SEPTA and its Problems (Pawson's take, 1979)

delvyrails wrote: Today, wheelchair passengers are but a small fraction of 1% of potential RRD passengers.

I agree that this statistic, fraction of 1%, has bearing on number of seats, or lack thereof, inside the train, but more than 1% of passengers can get advantages from level boarding, wide aisles and doors. Remember we'll all be old someday. And it takes longer, even with otherwise able bodied people, for a crowd to board and alight between low level platforms and conventionally floored vehicles than it would with equalized station and vehicle platforms.

Pacobell73,

What were the Warminster Line headways like in Conrail Reading Division days? Without the need to through-route then, I thought they were well regulated to suit the changing demand at various parts of the day with the tapering headways that were then in effect.

Here are the weekday Reading Terminal arrivals in the timetable of September 7, 1976 following the end of added services for the preceeding "Bicentennial Summer": 632am (requiring change at Glenside), 654, 733 (from Crestmont), 809, 838, 914, 959, 1046, 1150, 1250pm, 150, 249, 327, 409, 434 (from Hatboro), 514, 555, 658, 739, 815, 956, 1052, 1145, and a later Warminster-Glenside run.

Outbound from Reading Terminal: 547am (change at Glenside), 628, 731 (change at Glenside) 805, 915, 1015, 1115, 1215pm, 115, 156, 240, 314 (turned at Hatboro), 345, 415, 443, 515 (non-stop between Wayne Junction and Crestmont), 523 (local to Crestmont), 544, 609, 645, 717, 815, 915, 10l5, 1115. and 1245 (change at Glenside).

Actually, that's a few more trains than we have now when we have many more passengers.

Alas, the reality wasn't so good. Although there were only two meets then scheduled at Willow Grove siding about as scheduled now in the afternoon peak, the midday services had to be scheduled very tighly. There was a five minute turnaround for the short-turn Hatboro run, six to ten minute turnarounds at Warminster, and down-to-one minute meets at the end of double track at Roslyn. I was often disgusted at the cascading delays when I rode the afternoon trains.

Those were the days of declining maintenance. The Reading-side electrification broke down several times that I experienced or heard about, culminating in the massive weeks-long breakdown in August of 1979. during which a very few trains were run with shanghaied RDCs (which also broke down) and emus equipped with adapter couplers and drawn by Conrail diesel locomotives at a maximum speed of 25 mph. The pantagraphs were raised, for there was just enough energy from an electrical tie-line for running lights and air conditioning for the few cars with working a. c. (another issue of the times).

What a painful memory. Finally, I remember being at Warminster one afternoon when a Conrail (?) engineer with his girl-friend aboard the locomotive was running around the train. He forgot to open the derail on the crossover and ran over it, putting the locomotive on the ground. Those 1970s were lax times!

gardendance wrote:

delvyrails wrote: Today, wheelchair passengers are but a small fraction of 1% of potential RRD passengers.

I agree that this statistic, fraction of 1%, has bearing on number of seats, or lack thereof, inside the train, but more than 1% of passengers can get advantages from level boarding, wide aisles and doors. Remember we'll all be old someday. And it takes longer, even with otherwise able bodied people, for a crowd to board and alight between low level platforms and conventionally floored vehicles than it would with equalized station and vehicle platforms.

An interesting example of this came to light some years ago, when low-floor streetcars were still somewhat rare. Amsterdam borrowed one from Bremen and ran it in regular service, mixed in with its regular fleet. The low-floor visitor from Bremen regularly caught up to its leader by the end of the line; this suggests that not only did all passengers benefit by getting over the road faster, but with all low-floor cars they could have run any given line with one less car while simultaneously speeding up the trip for everybody. Presumably the same principle would apply on commuter rail.

gardendance wrote:

delvyrails wrote: Today, wheelchair passengers are but a small fraction of 1% of potential RRD passengers.

I agree that this statistic, fraction of 1%, has bearing on number of seats, or lack thereof, inside the train, but more than 1% of passengers can get advantages from level boarding, wide aisles and doors. Remember we'll all be old someday. And it takes longer, even with otherwise able bodied people, for a crowd to board and alight between low level platforms and conventionally floored vehicles than it would with equalized station and vehicle platforms.

At the low (8" high) platforms on the east side of Washington Union Station, it is interesting to watch the passengers rapidly ambling in and out of the low-floor tri-level VRE commuter cars. I really think that if more of the commuters here could go there and have that experience, all talk of the "need" for 100% high platforms for RRD would cease.

But then there might just be as much talk of an equally unlikely to attain goal 100% low level platforms. Or a fleet 100% equiped with high and low level doors.

The problem is that making the CCCT stations, Wilmington, and Trenton low-level will cause a lot more problems than making all of the others high-level.

Of course, if the ADA wasn't such a bunch of ****heads about making all platforms high-level, mini-highs would be much cheaper and work just as well, despite the fact that it might make people in a wheelchair move an extra 30 feet.

When did the feds change their interpretation of the ADA? Mini-highs were ok at one time, weren't they?

redarrow5591 wrote:1) SEPTA does not contract out its Railroad Division. The only service contract they have is with the State of Delaware/DART First State for services past Marcus Hook to Wilmington and Newark.

John had meant "contracting" as in reducing the system, not contracting operations out (ie. to Amtrak, for example).

SilentCal wrote:When did the feds change their interpretation of the ADA? Mini-highs were ok at one time, weren't they?

Yes, but you see, making handicapped people go an extra few feet is on the level of Jim Crow!

nickrapak wrote:The problem is that making the CCCT stations, Wilmington, and Trenton low-level will cause a lot more problems than making all of the others high-level.

Of course, if the ADA wasn't such a bunch of ****heads about making all platforms high-level, mini-highs would be much cheaper and work just as well, despite the fact that it might make people in a wheelchair move an extra 30 feet.

Can people understand that the ADA is not an organization. It's a law, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

oknazevad wrote:

nickrapak wrote:The problem is that making the CCCT stations, Wilmington, and Trenton low-level will cause a lot more problems than making all of the others high-level.

Of course, if the ADA wasn't such a bunch of ****heads about making all platforms high-level, mini-highs would be much cheaper and work just as well, despite the fact that it might make people in a wheelchair move an extra 30 feet.

Can people understand that the ADA is not an organization. It's a law, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I know it is a law, but there has to be people behind it that wrote the laws and revise them as necessary. I see the ADA as one of the most poorly-conceived series of laws in the nation. Why is it that SEPTA has to put in HLPs at all platforms instead of mini-highs? Why do I need to put in a handicapped space in my parking lot despite the fact that my business is up a flight of steps? The ADA shows how wide sweeping laws with no room for nuances make no sense at all.

Even worse in a practical sense is that these sweeping mandates come without funding.

nickrapak wrote:Why do I need to put in a handicapped space in my parking lot despite the fact that my business is up a flight of steps?

I agree the current interpretation of the law as mandating access to platforms and vehicles as opposed to access to transportation is counterproductive, but in your specific case, 1--some things will have to be made wheelchair-accessible before others (hypothetical example: a building plans to do an interior renovation in 2010 and must make rest rooms accessible, but plans to do exterior work and make entrance accessible in 2014), and 2--not all users of reserved parking places use wheelchairs.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:

nickrapak wrote:Why do I need to put in a handicapped space in my parking lot despite the fact that my business is up a flight of steps?

I agree the current interpretation of the law as mandating access to platforms and vehicles as opposed to access to transportation is counterproductive, but in your specific case, 1--some things will have to be made wheelchair-accessible before others (hypothetical example: a building plans to do an interior renovation in 2010 and must make rest rooms accessible, but plans to do exterior work and make entrance accessible in 2014), and 2--not all users of reserved parking places use wheelchairs.

Real example: my employer's building (served by an on-site SEPTA bus stop) is wheelchair-accessible even though no employee uses one. HOWEVER we have one person with degenerative hip disease and another with a spinal deformity who use both reserved parking and the wheelchair ramps. That lets them work full-time -- in well-paying jobs that put a lot of money including taxes back into the economy -- versus staying home and collecting disability. And a side benefit of the ramps is that visitors with wheeled luggage, delivery people, and so on have a much easier time getting into the building as well, without bouncing up a set of stairs.

But yes, I also agree that ADA mandates should prescribe results, not methods of achieving them. A case in point was a wheelchair user who most mornings took the same 125 bus I did. Even though the lift mechanism was supposed to be simple, every driver needed 10 or 15 minutes to get her on board, fasten the wheelchair, fold the lift, etc. Multiply that delay by 35 or 40 people on the bus and essentially an entire person-day was lost every morning so that one passenger could board. I'm not sure how to calculate the trade-off but it seems there should have been another way to handle things.

That's horendous. I remember watching an apparently fully mentally-competent wheelchair person being boarded in a parking lot to a van. It took less than a minute. From a train to a mini-platform, it's about the same--if everyone is ready and all involved know what they're doing.