2015 Papal visit

Everyone:

A good Papal Visit travel option can be offered by the PATCO High Speed Line:

PATCO will sell special round trip Freedom Card passes for $5 for one day and $10 for both days -
paper tickets will not be sold and/or accepted on September 26th and 27th...

They will accept any regular Freedom Cards on that weekend which is a good comparison to how SEPTA
will not honor any September monthly or 9/21 weekly passes to ride RRD trains on the Papal Visit weekend...

PATCO trains will run from Lindenwold and stop at Woodcrest, Ferry Avenue, Broadway/WRTC
and then terminate at 9th-10th/Locust Station in Center City on the two weekend Papal Visit days...

See: http://www.ridepatco.org/papalvisit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MACTRAXX

I see the site had some technical issues and Septa had stopped the sale of the RR passes.
http://www.septa.org/fares/special-papal-visit.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looks like they will be back on sale tomorrow morning. While they claim they anticipated high traffic, I had a premonition that they wouldn't be able to handle it.

34th Street and Everyone:

This is something that SEPTA probably did not expect - this demand of 900,000 views could indicate that these
RRD passes could very well sell out very quickly - perhaps in one day if their website could handle this heavy
traffic but as we took note to - and give SEPTA credit for quickly indicating that problems rapidly developed -
their special sales site ended up crashing...

Noting this large number I can not help but wonder how many of these passes are going to be bought up by
ticket scalpers and others that have no interest whatsoever in attending the Papal Visit and their only intent is
to place them on EBay and other auction sites to profit on these just the same as a high demand rock concert
or sports event...

The 3 day transit passes that will go on sale next week have a much larger run of 750,000 and should be easier
to get - and if these do not get sold out they should be made available for sale at 1234 Market Street and the
15th Street concourse sales office as necessary...

MACTRAXX

I'm looking at the station assignments for each line, and the assignments concerning stops from the Airport, Elwyn, and Wilmington are confusing. Trains coming from Airport Terminals go to Jefferson, while trains from Eastwick terminate at University City along with the Elwyn Line trains. The Wilmington Line trains will be terminating at 30th Street.

That leads to a few questions:

1. Will Wilmington Trains be terminating at 30th Street Lower Level, or go through University City as usual? If Lower Level, what other trains will be turning at LL, or will they be sending the Wilmington trains through toward Trenton or Thorndale instead of turning them?
2. If Airport trains are continuing through to Jefferson, where are the Elwyn and Eastwick trains going to be turned?
3. Will Suburban Station be used as a turning facility for trains on each end of the system? If so, how do you incorporate through traffic from the Airport Terminals?

BuddCar711 wrote:IMO, all of us regular riders should board the Regional Rail trains with our trans/trailpasses as a form of protest. I didn't invite the pope, so why should I have to shell out another $10.00 for a 2-day pass when I spent $101.00 for a monthly zone 1 trailpass? I really hope hardly anybody shows up for the pope's visit.

Looks like they thought about possible protests (and attempted boardings by the inevitable 10% who don't get the word); apparently anyone without a pass for that day at that station won't get into the staging area, let alone on a train.

R3 and Everyone:

The one station that interests me here is Eastwick - to me it makes no sense to run trains only serving this
station - more then likely the Airport trains will make their regular stops - but noting that Eastwick riders will
only be able to ride to University City even though Airport trains will run through to Jefferson Station/Market
East just intrigues me here...It makes no sense to force Eastwick riders off at UC in this case...

I expect Eastwick to have the lowest ridership of any of the open RRD stations on the Papal Visit weekend -
In fact I am surprised it is to be opened at all - and it is probably for the proximity of some PHL area hotels
and other Airport related amenities...

MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote:R3 and Everyone:

The one station that interests me here is Eastwick - to me it makes no sense to run trains only serving this
station - more then likely the Airport trains will make their regular stops - but noting that Eastwick riders will
only be able to ride to University City even though Airport trains will run through to Jefferson Station/Market
East just intrigues me here...It makes no sense to force Eastwick riders off at UC in this case...

I expect Eastwick to have the lowest ridership of any of the open RRD stations on the Papal Visit weekend -
In fact I am surprised it is to be opened at all - and it is probably for the proximity of some PHL area hotels
and other Airport related amenities...

MACTRAXX

There's like 10 hotels around the Eastwick Station and countless others in the area that are served by a connection with the 37 bus. Eastwick makes plenty of sense when you factor that in.

ExCon90 wrote:

BuddCar711 wrote:IMO, all of us regular riders should board the Regional Rail trains with our trans/trailpasses as a form of protest. I didn't invite the pope, so why should I have to shell out another $10.00 for a 2-day pass when I spent $101.00 for a monthly zone 1 trailpass? I really hope hardly anybody shows up for the pope's visit.

Looks like they thought about possible protests (and attempted boardings by the inevitable 10% who don't get the word); apparently anyone without a pass for that day at that station won't get into the staging area, let alone on a train.

EC90 and BC:

Here's another thought: Scalping/selling Papal Passes at open stations by those either with extra unusable passes
or bought outright with intent to resell - the trouble here is that with the high security and screening (metal
detectors and pat-downs along with a visible Police presence) does one take that chance?

I heard about a scam alert concerning the NYC Papal Mass that will take place at Madison Square Garden (Friday
9/25 at 6:00 PM) involving counterfeit tickets being sold someplace on the internet - the Diocese of New York
mentions that tickets for this event are free and distributed through churches and related groups - SEPTA should
note which stations do sell completely out and how high the actual demand for locations are so any thought
of misuse such as counterfeit passes can be watched out for to protect everyone...They will not be able to do
much about outside resales of sold out Papal Passes remembering the old rule of "Supply and Demand" especially
since Papal Passes are not refundable by SEPTA...

MACTRAXX

ExCon90 wrote: I'll bet Amtrak is glad they moved CETC to Wilmington.

What's CETC?

motor

motor wrote:

ExCon90 wrote: I'll bet Amtrak is glad they moved CETC to Wilmington.

What's CETC?

motor

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=amtrak+CETC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SEPTA is getting grilled on facebook about not accepting monthly passes during the Pope's visit, unfairly. This wasn't a decision SEPTA had any flexibilty on! Fares must be regulated because of the system capacity. The "anywhere" privileges of passes on weekends had to be suspended,there was no way around that. The costs are going to run so high, and the partial recouping of fares will only allow SEPTA to tread water. No one is profiting off this event (besides scalpers and bottled water salesmen). The Daypass for $10 is a prepaid discount offering vs. normal walkup sales, too.

The people asking for boycotts and lawsuits are absurd. The cost of a September pass covers 28 days, no different than a normal February. If people don't want to pick up the cost of 28 days, just because it usually covers 30 days in Sept, then they can opt not to buy the pass. I just don't think a $5 or $10 discount makes sense nor is in the budget to give back all that revenue and bear the brunt of the full service.

The people asking for SEPTA to get them to work Sep 26 & Sep 27 are absurd. This weekend is about the Pope, not about preserving people's routine. Schools are already closing Friday and Saturday and only essential personnel will be required to make it into town. These personnel become an employer's responsibility, and many of them will have cots and extended shifts to help make this work. Non-essentials will not only not be required to work, I can guarantee many offices will be locked and no one will be working.

Today's generation as all about ME, ME, ME.

From the moment they wake up, they post narcissistic photos of their breakfast on their Facebook, and send news updates about themselves all day long as if anyone cares. Everyone has some degree of the Kim Kardashian / Paris Hilton syndrome.

Nobody thinks about the greater good of their community or country anymore.

That, and the fact there are too damn many lawyers. I'm surprised Allen Rothenberg hasn't started a class action lawsuit against SEPTA yet (because the Pope is violating the personal freedom to commute to work on the weekend)

Maybe to eliminate the perception that they are screwing the regular passholders (some of which need to get to work that day), SEPTA should allow anyone purchasing a weekly or monthly trailpass to get a $10 credit if they turn in a papal pass with their expired pass. A Saturday and Sunday papal pass would allow the maximum $20 credit for a new pass. Just a thought.

Further to Launcher's post above: It seems that a lot of people simply do not grasp the magnitude of what's going to hit Philadelphia that weekend. No one--NO ONE--should count on having a normal weekend on those days. Getting around on SEPTA Regional Rail was nearly impossible on the day of the Phillies parade, and people don't come from all over the world to see a Phillies parade--but that's where they'll be coming from that weekend. People will be coming from ROME to Philadelphia to see the POPE! Go figure ...

silverlinerfan22 wrote:Maybe to eliminate the perception that they are screwing the regular passholders (some of which need to get to work that day), SEPTA should allow anyone purchasing a weekly or monthly trailpass to get a $10 credit if they turn in a papal pass with their expired pass. A Saturday and Sunday papal pass would allow the maximum $20 credit for a new pass. Just a thought.

Trust me if you need to get to work that day and you are not "essential personnel" and can't get off, you're getting screwed anyway cause SEPTA is going to be in the transport people to see the Pope business those two days and pretty much nothing else. It wouldn't surprise me if they shutter low priority routes or reroute/truncate other surface routes to act as feeders to rail routes to maximize the personnel that they have to work with.