SEPTA: Fix It, Fund It, Nuke It, Start Over?

In another thread here, JeffK made me wonder why nobody in the Philly metro area's "big media" will hack all the way thru the crust of misdirection at 1234 and shine a light in there. The occasional cursory grumbling in the newspapers never generates more than a short burst of public anger. As long as the silent majority fails to realize that the agency can be questioned, let alone held to higher standards than now, the status quo at SEPTA will go on indefinitely. I'm sure that this is a source of great frustration to rider advocacy groups, such as DVARP. As a private individual, I also find it frustrating. There are doubtless a great many things that SEPTA management wishes to keep from scrutiny. I am just as eager to get it all out into the open. I'll go first by putting my own cards on the table.

Basically, the entire SEPTA monoculture must perish. That's what I want. I think their worldview has caused an institutional paralysis which goes nearly all the way to the core, and I gravely doubt it can be mended. There are likely still more than a few intelligent, well-meaning people in management, but it is obvious that they cannot stop this decay. Having a ratio of ten untalented, undermotivated nitwits to one hard-working, knowledgable manager won't cut it. If firing pretty much 90% of the decision-makers and starting over would help, I'd be in favor of it.

On a strategic level, SEPTA has clearly failed in its mission. It barely pretends to be more than a feeble caretaker entity, concentrating upon the few things still within its power. Many years have gone by since its creation, and I see little to show for all of the missed opportunities to get into heavy-duty, 24/7 politics and lobby like hell for not just a lot more money, but a reliable, stable source of money for each year thereafter. Why SEPTA has refused to play state politics to its advantage is beyond me. This is the arena that the Board should be most powerful in: safeguarding a bright future of growth (not the present starvation regime) of the system, which also helps safeguard the continued economic health of the region. The taxes derived from the SEPTA area are the engine that helps power this state. Our health insures their health. Repeatedly blowing the chance to strongly remind the PA legislature of this when "passing the hat" for $$ seems crazy, if not negligent.

Perhaps someone in the know can educate all of us by describing in detail how "it really isn't that simple". Then again, maybe it just is that simple...making SEPTA's current state even more tragic.

It is now time to consider other means of ministering to public transportation needs in this region. Normally immune to the agency's downhill slide, even the general public is belatedly becoming aware that something is wrong with SEPTA. If SEPTA's imperative has gone from serving the riding public well to just SEPTA perpetuating SEPTA, then I believe that it has forfeited the moral right to further consideration. If Act 450 of 1963 is still on the state books, the area counties could band together to form their own "post-SEPTA" public transit organization. (I hope some small steps in this direction may aleady be in progress.) Politicians hostile to SEPTA could be of great help in then voting money towards acquiring SEPTA's physical plant & rolling stock. If a new broom swept clean back in 1963, it can in 2004 as well!

Some vital actions have been put off by SEPTA for far too long. The Board must either wage a major political war in Harrisburg for a dedicated funding source, or this entire region will stagnate further; maybe permanently. If the Board won't attempt it, then by God they should step down. Realistic dealings with the labor unions are also needed; the latest round was just procrastination, not negotiation. Better service quality (incl. higher frequency/cleaner vehicles/non-crappy customer service/saner transit fares) is a must. It's not just taking care of the city, either. Suburban folks have got to be given more alternatives to their cars. As sprawl has diffused the population farther outward, old dead train lines going outward must be brought back to life -- while it's still possible. The current service on other lines could also use a shake-up in order to attract more riders. (More expresses? More reverse-peak trains? Higher average speeds? Bigger parking lots?) Yes, SEPTA needs a boatload more cash. But--BUT. It has to become much, much better at spending it, too. The present "buy a boondoggle" strategy is plain nuts. If this means having a Special Financial Commissar at the elbow of every manager in the agency, fine! But no more $2-billion MetroRail, OK? Heck, if they can propose that monster, I'd think that routine, lower-level misspending and all-around waste must be omnipresent.

If SEPTA won't even try to shake off its lethargy, intelligently defend itself, and help the region grow, then SEPTA must be destroyed. Disbanded, dissolved, unincorporated; whatever. It just plain doesn't function as it should. It's presently just dandy for making the city even less attractive to live in, and offering a "paper tiger" alternative to the car for suburbanites. I don't expect SEPTA to reverse 50 years of sprawl overnight. But something's gotta be done. What's that old epigram again?...

"Lead, follow, or get the hell
out of the way, but
DO SOMETHING!"

I am open to any and all suggestions about how to "do something". Aside from basically forcing SEPTA leadership to march on Harrisburg and dazzle Rendell & the legislature with the wisdom of King Solomon...that's about it. Nothing much can be done outside of short-term tactical victories without more money this year, next year, and every year. I think I know what the end results should be, and the nature of what's wrong right now. I hope that all of you will help by brainstorming about how you think we should get from "A" to "C". "B" is the problem.

Alternatively, if most of you are also of my opinion that SEPTA is utterly hopeless, maybe I should stop my attempt to foster a debate and instead consider removing this topic from the forum.

AFAICT, the reason the big media (translated: the Inquirer) have been so reticent about the mismanagement at 1234 (*) is that going back to the Lou Gambaccini era, they've been bamboozled into thinking that criticizing public transit management (**) is the same as criticizing public transit, and is an act of disloyalty. (***) Perhaps they're rationalizing that any negative stories by them could be read by some state legislator from Potter County and cause him to vote against transit funding.

But that's not in the interest of the passengers or the taxpayers of the region. In a lot of ways, SEPTA management and the SEPTA Board have done more to drag this system down than the legislature could. Talk about negative and defeatist--the railroad hasn't even been able to achieve mediocrity (OTP over 90.0%), let alone meet SEPTA's sorry goal or even come close to SEPTA's peers. By its constant excuse-making instead of finding and fixing the problems, or even admitting they exist, they reinforce the message of decline for public transit. By that respect, why _should_ anyone give them money?

It is a problem of the culture at 1234, and it indeed is rotten to the core.


*--Gawd I'd love to have a job at the Inquirer kicking over all the rocks at 1234. You could say this is a target-rich environment for newspapering.

**--the Inquirer is more willing to criticize the SEPTA Board though: perhaps as a matter of their institutional bias against Republicans and the suburbs, perhaps out of generalized disdain for politicians.

***--another reason is that the Inquirer has never been pushed. For many years, they didn't even have a regular writer on the SEPTA beat (Knight-Ridder being cheap?). It wasn't until Metro brought a perceived threat that Inquirer management put Jere Downs on the beat. I've worked with Jere on a number of stories, but some of the most damning ones never made the paper. I don't know why.

I don't think there's any one villain here. Part of the problem is the whole Philadelphia culture of accepting mediocrity as the norm. I'm not a great sports fan but the constant cry of "wait till next year" is emblematic of the attitude. As a result, many people have become so inured to everything functioning at a "gentleman's C" level that not only don't they care about doing better, they no longer know how to do better. For a SEPTA-related example, one driver I spoke with actually told me that the operators would discuss among themselves what lines had riders who still cared enough to complain when there were problems, and what lines were so "beaten down" (to use his phrase) that no one would fuss about shoddy service.

Another aspect that we debated, sometimes hotly, on the old board is the town-vs-gown relationship between the state as a whole and its metro areas. So long as there isn't a full-blown collapse in the offing and the number of dollars flowing doesn't change much, Harrisburg has no real interest in addressing any of the cities' underlying problems. Everyone can simply muddle through until next year, and the year after that, and ...

As far as the Inky goes, I too am disturbed that there doesn't seem to be any interest in turning over more than the smallest rocks. Matt, I know I'm going to come across like some late-night talk show consipiracy nut, but I really do think someone high up at the paper has decided (or been told) to keep hands off. In particular I spoke at length - over 2 hours - with one reporter who expressed great interest in doing a full investigation, only to be called two weeks later and told that the story was being spiked from above.

The one time I did get some space was a Community Voices article where I laid out a number of documented failings in SEPTA's operations and suggested ways to correct them. The only response was a screed from then-spokesperson and hired pit bull Stephan Rosenfeld, who came within epsilon of accusing me of libel and denied that the reported situations ever occurred.

So long as we have that kind of protective, insular, brook-no-criticism bunker mentality in force, it's going to be very hard to fix things rationally. The situation will have to reach the point where there's a bullet that SEPTA can't dodge. The city and state will then have to decide whether the system can be repaired, replaced, or simply left to die. The first alternative is doubtful and the second is possible, though messy. The third is unthinkable - but just ask the citizens of Buffalo or Birmingham.

"Gresham's Law applies to people and institutions as well as to coinage."

Have any of you guys thought about running for public office? I'd vote for you.

The people and atmosphere at SEPTA are indifferent to the needs of the communities of the Delaware Valley. A SEPTA contract could have saved The Budd Company of Philadelphia from closing in 1987; instead, the then order for SEPTA railcars went to a close bidder - Kawasaki. That nailed the coffin shut for Budd. There went 2300 jobs at Budd, plus who knows how many jobs created by local suppliers.

I realize that this is history, but through the years, it seems as if nothing has changed. They are dragging their feet. They don't care. With the right leadership, they could fund many needed projects throughout The Delaware Valley. Someone that has true leadership skills (Like David Gunn) must take control and move SEPTA into the 21st century. There are talented people out there - Why aren't they heading up this transit agency?

Marte wrote:Have any of you guys thought about running for public office? I'd vote for you. ...
There are talented people out there - Why aren't they heading up this transit agency?

I'm blushing at the compliment, but in today's world I'd have to be nuttier than I already am to stand for office. Everything I ever did or said back to my freshman year in college would be up for scrutiny. Heck, a few years back some people tried to get my wife to run for the local school board, and even at that level there were some who wanted to try to find out every statement, every opinion, every thought that could be used to attack. Needless to say, she refused.

I've also found that you have more freedom to say and do things that puncture various overinflated balloons (see Vonnegut on the subject of Granfalloons) if you're working with, but still outside of, the power structure.

As to why the talented people are not involved, trying to shake up SEPTA is a bit like trying to prune a cactus without wearing gloves. No matter what you do, you're going to get hurt. Even people who came in with loads of experience and drive quickly found themselves hamstrung by the politics and vested interests. And then there was Bill Stead ...


"You have two choices when dealing with a bull. It's difficult and dangerous to take it by the horns, so most people go to the other end."

Off-topic, but it's a pity that Mr. Gunn cannot run for President due to the country of his origin. He'd get my vote over the two candidates of the genus Anas with the badly-functioning swim-paddles...

And as for nuking and starting over, that would be more expensive than giving funds to the existing company but revamping their management to prevent abuse.

In my opinion, a railroad needs to be run as a railroad, not a bus line, and SEPTA is a bus company. I'd love for there to be a way to spin the railroad lines off to private companies, or some sort of similar solution.

Bah.

As happy as you would think that SEPTA would be to get rid of the RRD, I bet my life that they would fight tooth and nail to keep it on the system.

Heaven forbid that someone should do a better job with the railroad than we have. "It just can't be done."

I'm wondering why our government was so insistent on separating frieght railroads from passenger railroads in the '70's. I'm sure circumstances were different then, but today freight railroads are making money hand over fist.

I'm not about to say lets dump all passenger rail operations on CSX and NS, but I think a better system could have been worked out in the ConRail era to have the freight companies RUN the passenger operations while someone like SEPTA served in funding, managing and planning.

If freight railroads ran the commuter system we might have better infrastructure, more efficient services and more routes. It's in the best interest of the freight companies to keep the passenger trains moving and out of the way of their cash-cow freight trains.

Someone like Conrail, or their successors might have even found a way to keep old lines like the Newtown Branch in service because of potential or old freight customers that they could have reeled in. Newtown did have freight not too long ago, but I'm sure most of it evaporated once Conrail was bowing out of the SEPTA system.

I'm sure many agree that the current model does not work efficiently. Putting services back in the hands of private operators is not a crazy idea. Just regulate them (so they can't shut down un-profitable routes).

What does everyone think?

Remember, the big operators ran both freight and passenger service and got out of the latter for any number of reasons. In many cases it wasn't the government at work The railroads themselves wanted to end passenger service. In the beginning neither SEPTA nor Conrail wanted to take over the the ex-PRR and RDG commuter lines. SEPTA with some justification claimed a lack of experience (you are free to add "as well as will") to operate commuter rail. Conrail had heavy-rail experience but had to be given all sorts of incentives because they wanted to be solely a freight RR. They were in effect the operator of last resort and it wasn't long before they started pressuring the gov't to take the commuter lines off their hands. There was a lot of back-and-forth before SEPTA finally "won" the RRD. That was shortly followed by some ugly labor problems including a strike when work rules and pay grades were changed.

As David Gunn has pointed out, passenger rail service is not a profit center anywhere in the world. You also have a lot less flexibility with scheduling, consists, etc. on both a macro and a micro level when you're carrying people as opposed to things. That's why passenger railroads are run as public utilities in virtually every country including our own. Britain has tried to go against the tide and should serve as a Class 1 counterexample for the Bushies who want to break up and privatize Amtrak.

The conundrum is the need to have some form of public funding/ownership/stewardship while letting the day-to-day ops be handled by people who understand how to run trains, rather than having bureaucrats dictate routes and policies (paging Sen. Byrd!). It's not easy, but it can be done. Maybe we need to look at Deutsche Bahn or SNCF for examples. They can manage to have trains shooting all over western Europe at 200+ km/hr, leaving and arriving within a minute of their schedules, dozens of times a day, every day. Heck, DB even manages to have those bilevel door traps that SEPTA says are impossible to construct.

The SEPTA rail system has problems all over the place. The managment of SEPTA does not and has not favored it's rail services. It chooses to run the rail system like it's bus lines and that does not work. But I think on a larger scale is the declining infastructure of the entire rail system on the whole. Excluding the subway system and th Market Frankford El, look at the EMU equipment that they have. The 9000 series emus date to the Reading Railroad, most of the 200 series cars date to the Pennsy, I think the 269 still reads Pennsylvania on one side. The rest of the Budd series emus are 1974 manufacture. I have seen an aem7 runnung with normal passenger cars, but i have not had the chance to ride in it. The equipment is aging and is nopt as well maintained as it should be. Look around at the stations outside of center city. For the large part, they are falling apart. Money is the number one factor here, they do not get the funding from the state that is necessary to operate a railroad the way it needs to be run.

In many ways, the only way I can forsee SEPTA's rail operations improving is if it gets turned over to the frieght railroads. They are the one's who have the money to maintain the track and the suburban line stations, bring new passenger equipment into the scene, and run the railroad system like a railroad and not like a bus line.

Just a little "out of town" perspective---- WMATA is seeking a fare increase for the entire DC Metro system-- bus and rail. WMATA, like SEPTA, is now hurting for money and there are many locals who feel that the system has badly deteriorated and oppose raising fares because of this. What is very ironic is that I am now seeing and hearing the same arguments with regard to WMATA that you all are presenting regarding SEPTA ( with the exception of the RRD problems-- WMATA is not trying to run a commuter railroad- MARC & VRE do that)

I'm not saying the freight companies should take over the commuter ops because they have money. I would not expect them to pay for a nickle of running passenger lines. However, I think something is to be gained by having a organization whose culture is dedicated to efficient railroading running our commuter lines than a half a$$ed transit company. If freight companies did run the commuter lines, they would still have to be subsidized, but perhaps not as much if the freight companies were able to manipulate the entire system to benefit their freight ops as well.


One thing I am impressed by is NS's effort in attracting new customers. They actually help companies build their warehouses and factories along their routes in exchange for their business. Look at all the abandoned frieght sidings along SEPTA's system. They don't even have the money to pull up the old tracks. But I'd be willing to bet that NS would make some kind of effort to fill those empty warehouses.

Just imagine for a second if the government came out and said "OK today I-95 is for passengers only! All trucks must use the new I-95B that we are building for $XX dollars" Well in the one sense that would be great because commuters would no longer have to mingle with semi's on their way to work. However, as with our railroads both freight and passenger, we almost have a segregated system where freight and passenger ops do not mingle, causing SEPTA and the freight carriers to maintain their own separate ROW. The more cars/hour we can send down each track, the more efficient that track is, and its not just the track, its the ROW which has to have a dispatcher watch it, bridges to maintain, etc.

I don't know too much about how freight is routed in our area, but I know in very select places do freight and passenger trains see each other, and in most cases they have their own dedicated track (Newtown Junction, Neshaminy Falls, etc.)

I'm sure the freight companies dont think too highly of SEPTA either...

Elwood wrote:In many ways, the only way I can forsee SEPTA's rail operations improving is if it gets turned over to the frieght railroads

No, that's the way to make passenger operations disappear. The reason why government transit agencies took over passenger ops in the first place is because freight railroads could not afford to operate the service and were trying their darndest to divest it. Over the years, the ICC and FRA have made it more expensive to operate efficient passenger service, too. No freight railroad will ever take upon a passenger operation again if it is not subsidized by either state DOTs or federal money (e.g. where CSX operates MARC passenger service on CSX-owned lines).

>>No freight railroad will ever take upon a passenger operation again if it is not subsidized by either state DOTs or federal money (e.g. where CSX operates MARC passenger service on CSX-owned lines).<<

Well, then. Shouldn't this be the time for the State of PA to step in and get the DOT to pony up the cash to subsidize the freight running of the RRD?

... But, this is INEPTA we are talking about. Even IF the DOT loosened the purse strings and NS (is that the local freight carrier?) agreed to run pasenger service, SEPTA would hold the RRD in their clutches until the last chip was on the table.