Where's the Trolley on Route 23--SEPTA's broken promise

I agree on SEPTA’s half-a$$ed attempt in providing service for the reverse commuter. But I disagree with the fare angle you use for the R6 to Cynwyd and Bala. For one, since majority of reverse commuters travel the opposite way during peak hours, they pay off-peak fares which are the same for zones 1 and 2. Second, peak fares are only 75 cents more for zone 2, yes that adds up when one travels the line twice a day, five days a week, but the increase is still not enough to justify it as a factor in rider numbers.. The problem with the R6 is SEPTA wants it dead, but because of political pressure, they run enough trains to service the few who need it. Improving or adding more service to the line is the last thing on SEPTA’s to do list- and I highly doubt it made that list, but it is on top of the “Kill” list.

Bus connectors to K of P from rail lines are and will remain a stopgap measure no matter how long they have been operating. Any bus is gonna be stuck in the same traffic as everybody else in their 1-passenger Ford Brontos. Even under the best of circumstances haphazard meet times and extra transfer charges make the rail-bus connection inconvenient and more expensive. A lot of riders prefer to sit on the 123/124/125 for the full route, since they figure (rightly or wrongly) that they'd rather be in the bus despite being stuck in a traffic jam, instead of waiting for one at a half-enclosed shelter.

The solution would have been to fast-track (pun intended) the 100 extension to the Plaza and possibly further north to around Port Kennedy, but given SEPTA's current basket-case situation I don't expect to see it happen in my lifetime.

P.S. The R5 goes to Strafford rather than Stratford, which is in NJ ... although even SEPTA's publications sometimes get the names mixed up.

JeffK wrote:Bus connectors to K of P from rail lines are and will remain a stopgap measure no matter how long they have been operating.

Another reason is that the employment centers in KoP are quite diffuse, and your're going to need buses for some of your endpoint distribution no matter what you do with rail.

your're going to need buses for some of your endpoint distribution no matter what you do with rail.

True, but why run the bus all the way to CC? Get people on the trains, and make the busses a shuttle from the nearest rail station to the employment centers.

Case in point - I'm considering a position in Exton, 4 miles from the Exton train station. There's a bus - the 204 - but that requires me get off the train in paoli and ride the bus for more than a half hour. who needs it? I'll probably get a junker and park it at/near the train station and drive the 4 miles. If SEPTA ran a bus from the Exton station to the Exton employment centers, people might use it. If I have to be on the bus for more than about ten, fifteen minutes, I'm gonna find another way to get there.

My idea? split the route up, one for around Paoli, another for around Exton.

I agree with you 100% JSC, unfortunately SEPTA's frontier lines seem more like Sunday excursions than meaningful routes to somewhere useful. That's why most of them are so long in travel time and so light on service. In some cases, it takes an operator on a rural frontier line 3.5 hours to return to their start point

There's a reason they call it the "Frontier" division - miles of wilderness where you can go for hours on end without ever seeing a soul, or, well, at least without ever seeing any SEPTA vehicles

Mebbe that's a-where they use them thar TRAIL passes, podner!