is vivid. I was six, I think. I'm standing in the middle of the street, freaking out. My mom is pulling me, but I'm not moving, paralyzed with fear. People are yelling. I am holding up traffic, I think. The tall buildings seem to swirl around me. I'd lost a baby tooth in the middle of Filbert Street.
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Every Step You Take, Every Move You Make, SEPTA’s Watching You

By Joel Mathis   3/06/2013 Comments  2    |  
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Forget Big Brother. You know who really keeps an eye on Philly? SEPTA, that's who. (Or, as we'll be referring to it from now on: "Big Busser.") According to a report from Technically Philly: "The Police Department‘s 24-hour Real Time Crime Center has access to 1,798 surveillance camera feeds, nearly 90 percent of which are SEPTA cameras at subway stations, bus stops and regional rail lines, said Mike Vidro, the city’sOffice of Innovation and Technology staffer who oversees the Police Department’s surveillance camera efforts. The Police Department has had this level of access to SEPTA’s cameras for nine months, Vidro said."
 
 
The story adds:
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Census: Philly Commutes Are Longer Than The National Average

By Joel Mathis   3/06/2013 Comments  1    |  
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The Inquirer reports on the state of commuting in Philadelphia: "Philadelphia draws 253,000 workers from outside the city every day, while sending 147,000 city residents on "reverse commutes" to the suburbs, according to census data released Tuesday. The numbers also highlighted the importance of public transit to local workers: 25.6 percent of all workers in Philadelphia used transit to get to work. That compares with just 5 percent nationwide who take transit to work. The estimates released from the American Community Survey also showed the average one-way commute to work for people living in Philadelphia was 31.5 minutes in 2011
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Man Killed by SEPTA Train at Tasker-Morris

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood   2/28/2013 Comments  0    |  
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Last night, just before 7 p.m., a man accidentally stumbled onto the tracks at the Tasker-Morris SEPTA station, at which point he was fatally struck by a northbound train. This is the latest in several recent incidents: In late January, a man fell onto the tracks at a West Philly station just a couple weeks after an apparently deranged man heaved an unsuspecting woman from the platform in Chinatown. (Both survived, in those cases.) [Fox 29]

Weirdly, SEPTA Earns Praise from the New York Times

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood   2/25/2013 Comments  2    |  
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Philadelphia is the only major city in the country that still uses subway tokens. AND YET. The New York Times compares SEPTA favorably to the mighty MTA, which runs 24/7, has MetroCards, and is mostly piss-free. The gist of the piece is that the MTA has had bad old MetroCards for 20 years now, and still can't evolve to swipeless touch-cards.
 
The setback has placed New York City behind the pace of emerging contactless transit systems in cities like Chicago and even Philadelphia — where tokens have long been prevalent — burdening an already aging system with a fare card that
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Check Out the Secret Underground Tunnel Beneath the Parkway

By Joel Mathis   2/14/2013 Comments  0    |  
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Curbed Philly reports: "Largely unbeknownst to many, beneath Pennsylvania Avenue lies a massive undeveloped tunnel that stretches from 27th Street all the way down to the heart of Center City." You should check out the photos they have posted on their site.
 
 
This could be just another piece of interesting urban anthropology—the tunnel was used to move massive rolls of paper to the Philadelphia Inquirer's printing plant back in the olden days—except, Curbed reports, the now-SEPTA-owned tunnel has marked for possible development as a "high-speed underground bus line."
 
 
Curbed adds: "With the potential of an upcoming Center City development boom, this could
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