The Metro

AlexC wrote: Montgomery Line is also a good choice because service from 69th goes to Norristown (or eventually) King of Prussia. I would call it Montco Lines - if only to pair it up with my preferred "Delco Lines" - which go to Delaware County, not Delaware State as "Delaware Lines" implies.

These proposed changes are intended to help those who are unfamiliar with the system. Montgomery and Delaware introduce needless geo-political references; they would help no one, and savvy riders would just find them amusing. So, what to call the 69th Street operation? Red Arrow and Frontier won't pass muster; how about West Suburban Light-Rail. Give them letters perhaps, M-Media, S-Sharon Hill, N-Norristown. It makes a little more sense than San Francisco's N-Judah and J-Church. The SEPTA system is complex, that can't be fixed. A readily available hand-out paper map would help immensely.

AlexC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:19 pm

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 12:25 pm Route 15 - NO Change - G letter is not necessary
N - Norristown High Speed Line ("Montgomery Line" name change is NOT needed)

Route 15 is leftover from PTC that makes no sense in the broader scheme. G works for the same reason B works. It's really the Girard Line.

Montgomery Line is also a good choice because service from 69th goes to Norristown (or eventually) King of Prussia. I would call it Montco Lines - if only to pair it up with my preferred "Delco Lines" - which go to Delaware County, not Delaware State as "Delaware Lines" implies.

16 of the 22 NHSL stops are in Delaware County.

mcgrath618 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:37 am

AlexC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:19 pm

MACTRAXX wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 12:25 pm Route 15 - NO Change - G letter is not necessary
N - Norristown High Speed Line ("Montgomery Line" name change is NOT needed)

Route 15 is leftover from PTC that makes no sense in the broader scheme. G works for the same reason B works. It's really the Girard Line.

Montgomery Line is also a good choice because service from 69th goes to Norristown (or eventually) King of Prussia. I would call it Montco Lines - if only to pair it up with my preferred "Delco Lines" - which go to Delaware County, not Delaware State as "Delaware Lines" implies.

16 of the 22 NHSL stops are in Delaware County.

Exactly! That one made me scratch my head the most.

Not saying this is the best plan but I welcome a campaign to clarify the system's verbiage. Granted the likely result will just be another name for people use to refer to the same thing.

Everyone: (update 9/9)

The most important letter additions - to SUPPLEMENT existing graphics and color coding - would be:
-M- Market-Frankford Line
-B- Broad Street Line
-N- Norristown High Speed Line
-E- Media Rail Line
-S- Sharon Hill Rail Line
-P- PATCO High Speed Line (if PATCO agrees to go along with the proposed SEPTA letter designation scheme)

The five Subway/Surface routes can have either their own single letter designations or use Ta, Tb, Tc, Td and Te.
-O- Overbrook (10); -R- Darby (11); -Y- Yeadon (13); -A- Angora (34); -W- Eastwick (36)
From AC's input -G- would replace 15 for the Girard Avenue trolley route.

The letter -D- is already in use for the Boulevard Direct limited express bus service.
An idea can be to designate this service with -BD-

For letter designations to represent rail routes or special services the seven SEPTA bus routes that have letters
(PTC holdovers) should be changed to open or unused numbers under 90 to complete this "divide":
Routes G, H, XH, J, K, L and R (this could be implemented with future bus route changes proposed)
These are open numbers - seven would be needed: 41, 51, 63, 69, 71, 72, 74, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87.

In closing letters should add additional identification for rail or special routes.
Numbers can identify bus routes...MACTRAXX

Actually, SEPTA was in the process of converting lettered lines to numbers (A, C, D, E), using the "retired jerseys" of long-discontinued trolley lines, but a couple of management people who were doing it retired, and the effort seemed to die out after that. What started it was the incorporation of the Red Arrow lines into SEPTA, resulting among other things in having two D bus routes leaving from 69th Street and going in opposite directions. They also took the opportunity to break up the A route (Ridge/Upper Henry, Andorra/Barren Hill, Local/Express) into 9, 27, and 32, as well as adding Chestnut St. to one of them.

I think the 15 should remain just that; apart from the vehicles used it's no different from a bus route.

mcgrath618 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:37 am

AlexC wrote: ↑Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:19 pm Montgomery Line is also a good choice because service from 69th goes to Norristown (or eventually) King of Prussia. I would call it Montco Lines - if only to pair it up with my preferred "Delco Lines" - which go to Delaware County, not Delaware State as "Delaware Lines" implies.

16 of the 22 NHSL stops are in Delaware County.

That's a good point, I didn't realize it was that many.

I actually like the concept of what is being proposed, but there are still some kinks to work out. It is one hell of a problem that we have a fractured system of referring to the different lines, if you ask me it's called the route 100, if you ask my Dad it's the P&W, if you ask someone reading the map they are instantly lost.

Naming conventions in this city is problematic to be gentle about it, the Blue route, West River drive, Northeast Extension, Schuylkill/Vine Street Expressway to name a few.

But as someone who keeps trying to introduce people to SEPTA I have had at least 10 or more people who have lived in the area for years say "wait SEPTA has Trolleys?" or trying to explain to the tourists which bus goes where, which even I can't decipher the stupid bus maps in the suburbs.

While this change may seem like a dumb one, get someone who is out of state to read the map and plan out a trip from Paoli or better yet Norristown and try to way find to somewhere like John's Roast Pork or the Art Museum without getting stuck or getting the wrong buses. I've had the explain to slackjawed tourists which BSL train was express and the A and B system on the MFL and why some people call it the Market Frankford, some people call it the El.

A mass transit system should serve everyone and have simple CLEAR and most importantly consistent ways of explaining the system without having to take along a dedicated local guide

ChesterValley wrote: ↑Mon Sep 13, 2021 3:09 pm It is one hell of a problem that we have a fractured system of referring to the different lines, if you ask me it's called the route 100, if you ask my Dad it's the P&W, if you ask someone reading the map they are instantly lost.

It also doesn't help that the NHSL/P&W (yes, it will always be the P&W for those of us who grew up with it!) shares multiple station names with RRD lines. There are two Radnors, Haverfords, Bryn Mawrs, Villanovas, and thanks to SEPTA's renaming frenzy, two DeKalb Sts. When I worked in the city it was almost a weekly occurrence to have someone get on the NHSL and ask for a ticket to Paoli or the airport. It's even confused some people at SEPTA's supposed Customer Service desks because they're unfamiliar with the NHSL's unique character.

Duplicate names are unavoidable, especially where the lines are very close together, but perhaps they need to suffix each one with its line type, e.g. Radnor RRD or Radnor [fill in latest name for P&W here]. Just a thought.

But as someone who keeps trying to introduce people to SEPTA I have had at least 10 or more people who have lived in the area for years say "wait SEPTA has Trolleys?"

I get the impression that trolley versus bus versus trackless trolley etc. doesn't often enter into the calculation of the average rider. Understandably it's just a vehicle that gets them from A to B. I actually ran into someone, a local resident and regular commuter, who said he wanted to "take the bus that runs in the tunnel from 15th Street". /sigh

We have 40M for this garbage yet no money for expansion to Atglen, Harrisburg, Reading & Baltimore? Interesting. No money to restore 23 & 56?

These are lunatics at work. Decades of rot and corruption at SEPTA with no accountability from Harrisburg.

"Metro", while catchy, is nothing more than lipstick on a pig, imho. I am very disappointed with transit stimulus soon available Septa does have significant shovel ready projects other than an extension to WAWA and the proposed line to KofPrussia (which I think is ill conceived). Septa thinks small and its unfortunate. (Think of what an extension of the BSL up the Blvd would do get cars off the road, for example).

This has been said before, by several people, but that money would be better spent on devising a rational fare structure for the entire system, which might give some meaning to the term "Metro." A good start would be to eliminate all charges for transfers and make any fare good for two hours, as in New York, regardless of the number of transfers or different routes traveled during the two-hour period. I know that SEPTA management recoils at the thought of losing revenue, but I believe New York found that overall revenue actually increased when they allowed free transfers from bus to subway -- and to another bus if within the two-hour limit -- something never before allowed in New York (except for a few instances where a route change was made), and the heavens did not fall.

ExCon90 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:40 pm This has been said before, by several people, but that money would be better spent on devising a rational fare structure for the entire system

Amen to that

A good start would be to eliminate all charges for transfers and make any fare good for two hours, as in New York, regardless of the number of transfers or different routes traveled during the two-hour period. I know that SEPTA management recoils at the thought of losing revenue, but I believe New York found that overall revenue actually increased when they allowed free transfers from bus to subway

Many years ago SEPTA even charged for transfers between the MFL, BSS, and Subway-Surface lines because it's what the PTC did. At some point - IIRC in the early 1980s - Toronto, which has a similar crossing of lines in its CBD and was also charging for a transfer, took the "radical" step of eliminating that transfer charge and guess what? More people used the connection and revenue actually increased. The merely bleedin' obvious was that the transfer charge had been discouraging people from taking either line.

I was one of several people who presented those findings to David Gunn, then head of SEPTA. I don't know if the idea of allowing free MFL/BSS transfers was already under consideration but I'd like to think that our efforts helped tip the scales. Of course today the "Every dime, every time" mindset has so permeated 1234 that who knows what it'd take for them to try something as new and different (/sarc) as timed travel.

Interesting about the 2 hour fares. Having visited PHL many times the fare situation certainly had an effect on my not riding many times there.

west point wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:40 pm Interesting about the 2 hour fares. Having visited PHL many times the fare situation certainly had an effect on my not riding many times there.

I don’t expect to see anything like an open two-hour travel window anytime soon. Many SEPTA routes are grid-based which makes transferring almost unavoidable for a significant subset of their ridership. They’ve had data not just for years but decades showing how their transfer policies distort riders’ behavior by linking the cost of a trip not to distance but to the number of vehicles needed. It also discourages efficiency: for example their studies showed the (again obvious) outcome that lower-income riders tended stay on slower buses rather than use them as feeders to subways, simply because the extra $10 per week is a hit to their budgets.

New GM Leslie Richards finally listened to the data - and the complaints - and agreed to at least a partial fix by letting Key-card holders make their first transfer without charge. However there’s still a $1 charge for second and subsequent transfers which hits people with longer or more complicated routings. A two-hour window would address that problem

They also eliminated transfer privileges entirely for people who don’t have a card which means casual users pay double. SEPTA giveth but mostly they taketh*

* Yeah, probably the wrong declension but who speaks Elizabethan anymore?