Seats "out of service" on the EL

Does anybody know why all of the handicap seats on the EL are folded closed?

Is that the case on every car? I've noticed that too but only thought it was on a few cars.

Incidently, the condition of the seats is really starting to deteriorate. Any plans to fix them?

everytime I ride the El, I feel like I'm sitting on a bag of marbles or something... coushins sound like a good idea but the low lifes just crap them up for the rest of us. I love seeing the Jack Daniels bottles rolling about the cars in their paper bags. reminds me of college a bit

Yeah the conditon of the el has really gone down hill...that's why my friends call it "the smell". I'm sure SEPTA made a good effort to keep it clean but the people are such slobs!

The seats were one of the issues when the els were brand new; putting cloth seats in them is an invitation for people to just rip them to shreds, spill beer & whatever else on them. I thought I read somewhere Septa was planning to replace the cloth with plastic, BSL-style seats. They can't do that soon enough. As an infrequent el rider, the condition of those trains now is as bad -if not worse- than the previous cars. The only consolations are a. air conditioning b. better insulation so you dont hear the racket going over crossovers.

More than that, I think it's indicative of an overall decline in the city as a whole. SOMETHING must be done about it, or we'll have another downward spiral where the _only_ users of the system will be the transit-dependent users, all others fining alternate means of transport.

The whole quality of the El is pretty bad now. I don't know if run times are less frequent now than years ago, but it seems like if you're not riding peak times or mid-day, you're waiting quite a while for them. Plus they gotta do away with that midnight shutdown policy. You can't even go to Center City for a night on the town now and stay late because you'll miss the last train out.

At the very least, SEPTA should consider running the El an additional hour or so on Friday and Saturday nights.

But overall, the El has become dirtier and less pleasant to ride. 13th Street is finally getting a renovation though, and I must say Frankford Terminal is a great improvement.

Did they give up on finishing the western portion of the El?

I don't have the exact citation but I have heard that headways have been increased on the El as well as other lines (see the thread on the Rte. 100 local-service only policy, for ex.) It's simple economics - somewhat fewer riders during the summer, no apparent action from Harrisburg to plug the deficit, so try to save some bucks by running fewer trains. Of course, by that reasoning, the savings could be maximized by running no trains at all, but that's another topic...

The cloth seats really were mind-boggling from the start. Yes, they were more comfortable than plastic but all it took was a few yahoos to dump a soda here and a pizza slice there and presto, it's Grot City.

AFAIK plans for the west-side renovation are still in place. There has been a lot of back-and-forth over the effects on the businesses whose foot traffic has been reduced by the construction work, and there is of course the swamp of pay-to-play politics to negotiate. Progress could be slowed but I don't have any info one way or the other.

I agree about the later service, but you probably won't see anything till there's more money in the coffers, and maybe not then given the mindset at 1234. I found it interesting that when the Inky ran a survey of reasons why new college grads left the city, lousy public transit was fairly high up, maybe 4th or 5th on the list. When I worked in CC, there were several times I got into, shall we say, disagreements with New Jersey coworkers who couldn't understand why it wasn't practical for me to stay "just a few more minutes" when we had a late project. I literally had one person say "What's the problem? There'll be another train every 10 minutes or so till midnight, right? Doesn't SEPTA work like PATCO?"

PHHHTTBBBTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

JeffK wrote:I agree about the later service, but you probably won't see anything till there's more money in the coffers, and maybe not then given the mindset at 1234. I found it interesting that when the Inky ran a survey of reasons why new college grads left the city, lousy public transit was fairly high up, maybe 4th or 5th on the list. When I worked in CC, there were several times I got into, shall we say, disagreements with New Jersey coworkers who couldn't understand why it wasn't practical for me to stay "just a few more minutes" when we had a late project. I literally had one person say "What's the problem? There'll be another train every 10 minutes or so till midnight, right? Doesn't SEPTA work like PATCO?"

PHHHTTBBBTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

I really do not see what the big hub-bub is all about with SEPTA offering late night OWL service. I use owl service to the AMTRAK each morning, and never are these buses crowded or standing-room only.

Having late night service is much safer than having people wait in sparsely populated rail stations, and saves money by allowing SEPTA to perform rail construction projects overnight without service disruptions. In addition, the night owl service has 15-20 minute frequencies......much more service than would be offered if trains were still on the rails at that hour....

Does anyone know why SEPTA always runs 6-car sets on the MFL? It seems they could save money by running shorter trains during non-peak hours, like they do in Chicago.

Maybe they could start by running a few 2-car sets between 2 and 3 AM Fridays and Saturdays, to get the after bar croud home safely. It seems to me that way they could get drunk people off the road, improve their image somewhat as a transit agency and probably wouldn't disrupt too many construction projects.

Jbad wrote:Does anyone know why SEPTA always runs 6-car sets on the MFL?

IIRC, they don't want to bother with breaking up and making sets, which I don't blame them for. I don't think running 6 as opposed to 2 or 3 would be that much more in operationg costs. Plus, I don't think this is the reason for no 24 hour service.

I really do not see what the big hub-bub is all about with SEPTA offering late night OWL service. I use owl service to the AMTRAK each morning, and never are these buses crowded or standing-room only.

Until about 1:30am they are often standing room only.

Even in Tokyo their subway shuts down at midnight. It's a lot easier to do maintenance without trains running 24/7.

I used to ride the EL and Subway at late hours and never had problems. When you ride a 3 am, you know the schedule. I never had to wait more than 5 minutes. It was great. They collected the fare on the train at all stops outside of center city to save money. Septa sighted crime as one reason for shutting down. However, considering that trains only ran every 20 minutes, you could easily have one police officer per train during overnight hours. They also ran shorter trains. Usually just 4 cars. I think they should go back to a 24/7 system. Running all those buses is slow and does not save money.

But, if we can't get 24/7, I agree that Friday & Saturday service should go to 3:00 am. Bars and restaurants close at 2am. Give the patrons and workers a chance to catch the last train.

worldtraveler wrote:I used to ride the EL and Subway at late hours and never had problems. When you ride a 3 am, you know the schedule. I never had to wait more than 5 minutes. It was great. They collected the fare on the train at all stops outside of center city to save money. Septa sighted crime as one reason for shutting down. However, considering that trains only ran every 20 minutes, you could easily have one police officer per train during overnight hours. They also ran shorter trains. Usually just 4 cars. I think they should go back to a 24/7 system. Running all those buses is slow and does not save money.

I think that crime in the stations is more of a concern than crime on the trains. With the OWL service on the surface, the police department can patrol stops just like patroling the rest of the streets.