Hello, SSP forumers!!! I've opened up a new thread about SEPTA, and it seems like there's a lot of good ideas, as well as opinions, regarding SEPTA. I'm already aware that we already have a forum about Philadelphia Transportation, but I also wanted to open up a new thread about how SEPTA can be improved and more effectively operated through our fair city.
One of my pet peeves about SEPTA seems to be the fact that you have to pay an extra dollar just to get either a bus or train transfer, meanwhile NYC's transit agency, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, provides paying commuters on it's bus and subway system with free transfers. Other cities, like Boston, have bus to bus transfers which you pay, but is practically a lot cheaper than what SEPTA provides. The $1 transfer fee, along with the $2.25 base fare means that commuters who take SEPTA to and from work, have to pay, arguably, the highest transportation fares in the nation when it comes to cities!!!
Another of my peeves is that although SEPTA's subway system does do it's job transporting commuters to North, South, and West Philly, there's no subway service to much of NE Philly, as well as NW and SW Philly, as well as parts of Montgomery, Delaware, and Bucks Counties that are closely adjacent to Philly. Cities like Chicago, DC, Boston, SF, and Miami provide service not only within their respective cities, but also adjacent communities. SEPTA's subway system only serves the communities of Millbourne and Upper Darby. It's arguable whether one can consider the Norristown High Speed Line a part of the subway system, since there's no free interchange between the NHSL and the MFL at 69th St, which is another peeve about SEPTA.
Another one is the fact that since NW Philly is served by Regional Rail to Chestnut Hill East and West and to Norristown, SW Philly is served by the Airport Line, and NE Philly is served by the Fox Chase and Trenton lines, there's no subway service in NE, NW, and SW Phila. The only routes in which you pay the base fare are the local bus routes. In order to use the Regional Rail lines, you must pay at least $4 each way. NYC was able to convert the LIRR Rockaway Line into subway service, Chicago was able to convert former railroad ROW's into the Orange Line to Midway Airport, and Boston plans to convert the Fairmount Line into another heavy rail line. Philadelphia can do the same!!!
I've always felt that converting some of the Regional Rail lines (with the exception of the Trenton line) into the subway system is a cost effective measure since people who live in the city and live close to the aforementioned lines will be able to use the lines more frequently, and by using the newly converted subway lines, will be a great windfall for not only SEPTA, but for the city of Philadelphia, since we'll have a subway system that's capable of reaching all parts of the city!!!
Even the bus system doesn't make any sense to me. There's one route, which operates every day, the 60 from Richmond and Westmoreland, but it doesn't go to Wissahickon Transportation Center but rather stops at 35th and Allegheny. Another route, the 26, starts from Chelten and Germantown and heads to Frankford TC, but that route goes all around Northeast Phila before it heads to Frankford TC. And finally, there's the fiasco with the 23 being split up into two routes. There's been differing opinions about the 23 and while a lot agree that the 23 needed to be split up, I felt that 47M, which served South Philly via 9th St, did the job that the 45 is currently doing!!! All SEPTA had to do was to maintain the 47M while restoring trolley service on the 23. It boggles my head why the 15 was restored to trolley service while the 23 was never restored into the original trolley service but split apart instead!!!
SEPTA, since 1964, was supposed to maintain the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad passenger service and maintain the PTC system, but in my opinion, I haven't seen any progress thus far and lines like the Bethlehem, Reading, and West Chester branches only remain as memories. I'd love to see all those lines come back just for the sake of traveling to and from those cities as well as maintaining viable links to those cities via Philadelphia. I say the only way for all this to happen is to completely reform SEPTA from the top down!!!