SEPTA's Regional Rail Survey

SEPTA wants to know how we can make regional rail more useful to riders, increasing access and creating a more equitable transportation network that will benefit the entire region.

https://septaregionalrail.typeform.com/ ... lypenn.com

I took the survey, but it isn’t really asking the right questions.

rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:28 am ... it isn’t really asking the right questions.

Choose one:
[ ] They don’t know what the right questions should be
[ ] They know the right questions but don’t want to hear the answers

Not sure which is worse.

JeffK wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 7:49 pm

rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:28 am ... it isn’t really asking the right questions.

Choose one:
[ ] They don’t know what the right questions should be
[ ] They know the right questions but don’t want to hear the answers

Not sure which is worse.

Probably a little bit of both. The integration of Regional Rail into the wider transit system really goes both ways. It isn't just about getting people to use Regional Rail who wouldn't. The real focus needs to be on making transit and Regional Rails schedules to work with each other. I would take the bus to the train station in Malvern or Paoli if the buses were actually timed to arrive before a train instead of right after departure of a train and having to wait 20+ minutes for the next train.

I attended the meet last night, what I got from the meeting is Septa has no plan. It's looking for feedback on how the regional rail network should be worked. All options is on the table. So this goes from Service patterns, frequency, station development, platforms, expansion, infill stations, new fleet, last mile connections. Oddly it didn't talk about payment options.
Septa is trying to figure out to serve the Philadelphia region and hopes to integrate the system more with the rest of the system.

Perhaps jarret walker (who worked on bus redesign) and alon levay may have some ideas

How many more studies do we really need to run? Service drives demand, I can't take trips that aren't there. I stopped using regional rail because the headways were so bad I could make 3 round trips into center city in the time it took for another train to arrive on the weekends, and that was the R5!

I would also like to say maybe SEPTA should actually promote the fact you can pay with credit card on regional rail now, I saw it on the train the other day. Or better yet, put out a keycard machine on the railroad. If Amtrak can do it at Paoli and Ardmore, I think SEPTA can at least deploy one unit past Zone 3 on regional rail.

Anyways, looking at the ridership report for Q2 from April to June, https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads ... p-APTA.pdf, it's bad. Ridership has reduced by if I'm reading this right -37% on Regional Rail, -35% on light rail, and -52% on commuter rail for a net negative of nearly -28.58% across the board.

Across the bridge NJ transit has seen a dive of 47% on commuter rail, but only a a reduction of about 20% of their ridership in the same time frame, and LIRR at a reduction of -33.61% commuter rail and Metro north at -33.61%. Frankly it looks like without the office workers, I don't know if commuter rail is going to survive in it's current form. I realize that this report only has the time frame to June of 2021 and not with the reopening of schools during September, but unless SEPTA embraces a truly regional rail rapid transit style system...It's not looking good

Anecdotally my large company is embracing the hybrid model of work, 3 days on 2 days off for most workers with exceptions for new hires, and from the way the traffic has been in the area it would appear that most companies are following that sort of model. I'm not sure how SEPTA could even adapt to a model like that in SEPTA's current form

ChesterValley wrote: ↑Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:28 pm
Anecdotally my large company is embracing the hybrid model of work, 3 days on 2 days off for most workers with exceptions for new hires, and from the way the traffic has been in the area it would appear that most companies are following that sort of model. I'm not sure how SEPTA could even adapt to a model like that in SEPTA's current form

I suspect a 3/2 model will be standard outside of healthcare and academia, which are two big users.

I suspect the current schedule might end up being the SEPTA schedule for the long term with maybe some expansion (resumption of hourly off peak past Malvern for example). I am not going to complain about it too much. It is longer to get to Malvern or Exton, but trains are running ahead of schedule on expresses in early departure mode pretty consistently.

More about this on their site but it really does read like their current plan is no plan.
https://planning.septa.org/projects/reg ... ster-plan/

ryan92084 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:56 am More about this on their site but it really does read like their current plan is no plan.
https://planning.septa.org/projects/reg ... ster-plan/

This is just more busy work. They should have spent the money on some random project to improve something.

rcthompson04 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:16 pm

ryan92084 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 20, 2021 5:56 am More about this on their site but it really does read like their current plan is no plan.
https://planning.septa.org/projects/reg ... ster-plan/

This is just more busy work. They should have spent the money on some random project to improve something.

I'm told there are many more politically connected people in consulting firms than there are in construction companies.

What's stupid about this survey is that Philadelphia or Septa wrote over 200 page report on Philadelphia transit 2045. In the report they wanted a "silver line" with 15 minute headways and lower fares. Why not go for that strategy?

Would love to speed up all of Septa trains, especially at the CCCT. I'm assuming the interlockings is the worse offender and second would be track and catenary conditions?

PHLSpecial wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 1:02 pm Would love to speed up all of Septa trains, especially at the CCCT. I'm assuming the interlockings is the worse offender and second would be track and catenary conditions?

Building more high level platforms would speed things up as well. The impact of having so many low level platforms has become painfully obvious with trains keeping better times with fewer riders.

I'm surprised Septa doesn't try small things like 20 headways on the Chestnut Hill East line. Where the line starts at Wayne Junction. Run two car trains, roughly speaking about 22-25 minutes from Wayne Junction to the end of the line. So it won't be 3 trains per hour but only requires 2 car train set instead of 4 car train set every 2 hours.
Passengers who are trying to connect downtown in theory only need to wait up to 10-20 minutes.