Milestone reached - five thousand posts!

That puts this forum behind only Amtrak, New York, New Jersey, and Mucho Bad Transit Attitude in Boston.

'course, there would probably be a lot less activity if SEPTA didn't give us so much to talk about

You mean complain about....

JeffK wrote:'course, there would probably be a lot less activity if SEPTA didn't give us so much to talk about

Yep. The definition of a "target-rich environment."

[Bowa], I'd imagine that just about any transportation journalist worth his or her ink ought to be salivating at that beat, if not for the [stinkin'] editors.

JeffK wrote:That puts this forum behind only Amtrak, New York, New Jersey, and Mucho Bad Transit Attitude in Boston.

'course, there would probably be a lot less activity if SEPTA didn't give us so much to talk about

I prefer "Making Boston Tough to Access." Use the MBTA enough and that's what it feels like.

OCTR202
West Chester Native and former SEPTA rider.

Yep. The definition of a "target-rich environment."

[Bowa], I'd imagine that just about any transportation journalist worth his or her ink ought to be salivating at that beat, if not for the [stinkin'] editors

Richard Maloney's excellent impersonation of Iraq's Saeed al-Sahaf must be fooling all of our local news writers -- and their editors:

"There is no funding crisis - that is a godless lie circulated by those rabid dogs at railroad dot net!"

"The Route 15 trolleys are not in revenue service because we are sweeping them for clandestine listening devices planted there by the FBI in case Mayor Street were to ride aboard them."

"I have never heard of this 'Newtown'. To my knowledge, we have never operated trains to such a place. You are smoking dope."

"Speed up the average trip times on the railroad by making employees work more quickly & professionally? This is slander! Do you want to make our honorable warriors of labor cry?"


I'm laughing at the fact that there is absolutely NOTHING funny about the credibility pit that Septa has dug itself into. When only scattered iconoclasts like us can see it, that is a sure sign that the status quo will never change. The riding public is too beaten down to get worked up about it, the non-riding public is thankful that it is not the riding public, the politicos are either shamefully ignorant or merely on the take, and Septa leadership has elevated the idea of "bureaucracy first; service last" into a state religion.

Sigh.

Franklin Gowen wrote:I'm laughing at the fact that there is absolutely NOTHING funny about the credibility pit that Septa has dug itself into. When only scattered iconoclasts like us can see it, that is a sure sign that the status quo will never change.

I think the crux of that problem is that Lou Gambaccini was so good at mesmerizing the elected officials and the media (especially the Inquirer) that they believe that criticizing SEPTA management is somehow an act of disloyalty to the entire cause of public transportation.

You look at the [stuff] that's happened here the last three years or so, like the railroad's OTP falling below 85%, the outright rejection of SEPTA's Schuylkill Valley Metro plan by FTA, the Girard Ave. mess, the fiasco that followed discovery of a motion detector in Powelton Yard--in most cities, any one of these things would have brought a lot of media heat on the system and its management. But here, people are so used to kid glove treatment, so the response (especially with Moore and Deon) is to shoot the messenger if anyone complains. They make it into a dichotomy where if you raise any of these issues, you're an adversary and must be discredited totally.

I don't buy that. There's nothing inconsistent in demanding management be held to account when something gets fouled up and working the next day as an ally of management to get support for stuff like parking projects. The passengers' interest isn't always the same as management's interest.

Now there's an argument that goes that criticism of SEPTA management gets picked up by rural legislators as an argument to cut SEPTA funding, but I don't think that's been borne out in fact the last decade or so--there've been a few calls for privatization, but all the people I've heard, including those from the rural areas, acknowledge that SEPTA is underfunded--just look in the news accounts from last winter's funding crisis. Furthermore, the appearance that SEPTA is in denial about its problems could be taken by those same people as evidence spending any more money on SEPTA would be a waste.

Others argue it's unfair to ask SEPTA management to get these problems straightened out when they have to spend so much time trying to resolve these budget crises. Management plays this card a lot. But that just proves the point that SEPTA is too big and too troubled to be managed effectively, and that a major restructuring of the entire system is called for.

Your description of the credibility pit is quite apt. SEPTA told three or four different stories about the budget over the past several years, and while each change in the story may have helped them get the necessary bailout to balance the short-term budget, it cost them long-term in credibility, to the point where even Rendell doesn't trust what SEPTA has to say, and has appointed a commission to deal with transit funding and reform.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:... SEPTA is too big and too troubled to be managed effectively ...

Not only that, the managers themselves are often of such low quality that they can't even tackle the smallest of SEPTA's problems . Instead they choose to work at protecting their own turf while surrounding themselves with individuals who are even less competent, in an attempt to make their own mediocrities less apparent by comparison.

I think the crux of that problem is that Lou Gambaccini was ... good at mesmerizing the elected officials and the media (especially the Inquirer) ...

Witness my experience with a reporter (who shall remain nameless 'cause she's still on the transit beat) spending an afternoon going through piles of muck and mire for an investigative report, only to have her editor order her to drop the story.

... they believe that criticizing SEPTA management is somehow an act of disloyalty to the entire cause of public transportation ... the response (especially with Moore and Deon) is to shoot the messenger if anyone complains. They make it into a dichotomy where if you raise any of these issues, you're an adversary and must be discredited totally.

That bunker mentality long precedes the current set of drones. Remember what they did to Sharif Hall's mother, the hatchet job on Don Nigro ("we're tired of him setting our agenda", I believe the statement went) and the near accusations of libel their spokesman-cum-pit bull/hired gun Stephan Rosenfeld brought against me after my Community Voices commentary?

Pretty bloody pathetic.