At a ceremony this morning at the Hyundai Rotem assembly plant on Weccacoe Avenue in South Philadelphia, officials from SEPTA and Hyundai Rotem celebrated the construction of Silverliner Vs 881 and 882. When this pair of cars completes its testing period and is accepted by SEPTA, it will mark the end of the Silverliner V …
Author Archives: Michael Noda
FY2014 and NPT: City and Suburban Transit Divisional tariffs
The transit side of SEPTA’s July 1 fare hike is, mercifully, easier to write about than the railroad side. One almost sees why SEPTA has such a mania for oversimplifying its fare structure. But such is the lot of the (alleged) transit professional: while Your Humble Blogger gets to complain about typing volume, the accountants …
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FY2014 and NPT: Save the Dates!
SEPTA is required by law to hold public hearings whenever it enacts major fare changes. SEPTA, at least in its current incarnation, takes these meetings seriously. To reiterate the point I made Friday night, they are not show trials. This is not the MTA. While some things are unavoidable (a complaint about a fare increase …
FY2014 and NPT: Railroad Division tarriff
Going into further depth on SEPTA’s proposed fare changes, I am seeing disturbing trends. Apart from the flaws in the technical implementation of NPT (another post in itself), SEPTA’s changes to fare rules and structures indicate an attitude of not wanting to deal with the complexity of the world it exists in and the ridership …
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SEPTA releases proposal for July 1 fare hike and NPT-related fare rule changes
Updated 2013-3-16 7:00p After months of speculation, and not a little bit of pleading from this blog and others, we are finally learning some of what is waiting in store for SEPTA riders when NPT rolls out later this year. This is coming wrapped up with fare hikes and rule changes that SEPTA will be …
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The card in your wallet with the bad photo is not a License to Kill
Yesterday, with its beautiful weather, was a good day to get out of Philadelphia, for me, but even more for those who lacked the option, because they are fixed, inanimate objects. In three separate incidents, drivers plowed their cars into the Wawa at Delaware and Tasker in South Philadelphia, a Dunkin Donuts on Ridge Ave. …
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What Williamsburg can tell us about two tracks and short trains
Stephen J Smith has a piece up at the New York Observer on how much capacity can be squeezed out of New York’s L line (14th St-Canarsie), in relation to a massive proposed development in Williamsburg. The answer seems to be “a lot”, and Smith does an excellent job in showing his work. A combination …
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Ask not for whom the booth trolls
Rev. Michael Caine, Friend of the Blog and pastor at Old First Reformed UCC in Old City, shares the following story (edited slightly for readability): Today the SEPTA token booth “non-worker” couldn’t tell when the next southbound Broad Street Spur would come. I asked, “do you know if there are scheduled times or do they come …
The El and Longitudinal Seating
Over on the DVARP (yay!) Facebook (boo! hiss!) page, a discussion is brewing over the internal layout of the M-4 Market-Frankford Line trains. The current setup involves nearly all seats facing either forwards or backwards, with a narrow aisle running through the seating areas. Posters in the DVARP thread are advocating converting to longitudinal seating …
Destroying the village to save it is still a bad idea: Amtrak Corridors and Long Distance
The commentariat is going yet another round on Amtrak, in advance of provisions of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) taking effect this year. This time, it’s Henry Grabar in the Atlantic Cities (with the linkbait title “How Amtrak Could Become a Robust, Profitable Enterprise”), highlighting the difference between what is …
Sic Transit Philadelphia 