Philadelphia Eagles Vs. Kansas City Chiefs - Super Bowl Transit

Everyone:

The NFL Network and ESPN2 is carrying nationally broadcast of the Eagles Championship Parade.

The crowd is currently being speculated at around two million and is spread out all along the route. The weather is as good as can be expected for the first full week of February.

As I am posting this message the team and staff are going through Center City heading for the Art Museum where the ceremonies to honor the team will be located.

I noted the posts and other news about some morning RRD trains not being filled to capacity. Going to the Parade was perhaps a gradual movement over the course of many hours.

From interviews with fans along parts of the route and earlier news coverage spectators in places have been out in some cases since last night to secure the best viewing spots especially at prime locations such as the Art Museum and Ben Franklin Parkway area.

The prime test of the rail system is still to come when the mass exodus away from Center City and other parts of the parade route will begin upon conclusion of the ceremonies at the Art Museum.

All forms of transportation will be affected and this afternoon's rush hours could be some of the busiest on record for the central Philadelphia vicinity.

It may be a good move to wait until at least some of the prime surge subsides instead of dealing with long lines at stations and extremely crowded trains. Staying later in CC can be a good option.

This will be a memorable day for Philadelphia and the Eagles fans...MACTRAXX

Thanks for the pics Bob.

From reports I've heard from those on the subway today, there was massive overcrowding at stations. It appears SEPTA's limited thought on the railroad forced most to drive into the city and hop a subway instead. For whatever reason, they chose to move less people on the railroad and run at reduced capacity with marginal access for anyone at the few stations that were open. The railroads used to be able to handle massive crowds and it seems SEPTA has no interest in doing so, maybe intentionally to make the railroad appear as an ineffective mode.

Another thought:

In some cases, SEPTA chose the furthest away station to serve, i.e. Warminster. This raised their rail vehicle mileage and meant that it would take longer to run the trains back. Had they done a smaller circle, yes, the suburban traffic would have been worse, but SEPTA could have moved many more people due to shorter trips.

bikentransit wrote:Seemed kind of silly closing 15th street.

It's the best thing they could have done.

People exiting into a packed crowd above at Dilworth Park means they wont get that far (or potentially even out of the station).

Getting off at 30th or Jefferson gives the streets plenty of space to aborb the crowd.

bikentransit wrote:Another thought:

In some cases, SEPTA chose the furthest away station to serve, i.e. Warminster. This raised their rail vehicle mileage and meant that it would take longer to run the trains back. Had they done a smaller circle, yes, the suburban traffic would have been worse, but SEPTA could have moved many more people due to shorter trips.

Warminster also has a gigantic parking lot, probably more than the other stations on the branch combined.
Also, Warminster is a crew sign-up point and a staging location for equipment, which makes it an easier service point. Add in the need to schedule meets on the mostly single track branch, and I'm not surprised it was Warminster.

I'm not saying Warminster was a bad station to pick, but bear in mind if say Willow Grove was a stop, which is close by to many large parking lots, that would cut round trip times by about 40 minutes, plus Willow Grove has the added benefit of a passing track just north of the station. I've never heard of a commuter rail agency closing their entire system due to such an event, other than beloved SEPTA. There is room for improvement.

My 2 cents is that SEPTA seems to have learned some lessons from the Phillies parade, and chose to try not to strand too many people at multiple locations that wouldn't be served by packed regional rail trains. Without doing the station specific ticketing like the Papal visit, they really couldn't forecast exactly which stations would be the heaviest. A large parking lot and a large catchment area are probably the first and second criteria.
Living along the Warminster branch, Yes Warminster is a slam dunk for a station that should be kept open if at all possible. Jenkintown has a reasonable parking lot, and hopefully the other 2 lines could stop there if they weren't full inbound. (Jenkintown's line to board was very short at 5:40 this morning, with tons of parking available)
I respect their decision to consolidate stations to speed the trains, and realize that this becomes doubly effective going outbound in the afternoon. You've got to get those trains back into town deadheading as quickly as possible. Dumping people at Willow Grove would create quicker turnarounds potentially, but would easily gridlock the streets with pedestrians if its the last stop. That would probably be effective as a extra stop if this exercise were to repeat, but I suspect the locations of the parking areas hold it back a bit.
Doylestown was the spot this morning that caught my eye. I believe the final boarding was around 7AM. Obviously as trains deadheaded back up the line for the next run, they would want to originate their next trip closer and closer to the city if at all possible. Its good thinking, even if it wasn't done particularly effectively.
As I write this at 4:30, the parkway has mostly cleared out (in my office's view) and we'll see what the evening holds.

If a train stopped at Willow Grove, wouldn’t that block several road crossings for a long time while thousands of people try to climb aboard a train?

Thousands? An 8 car train at best is around 900 riders.

Everyone:

As last week's Eagles Victory Parade goes down into history does anyone know or have heard any more about the crowd controversy of there being around 700,000 estimated celebrants? Were there any more news about disputing that attendance total?

How did routes such as the River Line operate on Parade Day last week? Will SEPTA release any data on RRD ridership like they did with the Papal Visit weekend days? Has PATCO mentioned about how many riders used the Speed Line that day?

With the BSL and MFSE not collecting fares an accurate ridership count is likely not available. Since they were the best ways to get to the Parade venues they were no doubt heavily used.

In closing was there better transit service this time around as compared to past special events?

MACTRAXX

The River LINE ran fifteen-minute headways between Trenton and Walter Rand with as many doubles as they could with their limited number of cars (20). A shuttle was operated between Walter Rand and Entertainment Center. The southbound trains that I saw in Pennsauken were crowded.

MACTRAXX wrote:Everyone:

As last week's Eagles Victory Parade goes down into history does anyone know or have heard any more about the crowd controversy of there being around 700,000 estimated celebrants? Were there any more news about disputing that attendance total?

How did routes such as the River Line operate on Parade Day last week? Will SEPTA release any data on RRD ridership like they did with the Papal Visit weekend days? Has PATCO mentioned about how many riders used the Speed Line that day?

With the BSL and MFSE not collecting fares an accurate ridership count is likely not available. Since they were the best ways to get to the Parade venues they were no doubt heavily used.

In closing was there better transit service this time around as compared to past special events?

MACTRAXX

A BBC quote puts the total amount of paradegoers at 2,000,000

I've read the 750k is pretty solid. To get close to 1.3M you really run into problems of physical limitations of places to stand/hang from. 2M is pretty difficult to quantify as you'd need crowds well down cross streets all the the way up broad. There's just not room that isn't taken by buildings.
However, if people want to believe that we had 2-3M people, I wont stop them. The atmosphere was very festive, and hopefully all had an enjoyable time.
As far as my evening experience with regional rail, I left town around 6:15PM and had absolutely no problems boarding the Warminster line at Jefferson. There was no line, plenty of seats, and the train waited for about 5 minutes after I got on before it started its run to Jenkintown. I have heard the earlier wait times at 30th street were well longer than I experienced, but I'll leave that to others to discuss their first hand experience. I was just happy I didn't have to wait around until 10PM to board.

Everyone - With the Philadelphia Eagles set to be in the 2023 Super Bowl (57) vs. the Kansas City Chiefs I decided to bring this topic back remembering the Eagles first Super Bowl victory and Parade five years ago...

Will SEPTA have a workable plan in place for a Victory Parade on or about Tuesday February 14 in the event of an Eagles victory? Can there be service improvement remembering the 2018 Parade crowds?

I was somewhat surprised of the reactions of fans from the Sunday night victory of the NFC Championship Game over the SF 49ers...Did the fans that crowded Broad Street in Center City take free BSL trains north from the Sports Complex primarily? Was SEPTA at least prepared to handle this extra ridership?

Super Bowl Sunday February 12 is going to be an interesting day in the Philadelphia region...MACTRAXX

Everyone - Super Bowl 57 turned out to be one of the closest games in NFL Super Bowl history... Kansas City Chiefs 38, Philadelphia Eagles 35 was the final score of a game decided by a last-second field goal that could have gone either way...I will go no further discussing the game to other fan venues...

It seems that few wished to mention anything about an Eagles Victory Parade until Super Bowl 57 was won... The Philadelphia parade route most likely would have been Broad Street north to Center City - City Hall and then to the Ben Franklin Parkway for a celebratory rally at the Art Museum similar to the 2018 Parade... Instead Kansas City will celebrate with a Chiefs Victory Parade in KC, MO on Wednesday February 15...

There may be some "Welcome Back" events for Eagles fans this week that may draw some interest - These will not have attendance anywhere near what a Victory Parade Celebration would have been...

With that note it is time to close the book on this subject and the 2022 NFL Football season...MACTRAXX