by mcgrath618
Suburban Station wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:00 amThat is concerning. We're certainly doing better than we were in the nineties, but a downward trend at a time when the nation is beginning to move away from cars is concerning. I'd be interested to see year-to-year though; namely last year to this year. The SLV crisis certainly hurt ridership in ways that we'll be feeling for a long time, but has ridership increased from 2018-2019? 2017-2018?rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:32 pmregional rail ridership is down. it was declining prior to the s5 debacle (back when it was mainly poor schedules) and then cratered during the several months long S5 debacle . it has only partially recovered and remains well below pre Jeff K levels.
Regional Rail ridership is up as well. I suspect the shift we are seeing is largely tied to a non-SEPTA factor... the ease people have getting cars. The clientele that uses the buses and El are having one of the easiest times ever having cars.
terrible bus connections =are not a function of any curse but priorities set by management.
in the FY20 ASP they list 114,680 daily riders on RRD, in the FY16 ASP it was 128k and had peaked above 130k (maybe 132k)
http://septa.org/strategic-plan/reports/asp16.pdf
http://septa.org/strategic-plan/reports ... e-Plan.pdf
parking remains an issue but SEPTA refuses to raise rates which might help cover the cost of parking but clearly it is not the only issue. it remains the only railroad without eticketing, does not accept cards, does not have ticketing machines, is not reliable.
I pose a question to everyone here: would SEPTA benefit from pulling a Chicago? That is to say, would SEPTA benefit from splitting into two separate organizations, one handling Regional Rail (a la METRA), and the other handling rapid transit (a la the CTA)? The MTA manages to handle 2 regional rail systems, a bus system, and the largest subway network in the country. Meanwhile, SEPTA struggles to manage a single regional rail network, two subways, one interurban, and a bus/trolley system.