And that’s one less good person on your train.
There goes Brendan Skwire. Walking away from SEPTA in disgust. Photo credit: Ray Skwire
So here’s Brendan. Philly advocate. My Drinking Liberally buddy. One of my favorite PG commenters. And now? Ex-SEPTA rider.
Here’s what he writes on his (fantastic) blog, Brendan Calling:
“Last night I rode SEPTA regional rail for the first time in a few years. It wasn’t really by choice: my car broke down and I had to get out to Narberth to pick with the Dill Pickles. My buddy Nik said that once you get on the train it takes about 15 minutes to get there.”
You know where he’s going with this. (Yup, yet another SEPTA fail for Albert Yee’s collection.) Read the entire story here. Poor guy, he was just trying to get to his band gig.
He ends by writing:
“I will NEVER ride the regional rail again except for the purpose of entertaining my kid. I won’t even use it in an emergency: I’d just as soon take my bike or hail a cab in THIS city. For me, SEPTA’s regional lines serve no serious purpose: it’s one thing to add an extra hour to your commute when you’re trying make a train on time. It’s another entirely to add TWO extra hours to your commute because the trains show up 45 minutes late.
They should change the name of the Philly’s monopoly on transit to SCHLEPTA. It fits a whole lot better.”
Yikes! NEVER? In all-caps? That’s serious business. I can’t imagine never riding SEPTA again. I love SEPTA. Well, the people and the experience more than the actual entity. However, as Phawker’s SEPTA Girl, I should probably respond to Brendan’s post. Wait, why should I say something? I didn’t make Brendan late. I didn’t screw up his evening. I’m not responsible. SEPTA is. SEPTA should apologize. But they probably won’t.
So here we go:
Dear Brendan,
I’m sorry you had a sucky time. I’m sorry your car broke down. I’m sorry your train came late. I’m sorry you had to take a cab home. I’m sorry your night was ruined. I’m sorry to hear that your SEPTA experience was terrible. At the same time, it’s good to hear that you have alternatives. You write “I’d just as soon take my bike or hail a cab in THIS city.”
I can’t do that. I’d love to take a cab around the city. Everyone would. But everyone can’t afford it. And everyone can’t afford a car, either. I have to go to North Philadelphia three times a week to teach little kids in a library. Guess who gets me there? SEPTA. It gets me there and everywhere else I have to go.
You write “For me, SEPTA’s regional lines serve no serious purpose.” Er, I beg to differ. Some of us have to get to work. And school. And play. Somehow. Late or not late. We have to be there. Some of us can’t afford a car. Or a bike. Or a cab. And in an emergency? You can bet we’re taking a bus. (And if we can afford the car, we can’t afford the gas. Or the insurance. Or perhaps we don’t have a place to park.)
How about biking, you say? Surely you have a bike? I do. And I use it. But when it comes down to riding to Northeast Philadelphia every week to attend church, I’d rather not ruin my Sunday best. Or ride it through Center City’s day crowds. So what do I do? I SEPTA it.
You say “If I was king of Philadelphia, I’d fire everyone who works there, including the board of directors and management, and start over from scratch.” And if I were queen, I’d make extra bike lanes in Center City, but we can’t have everything. Good customer service? Yes. We all deserve that. And I believe as citizens of Philadelphia, we can work to improve that. It’s do-able. (And definitely let me know how I can help you in any way as you get your message across to SEPTA. )
Look, as a customer, you were treated terribly. You’re angry. I get it. I’m angry for you, buddy. I want to get right up there in SEPTA’s face every time my students have to wait for me because the 47 is late. But it’s cheap. It’s (generally) fast. It helps the environment. I get to see Philly. I get to learn more about its residents. And ultimately – I don’t have any other choice.
Funny thing? As much as we all complain about SEPTA (and I’m no exception), we’re split in terms of rating our satisfaction. In a recent study, 47% of Philadelphian’s rated the quality of public transportation in Philadelphia ‘Good’ as compared to 6% who rated it ‘Poor.’ (Read it on Page 32.) At the same time, since the gas price raises of last summer, ridership has increased drastically since 2007. (Read Page 37.) So there’s room for improvement. There’s a system overload, no doubt. And I thank you for writing about that and raising awareness about it. But we’ll miss you on the Market-El.
(But hey, lemme know when your car is fixed. Because guess who’s the new carpool driver guy at DL?)
XOXO,
PG
Brendan, I have some serious problems with the likelihood of your story. Based on your timings (20 minutes early for an 8:05 train) I see a huge problem when collaborating that to the ACTUAL schedule. One train leaves at 7:49 the next one at 8:19, which makes you actually only 4 minutes early for the first train which you miss because you went to McDonalds . So fifteen minutes of that right there is you not knowing how to read. The next train was at 8:49, and would have been the one you described to have actually caught. This either means you missed two trains in a row, or just one and the second had problems. The only problems I have ever heard of that cause a train not to show up are, 1)No Crew 2) Medical emergency 3) Equipment emergency. Trust me all of those actually take priority to your band’s gig. Septa trains past peek generally have one conductor and one engineer, if they are late by even 10 minutes (read time it takes to get McDonalds) they lose their window of opportunity to run the train, as the tracks are shared and running them out of order is a safety concern.
Maybe your problem isn’t SEPTA, maybe its you not using SEPTA ever that attributed to this “disaster”. They stopped the alternative fares on the train primarily because of the change issues they present, remember, every customer who pays cash is 50 cents you need to hold in your pocket. To alleviate this while they did add a surcharge, they allow you to use your onboard receipt against a round trip ticket. So if I going to Center City from Zone 2 it will cost me 5 dollars on the train, followed by going to the ticket office nearest me and paying 1.75 for a return ticket, viola!, same cost as a round trip ticket. SEPTA advertised this change for about 3 months before they did it and it does make life more convenient, and look, you even heard about it beforehand!
I’m not familiar with SEPTA’s regional rail system AT ALL. That being said, I don’t doubt the validity of his story. I just wanted to point out that not everyone has the luxury he has. But he knows that. Still, hoping that he’ll back down on his SEPTA ultimatum….
While I would love to disagree with all of what the anonymous commenter says, i have to make an admission: i just double-checked the schedlue, and he’s right. There is no 8:05. I must have read the schedule wrong.
HOWEVER: i was in time to make the 8:19, which didn’t show on time from the start: while I was in line, the sign specifically said it was late. Later, the sign kept changing from “10 minutes late” to “20 minutes late” then back to “10 minutes late” and so on. No announcements were made informing riders what was going on. And that still doesn’t speak to the missing ticket machines, removed before a replacement was provided.
The information about shared tracks and the “window of opportunity” is very valuable, and something i did not know. Can I assume the commenter works for SEPTA?
Anyway, if it’s a case of shared tracks, shouldn’t there be an explicit announcement if the delay is going to be that long, not just a sign that keeps going back and forth between “10 minutes” and “20 minutes” late? It wasn’t just me standing on the platform grumbling.
Finally, at the end of the day, it’s more than just “getting there”. It’s “getting there on time” and “keeping your riders informed”.
In all an unsatisfactory experience.
Wait a sec….that’s MY photo? I don’t know about that…
yeah, that’s not ray’s photo. Nik Fox (from the dill pickles) took that one.
everyone’s making mistakes today!
Nope, I don’t work for Septa, but I do ride regional rail 10 times a week, so I am very familiar with their lateness problems. I generally see one late train per week, anywhere from 5-15 minutes late, with an occasional rare instance of the situation you described. The main reason I “went off” has more to do with you having judged the entire system from one (rare) experience. I know SEPTA has issues, but every issue has an explanation. As for the ticket machine issue here is my understanding of it. Septa is trying to get state of the art ticketing machines put into all places where there could be fares. This could mean standardized fares that you could use on Buses, the Subway, Trolley and Train systems. The biggest thing holding this back isn’t the machines themselves but SEPTA’s way of doing finances and keeping Rail money separate from all other branches. I sense that this will change and is why they are holding off on investing in the machines now because they would just have to be replaced when the finances become streamlined.
I have had pretty good experiences with SEPTA’s regional rail, living out in the suburbs. It comes in especially handy when the I-76 is backed up… My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t run often enough to be able to just show up and expect to hop on a train — if you’re going off-peak, you have to always check the schedule, or risk waiting an hour for the next train.
Still, the coolest train to center city is actually the R100 light rail “high speed line”. Build more light rail, Philly planners!