Another edition brought to you by the World’s Worst Blogger:
- In the end of an era, SEPTA has announced that, beginning on September 1, pay-as-you-leave will be abolished on the Suburban Transit routes out of 69th Street Terminal where it is currently the rule. This will standardize the entire SEPTA transit system on the more logical and familiar pay-as-you-enter rule, ostensibly in preparation for NPT. One hopes that it will be the precursor to other steps to bring further sanity to SEPTA’s fare system. Dare we suggest abolishing the $1 transfer fee and adjusting the base fare to compensate in 2016? We can recapture the efficiencies of open boarding at 69th Street while retaining the simplicity and sense of pay-as-you-enter by putting bus and trolley boarding areas at 69th Street inside the faregates. Think on it, SEPTA!
- A SEPTA electrical worker participating in the Trolley Tunnel Blitz apparently misjudged the distance to the adjacent active MFL tracks, and was struck by an El train in the tunnel at 22nd Street Monday afternoon. The worker, who was rushed to Hahnemann University Hopsital with injuries to the head and knee, is expected to recover soon; the Monday evening rush hour, already disrupted by the Trolley Blitz, was snarled by an El shutdown, followed by single tracking around the accident site.
- Speaking of SEPTA electrical workers, the IBEW local representing Regional Rail workers reached a tentative contract agreement with management yesterday. IBEW was one of the two unions that staged a 24-hour-long strike this past June; the other union, representing Regional Rail’s engineers, is still in talks, and is making pessimistic statements.
- The eyes of the world are riveted on the absolute failure of policing in Ferguson, MO, where riots and police riots have ensued after the fatal shooting of a unarmed young man by police officer. The body camera that could have told us much about that initial encounter, instead reportedly sat in a box in Ferguson PD headquarters, as North St. Louis County police officers, like many around the country, are resistant to adopting them. Meanwhile, in a display of what policing should look like, SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel thinks body cameras are the awesomest thing ever, and cannot wait until all of his officers are wearing one. Kudos, Chief!
- The #SEPTAWILM petition is still going, having passed the 1,500 signature mark last night. And as petition starter David Curtis notes, the riders and potential riders already know that expanding off-peak Wilmington service is of mutual benefit to both Delaware and Pennsylvania: the ratio of petition signers from DE to petition signers from PA is less than 1.02:1.
- As if the ongoing ad blitz and the swirling rumors of an imminent naming rights deal with Verizon for Suburban Station weren’t enough, Verizon’s archrival Comcast has found the name of its headquarters scrubbed from SEPTA signage throughout the concourse.
- An extension of the 22nd Street Bike Lane from Spring Garden to Fairmount is being held up because Councilman Bill Greenlee’s office is afraid of numbers. Actually, maybe not, but that’s one of the more charitable interpretations. The space on the pavement for the bike lane is there, and it’s not taking away a legal car travel lane, just an unmarked, illegal, car travel lane.
- Bob Previdi needs to shut up forever. The way to bring Amtrak into Suburban Station (and Market East!) already exists, and it’s called the free transfer onto SEPTA Regional Rail (Ctrl+F “Amtrak”). Quit trying to spend scarce money to fix something that isn’t broke, and especially don’t waste money trying to do something in hardware that is best taken care of in software.
Sic Transit Philadelphia 
Regarding #1: that’s quite a lot of fence, given how many loading areas for buses there are at 69th St, and given that you’d have to manage to get buses into and out of the fare areas via entrances that wouldn’t permit riders to get in that way too. I’m not saying it’s an insurmountable problem, but I think it would require very significant reconstruction of the station.
You’re right if the goal is to incorporate all of the bus boarding areas. South Terminal is probably hopeless, and I wouldn’t include it. North Terminal you could incorporate into the MFL area with exactly as much fareline as exists today; instead of running at a 45 degree angle, just swing the fareline parallel to the El tracks. (This would put the bathrooms inside fare control, so if that’s not desirable, you’d need to barricade off a passage from the bathrooms to the main waiting room.) West Terminal falls in between North and South in terms of difficulty, and requires some compromises; the arrival platform can either be inside fare control or accessible from the sidewalk along Market Street, but not both.
Oh man, thank you for slamming the Amtrak-to-City-Hall proposal. What a weird article.
I’d say it’s rare to encounter an idea that is so dumb and poorly thought out, with such a prominent platform… except it’s really distressingly common.
Once we have free transfers, it would also be nice if some of the too-long bus routes were split up. It could improve the reliability considerably.
Absolutely. Looking especially at you, Route 23…
Bob Previdi should shut up AND be grateful that the Keystone Service actually detours to 30th St instead of just running through North Philadelphia as the venerable Pennsy would have done.