When SEPTA brought back late night subway service

[Bettertransitphilly]

Checking Chicago's late night EL service the frequency is every 15 minutes. That's pretty good. Even NYC subways run at 20 minute headways overnight It will be interesting to see what Septa is proposing.

[Suburban Station]

jeff k...i agree. id eventually like to see half hourly saturday service on the norristown line and better service to lansdale as well including late night service. theyre all interconnected even inclusimg amtrak

[loufah]

Not very good publicity. What are Representatives Metcalfe and Saccone going to say about using their money to support weekend partygoers?

[ChrisinAbington]

If it gets them out of their cars, and off the roads..?

[Tritransit Area]

jeff k...i agree. id eventually like to see half hourly saturday service on the norristown line and better service to lansdale as well including late night service. theyre all interconnected even inclusimg amtrak

I couldn't agree more with you on this. The Manayunk/Norristown trains are always relatively full on Saturdays well into the evening, and the additional service would make the line more appealing. It continues to boggle my mind that the SEPTA Main Line stops running so early (12:30 AM) on weekend nights, especially with the stations it serves in communities like Jenkintown, Glenside, Lansdale, and then even Wayne Junction and Fern Rock. The 55 bus isn't much better, and the fact I have to connect at Olney makes that journey less than desirable.

I'm honestly mum about the trains returning. One on hand it would address the overcrowding issues (but wouldn't using 60ft buses instead of the standard 40ft long buses do the same?), and the people on the MFL would get a faster ride home. As a BSO rider, outside of snafus and overcrowding, it seems to work well. I'm not looking forward to having to go to the depths of city hall and navigate the windy corridors and flights of steps to access the Broad Street Subway after a night out, especially since I can't track the Broad Street Line trains like I can with the OWL buses and I'd have to travel through the corridors where the homeless folks live, but I guess if it works well for everyone else, I'm happy for them!

Hopefully this means that the taxi chaos is reduced a bit as more people take transit so driving won't be as much of a nightmare.

[Suburban Station]

jeff k...i agree. id eventually like to see half hourly saturday service on the norristown line and better service to lansdale as well including late night service. theyre all interconnected even inclusimg amtrak

I couldn't agree more with you on this. The Manayunk/Norristown trains are always relatively full on Saturdays well into the evening, and the additional service would make the line more appealing. It continues to boggle my mind that the SEPTA Main Line stops running so early (12:30 AM) on weekend nights, especially with the stations it serves in communities like Jenkintown, Glenside, Lansdale, and then even Wayne Junction and Fern Rock. The 55 bus isn't much better, and the fact I have to connect at Olney makes that journey less than desirable.

I'm honestly mum about the trains returning. One on hand it would address the overcrowding issues (but wouldn't using 60ft buses instead of the standard 40ft long buses do the same?), and the people on the MFL would get a faster ride home. As a BSO rider, outside of snafus and overcrowding, it seems to work well. I'm not looking forward to having to go to the depths of city hall and navigate the windy corridors and flights of steps to access the Broad Street Subway after a night out, especially since I can't track the Broad Street Line trains like I can with the OWL buses and I'd have to travel through the corridors where the homeless folks live, but I guess if it works well for everyone else, I'm happy for them!

Hopefully this means that the taxi chaos is reduced a bit as more people take transit so driving won't be as much of a nightmare.

the broad street nite owl buses are SLOW if you have to travel past city hall. I would probably use walnut-locust or if I had to use city hall, I'd use the el entrance and walk through. just my hunch.
don't forget ambler

[Tritransit Area]

From the Annual Service Plan meeting, SEPTA plans to run trains every 20 minutes throughout the night. Thus, trains will run continuously from 5 AM Friday morning until Midnight Sunday night, and of course that means there will be no buses on the surface.

We shall see how this goes - allegedly it's costing SEPTA an extra $1.2 million to run the trains instead of the buses.

[Suburban Station]

From the Annual Service Plan meeting, SEPTA plans to run trains every 20 minutes throughout the night. Thus, trains will run continuously from 5 AM Friday morning until Midnight Sunday night, and of course that means there will be no buses on the surface.

We shall see how this goes - allegedly it's costing SEPTA an extra $1.2 million to run the trains instead of the buses.

so long as they run ON SCHEDULE that should be fine. has septa done the legwork to time buses to meet the subway or will it dump me at broad and erie 2 minutes after the bus left?

[loufah]

has septa done the legwork to time buses to meet the subway or will it dump me at broad and erie 2 minutes after the bus left?

I haven't had the chance to ride city buses. Are the drivers instructed to (and, in practice, do they) delay departure at certain stops until a connection arrives, or is it like the suburban routes where they leave the starting terminus on time and then just barrel down the route even if it means departing many of the stops ahead of schedule?

[Suburban Station]

has septa done the legwork to time buses to meet the subway or will it dump me at broad and erie 2 minutes after the bus left?

I haven't had the chance to ride city buses. Are the drivers instructed to (and, in practice, do they) delay departure at certain stops until a connection arrives, or is it like the suburban routes where they leave the starting terminus on time and then just barrel down the route even if it means departing many of the stops ahead of schedule?

probably the latter, I've missed buses because they left early. OTOH, I have witnessed the 55 waiting for passengers coming off the subway. in this case, presumably the 23 would start at broad and erie(and the 55) so holding the bus would be less of an issue. I'd also note that if it's scheduled and the subway sticks to its schedule it should be less of a problem. for example, if the subway is scheduled to arrive five minutes before the 18 bus departs and both are on schedule, you should be fine. If I'm not mistaken what you describe is poor scheduling, motivating the driver to get to the endpoint early

[Tritransit Area]

probably the latter, I've missed buses because they left early. OTOH, I have witnessed the 55 waiting for passengers coming off the subway. in this case, presumably the 23 would start at broad and erie(and the 55) so holding the bus would be less of an issue. I'd also note that if it's scheduled and the subway sticks to its schedule it should be less of a problem. for example, if the subway is scheduled to arrive five minutes before the 18 bus departs and both are on schedule, you should be fine. If I'm not mistaken what you describe is poor scheduling, motivating the driver to get to the endpoint early

It really depends on the driver, whether they will wait for a known connection or not. These days many if not most drivers just leave when it's time to leave - who cares about connections? I've witnessed this COUNTLESS times at Plymouth Meeting Mall (and this is a result of bad scheduling as well).

[Limited-Clear]

Remember the drivers aren't able to make the decision to wait, if they are late they have to report to the control desk why, and it must be a valid reason (they can't just decide to do it, delayed because of traffic or an accident or passenger with disabilities are valid), waiting for a connection must come from control who issue it as an order to wait,

[Suburban Station]

probably the latter, I've missed buses because they left early. OTOH, I have witnessed the 55 waiting for passengers coming off the subway. in this case, presumably the 23 would start at broad and erie(and the 55) so holding the bus would be less of an issue. I'd also note that if it's scheduled and the subway sticks to its schedule it should be less of a problem. for example, if the subway is scheduled to arrive five minutes before the 18 bus departs and both are on schedule, you should be fine. If I'm not mistaken what you describe is poor scheduling, motivating the driver to get to the endpoint early

It really depends on the driver, whether they will wait for a known connection or not. These days many if not most drivers just leave when it's time to leave - who cares about connections? I've witnessed this COUNTLESS times at Plymouth Meeting Mall (and this is a result of bad scheduling as well).

Indeed scheduling is the bigger issue which is why I hope they're scheduling around the subway. Operators need to know if they hold the subway for ridera they may cause other riderd to miss their connection

[Amtrak7]

http://septa.org/service/all-night.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't think paying the train operator will go smoothly.

[scotty269]

http://septa.org/service/all-night.html

I don't think paying the train operator will go smoothly.