the sarge wrote: but 99% of the regular 15 riders do not and quite honestly, don?t care -just want to get to work on time and home by dark.
They may not care what comes but surely they care how much it costs to get on that vehicle when it comes. As of 2003 SEPTA's buses cost 81 cents per passenger mile with costs per unlinked passenger trip costing $2.20. In the same year SEPTA's LRV operations cost them 71 cents per passenger mile and 1.76 per unlinked passenger trip. By making as many heavily used bus routes into LRVs, especially very local routes like the crosstown routes and north-south routes well away from the BSS or MFL into LRV routes SEPTA can potentially realize a lower operating expenditure. Whether that savings will be passed on to us riders is another matter, but certainly it could help them with their funding woes and perhaps offset the next fare hike.
http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/Profiles. ... e/3019.pdf
kevikens wrote:...perhaps they could decide to do this on the off peak hours so that they do not delay the commuters on their way to work who need to time sensitive to their transportation.
Should railfans abide by the same requirement? Have you ever railfanned a crowded subway or trolley train and either taken up a seat or floor space which otherwise could be occupied by a commuter who 'needed' to be somewhere? Why should people whose only crime is being restricted to a wheelchair be penalized for SEPTA's incompetency in equipment selection and operator training? The PCC II's wheelchair lifts were a bad idea from the beginning. The cars are of course a thing of beauty, but the lifts mean they're terribly suited to operation on the Rt15 or any other SEPTA trolley or bus routes. Rather than griping about the need for wheelchair-bound passengers to move about without having to schedule a CCT trip, why not instead call for SEPTA to realize it's mistake and fix the one thing wrong with the 15? Now that the 15 is back it's clear that street running LRVs do not have all the drawbacks they've been painted to have in the past and there's little excuse for not pursuing the Rt23 and 56's reintroduction to trolleys. For something so extensive no PCC will suffice as not only do we not have the spare bodies, but as the Rt15 PCC IIs prove, the PCC design is just no longer acceptable for transit usage. We need a large fleet of low floor articulated LRVs, an LRV depot for the 23, 56 and possibly the 15, and we need the tracks and overhead rehabilitated in places. All of this likely could be accomplished for somewhere around a billion dollars. Considering how much western and southern systems are getting for light rail systems of much shorter length, getting the 23 and 56 up and operating, getting new vehicles for the 15, 23 and 56, and getting a new LRV yard is quite a bargain for a billion dollars. Lets drop this SVM crap, stop the ridiculous '52nd St Connector' project and go get 600 million dollars from the FTA to reduce SEPTA's operating expenses.
