Proposed Service Reduction Schedules eff 1/23/05...

Follow this link to see some of the proposed service reduction schedules to be effective 1/23/05.

http://www.septa.org/news/contingency.html

Wow. Those are pretty drastic. That'll effectively slash non-commuter ridership to about zero .

I llike at the bottom they write "fare hikes" not "fare adjustment" or something else. I've never seen the word "hike" mentioned in ANY transit literature EVER. Defineitely seems they want to scare as many people as they can, and $h1t their pants over this. FIRE FIRE!!!!

I can't wait to see who blinks first......

TuckertonRR wrote:I can't wait to see who blinks first......

If only it weren't a staring contest. This is [bowa] (sorry matthew mitchell for stealing your mannerism) stupid! They are playing games with people's lives, here. 1,200 people are going to be out of work, millions will have a much harder (possibly impossible) time getting TO work. Why? Because Fay Moore wants to prove that she has a bigger Cheney than the folks in Harrisburg. It's a game to SEPTA's management (ironic word, that), and frankly, I want our team to move out of town.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but John Perzel, will you PLEASE take over another authority?

Looks like the state is going to be the one who blinks.At best, with one day left in the legislature, before they go on vacation early after voting to give themselves a raise, will not vote on any of the measures presented.

At best, they may somehow allocate $30 million for mass transit statewide. How much of that will SEPTA get?

When they reconvene in January, could they pass something then to avert all of this? Why does this matter need to be resolved now or before Nov 30th?

SEPTA is in full scare mode too. Huge banners are in Suburban Station telling riders "Your world is getting smaller". OK- what do they want us to do about it? We already had our rally in Harrisburg--no effect. Write your legislators and ask them to do something? C'mon, those guys don't read the mail.

So once again, we the riders are left out in the cold because our government has better things to do than worry about us. The whole system is barely useable now, what's it going to be like in January?

Those SEPTA officials gotta be kidding us!....Eliminating weekend transit service in a large city like Philadelphia?.....Philly is not a small city like the numerous cities all over the USA, which most don't have weekend transit service or Sunday/Holiday service at all. Remember, there is no major city without weekend transit service.

For those who drive, lack of weekend service will cause severe traffic congestion on the streets and roads; And for those who don't have a car, they will have to either walk more far, get a ride from thier relatives or friends, or pay the expensive fare for taxis cab service.

Cab fares are also going up due to the increase in gasoline costs.

I thought DART didn't operate on weekends? Or is that just after 8pm or something like that?

Last I heard, the legislature is about to break without resloving the transit issue, but Rendell may be able to divert funds somehow.

SEPTA also had another proposal to keep weekend service by increasing fares by 38%, meaning base cash fare would be something like $2.76.

jfrey40535 wrote:I thought DART didn't operate on weekends? Or is that just after 8pm or something like that?

DART First State does operate evening service on some of its key routes (ie along major hwys, Phila. Pk, Concord Pk, Kirkwood Hwy and to Christiana Mall) as well as Saturday service. There's no Sunday service in Delaware.

That said, let's also bear in mind there would still be Saturday service in the SEPTA region if there's no SEPTA service on weekends; Pottstown Urban Transit (which is separate from SEPTA even though it's in the SEPTA operating district) would not be affected.

Getting back on topic, it looks like most of the R5 Paoli cuts are evening trips; most of the peak and mid-day trips appear to be safe for now...

It's a good thing I don't have to rely on the #591 anymore, because I'd be royally screwed...

^The schedule for the R3 West Trenton looks like it got similar cuts. The last train of the day will be the one that arrives at 30th Street at 7:12 p.m. (#388), because it would arrive in West Trenton at 8:14 p.m., which is the closest to their proposed 8:00 p.m. service cutoff.

Boy am I glad that I'm out of grad school now... this crap is going to play hell with Drexel's grad school programs, most of which hold classes at night from 6-9 p.m....

This is not an entirely new suggestion but just in case some Septa officials might be reading this material here goes. Septa will NEVER get adequate funding from the state until its suburban legislators feel heat from their constituency which will not happen if weekend railservice or inner city transit takes a hit. That will affect primarily city residents who are Democrats and are already on board for adequate funding. What will upset the Republican constituency in the suburbs and therefore their state representatives in Harrisburg is the shutdown of rail service during the week. I would like to suggest that Septa run its usual full service for as long as it can and when the money runs out shut down the WHOLE system, all of it, until the state legislature establishes full dedicated funding. No funding, no suburban rail service. When the suburban commuters start screaming bloody murder the legislature will "revisit" the issue. NO funding, NO transit. Even politicians should be able to fathom that.

kevikens wrote:I would like to suggest that Septa run its usual full service for as long as it can and when the money runs out shut down the WHOLE system, all of it, until the state legislature establishes full dedicated funding. No funding, no suburban rail service. When the suburban commuters start screaming bloody murder the legislature will "revisit" the issue. NO funding, NO transit. Even politicians should be able to fathom that.

In my desperation I have to agree with you. Since nothing else seems to work it may take the proverbial smack with a 2x4 to get their attention.

Cutting weekend and off-peak service, even to the draconian extent proposed, will not shake things free. As noted, those cuts will hit the riders who have the least power to raise a stink.

Every time there are service reductions, people somehow "adjust", but the true costs to the region (pollution, sprawl, the rest of the standard villains) are hidden. The target then moves to the next-weakest service, and that disappears in the next round of cutbacks. The cycle continues.

It seems to me that cutting weekends would have its greatest effect on the service industries ranging from retailing to hospitals. I'm afraid we'll see region-wide what happened in my area with the Swedeland Industrial Park. SEPTA insisted on its standard 30- or 60-minute service model for the Route 95 shuttle from Gulph Mills, so the individual firms set up their own vanpools. The 95 has withered and there's now a double handful of private, fragmented services, each limited to the owner company's employees. Wanna bet we'll soon see the Franklin Mills Transit Authority and the Lankenau Hospital Bus System?

So much for "mass" transit. I'm glad I'll be retiring in a few years and moving out of this state.

Wish we could do that with the RRD or trolley lines....go buy a used RDC and run it up and down the tracks....

Wish we could do that with the RRD or trolley lines....go buy a used RDC and run it up and down the tracks....

That'd take 'em off guard, wouldn't it?

You know it occured to me that while the RRD may carry fewer people, its probablly subsidizing the bus lines. Think about it, $1.30 plus a few zone fares, which are laxly enforced, you can get from one end of the city to another. The zone fares only apply outside of the city, but we really almost need a better fare system for the bus routes so people aren't hopping about for $0.10/mile.

Not to mention all the empty buses running around all night, which SEPTA claims isn't any more expensive to run empty than it is to run a van---or a car! Its nuts that the trains and El get shutdown at midnight, but at 3am SEPTA has those articulated Neoplans running all over the place because all the compact El Dorado buses are sleeping at Frontier.

We need those stored value cards and a new fare system. That should be priority one.

jfrey40535 wrote:We need those stored value cards and a new fare system. That should be priority one.

Even though getting rid of the existing atrocity of a fare system is one of my "drumbeat" issues, nothing is going to matter, not fares, not on-time performance, not cleanliness, not schedule rationalization, NOTHING until:

1. Harrisburg provides stable funding and

1. SEPTA's current management is fired and replaced with people who know how to run a transit system.

Without those fundamental changes any attempts to fix the system will be built on a foundation of quicksand.

And yes, there are two Item 1's.