Transit Strike Modified Regional Rail Schedules

You know, JSC, I wish you want not inject race into the strike issue. You do not know that minority status had anything to do with why the train did not stop and there may have been any other number of reasons for it to blast through the station. Whoever did the observing that race was the factor was irresponsible. This is the sort of thing that encourages beliefs like Bush ordered the levees blown up in the recent New Orleans flood to get rid of Blacks or that white scientists invented Aids to kill off Africans. In the next posting you will see that the same thing happened in Bridesburg where the passengers are predominantly white. Please, Septa has any number of issues to deal without throwing race into the pot.

I live at 48th and Baltimore and woke up around 7 this morning. A few minutes later I heard a decidedly-SEPTA-sounding horn, something I very rarely hear at my place. I assumed it was a train bypassing 49th St. As I prepared for the day, I heard the same thing two more times.

The race comment was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I've seen some black people riding SEPTA over the years, not to mention collecting tickets, running trains, buses, etc.

By the way, I rode my bicycle to work today. I left my house at 9:10AM and was in the elevator to my office at 16th and Walnut at 9:30. If I had taken the trolley, it would have taken 10 minutes longer door-to-door, although I wouldn't have been so sweaty when I arrived.

I took the 1:20PM inbound R3 from Clifton-Aldan today. The train was 2 minutes late, perfectly fine given the bigger crowd. There seemed to a be a bit larger crowd than normal boarding at Lansdowne and Fernwood, but I am not a regular on this train so it's just a guess.

Angorra and 49th were highly used, however. I've never seen more than 2 people get on or off there, and usually it's reverse commuters but Angorra had about 30 and 49th about 50. With the late running we missed our slot to cross over to the inbound track at the junction with the R1/2 so had to wait a minute for an outbound train. Lot's of grumbling over the fare from those who purchased onboard. It's a big hike from the trolley fare. Maybe during strikes the regular transit fare should apply at city stations, though that would lead to some crush loads and would likely demand very frequent service on lines such as Elwyn, the Chesnut Hills, Norristown, etc.

Even with these delays we only were about 7 minutes late into Suburban. Suburban was mobbed and egress from the train took a while (I was at the front of the first car and due to the crew change we weren't allowed to exit the cab. The center doors of NJT or the Silverliner V would have been nice.

Bob

I don't think race was the in the equation, either. The majority of the RRD personnel hired after 1983 are in fact African-American. A local train would not have bypassed any stops without permission of the SEPTA-6 train dispatcher. You can bet that was the reason why. In 2005 racism is definitely alive and well, but not in this instance.

Regular TransPass users can use their passes to 49th Street and Angora, so likely those people grumbling about the fare differences were either cash riders or token users.

I wonder how many of them will realize the more flexible nature of the passes when this is all over....

Speaking of goofy...when I boarded the R7 yesterday, it was a 6 car consist and they were only letting us board from one door on the whole train. What kind of logic is that? Supervisors are so dumb.

I don't think race was the in the equation, either

Actually it is. Being downtown, I've noticed 2 groups missing: working class poor and the bums (they get free rides on the subs if you slobber on the cashier's window long enough).

Clearly, anyone with a choice is using another way to commute. Those who have no choice don't commute. This demonstrates that SEPTA is moving the wrong crowd: people who have no choice. Everyone else that has to go to work has been at work. Stores are still doing business, companies are still carrying on. The strike has not crippled the city, but it has crippled the poor and infirm.

Again, if the trains are bypassing inner city stations, its because those with a choice drove further up a the line where they knew the train would stop or still have seats, so by the time it hit the city stations, it had no choice but to pass up those people. Need an example? Cornwells Heights.

I'm a black man and an RRD crew member. I still say that race really has nothing to do with trains passing stations during city transit strikes. It's not just blacks who live in the innercity. I think if one makes such an argument, a stronger claim would be social classism (which I think is more the side effect rather than the intention). We all knew that the RRD is running at capacity during rush hour even without the strike, and they only carry a fraction of the total amount of people the rest of SEPTA's divisions do. Live 8 was a prime example of just how inept and shorthanded SEPTA's RRD fleet really is. I cannot believe that racism has anything to do with the TWU striking, which as a result has overwhelmed an already saturated Regional Rail division. At rush hour, SEPTA RRD has NO ADDITIONAL cars anywhere in the system, unless they are being repaired at Overbrook Maintenance facility. Let's remember that the GM of SEPTA is black, one of the city's board members is black, the mayor is black, and the president of the TWU is black, the majority of SEPTA's workers are black. I seldom side with SEPTA on any issue, but the fact is that they don't have the manpower or the fleet capacity to run efficiently during a city transit work stoppage. Even without the strike, one set of wires come down, a train breaks down, a moderate snowstorm, and the RRD is in shambles, PEAK or OFF PEAK. I've been stuck on many a train. If a train is jam packed half way down the branch it likely will not make any more local stops because of safety reasons. Could you imagine running Silverliners with the traps open and people squeezed in the MU's like sardines, and then making more stops to cram more people in. Where are they going to stand, the vestibules? It's a disaster waiting to happen. In light of all of this, politicians and local leaders have done nothing but give opinions. DEDICATED FUNDING folks, let's keep our eyes on the eightball.

I suppose a safer statement is what whovian just said above, but I must say many along the western half of the 15 feel there is hidden racism going on with the stop eliminations along their part of the line. And I do have to wonder about the inner city stations which were neglected and probablly led to their closure (all of which started on the RDG/PRR's watch).

Unfortunately, people in the city, regardless of color, always seem to get the short end of the stick, this strike being no exception, and the poorer you are, the shorter your stick.

And as far as the color of skin of the power players (mayor, GM, etc), while some of it may be legitimate, I kind of think Ms. Moore's appointment was more for show than anything else. Maybe I'm saying this because the company is in shambles, but she's no David Gunn or George Warrington. Someone with real transit experience.

I definitely agree the system is too fragile. One wire down and everything is a mess. That's a product of the current setup, running trains through from one side of the system to the other. If one side has a problem, the whole thing collapses on its own weight.

jfrey40535 wrote:I suppose a safer statement is what whovian just said above, but I must say many along the western half of the 15 feel there is hidden racism going on with the stop eliminations along their part of the line.

Speaking of stop eliminations, remember when it was tried on Route 10 a few years back? All the discontinued stops have since been quietly restored. I bet the same will happen to the 15 in time.

I am thinking that the stops were eliminated to speed the running time of the line, BUT...9 times out of 10, a trolley would get caught by a traffic light at one of the eliminated stops and have to wait anyway. So in the end, no time gets saved, and you have longer dwell times at the remaining stops, where you have to board the number of people from that stop and the eliminated stop up the block....

wow. what a firestorm - didn't mean to ignite all of that. For the record, I don't believe that the train bypassed 49th street for racial reasons, though I was concerned at seeing open seats and not a standing load in the cars as they blasted by. The fellow citizens standing on the platform with me were probably about 70% african or african decent, 25% so-called-white and 5% asian. I didn't see anyone who looked hispanic, but I wasn't really conducting a sociology study, either. One lady had been waiting at the station for over an hour (apparently the previous train blew by her too) and she expressed her oppinion that SEPTA was run by "whitie" (I hadn't heard that term in a while!) I doubt she understood or cared about train dispatchers or much else about railroad operations. She was late for work, and a train full of white faces blasted past her twice. The thing is, sometimes perception becomes reality - especially for thorny issues surrounding race in the US.

Thanks for reading, back to the conversation about a lack of service in the city...

A peak morning train is now initiating at Lansdowne on the R3, which I would assume is to pick up passengers at "inner city" stations.

Being African American those stops being eliminated had nothing to do with race IMHO....

Reason being does that mean a whole bunch of black people lived out Newtown, Quakertown, West Chester, Wawa or all those other stops that have been eliminated, i think not.

The bottom line is that SEPTA SUCKS & a better organization or firm that actually cares about the publics well being needs to take it over before they run it further into the ground...

The closing of city stations goes way back. People stopped using the stations because they were in such disrepair, and probablly unsafe. If any of you saw pictures of the old Nicetown Station or Spring Garden Station you might agree. Plus the trains just suck.

My insult of the day was riding in a unlit Silverliner II, and being stuffed into a 2-car consist train which departed Suburban Station at 5:15 and arrived at Bridesburg at 6:04. Hello??? Why does the system grind to such a halt? Why do the trains poke along at 15 mph while Amtrak breezes by us at 70? Maybe if Amtrak didn't butcher the tracks at N. Phila it wouldn't be so brutal.

It just seems like SEPTA Trains and trolleys are driven by little old ladies. No wonder people in this city prefer buses. I've never been on a bus that had to pull over and let a express bus pass, or proceed at restricted speed even though the track is clear for miles ahead. Its very dumb. SEPTA SUCKS.

jfrey40535 wrote:Why do the trains poke along at 15 mph while Amtrak breezes by us at 70? Maybe if Amtrak didn't butcher the tracks at N. Phila it wouldn't be so brutal.

Actually, much of the plant rationalization Amtrak has done, particularly around Zoo, actually reduced conflicts between SEPTA and Amtrak movements.