SEPTA announced Wednesday evening that it would be moving trains and buses to Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County to meet increased demand on parallel routes, in the wake of service suspensions after the derailment of Amtrak Northeast Regional 188. The centerpiece of the new plan is a near-doubling of service on the West Trenton Line. …
Author Archives: Michael Noda
Surveillance video strongly suggests Amtrak 188 derailment due to overspeed
A surveillance video in Port Richmond caught a brief glimpse of Amtrak 188 Tuesday night, and what it saw strongly suggests that the train was well over the maximum speed for the track segment immediately before it derailed. The video, which was obtained and broadcast by CNN, shows the doomed train pass seconds before a …
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How to go around the Northeast Corridor shutdown after the Frankford Junction derailment
UPDATE 5/14: As of Thursday morning, SEPTA and NJT are co-ordinating detour service via the West Trenton Line. SEPTA will be running a new weekday schedule with about twice as many trains as normal. NJT will be providing free shuttle buses between West Trenton station and Trenton Transit Center. SEPTA is also providing extra parking …
Amtrak derailment in North Philadelphia tonight
According to initial reports, Amtrak train 188 has derailed at or near SHORE interlocking, near Frankford Avenue and Wheatsheaf Lane in North Philadelphia. Former Congressman Patrick Murphy has tweeted photos from the inside of a cafe car that has rolled on to its side, showing injured passengers and first responders at the scene. The Philadelphia …
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Indego launches tomorrow. Are you ready?
Philadelphia’s long-awaited bike share network launches tomorrow with a ceremonial ride-off from Eakins Oval. It’s here. It’s finally here. GET HYPE. YOU ARE NOT HYPE ENOUGH. GET MORE HYPE. Now if I could only figure out where the hell I put my bike helmet…
Jobs, job access, and building a strong, solvent city
I went to Young Involved Philadelphia’s City Council Candidate Convention last night. As I talked directly with many of the candidates, there was a common refrain among many of them: “The city needs to rebuild its tax base by bringing more jobs back into the city.” (The policy conclusions each candidates drew from that premise varied, of course.) …
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God help us all.
If you are running for Mayor, and you don’t have an agenda that includes bus lanes, transit signal priority, and bus shelters, then you have no plan for helping public transit riders in this city.
Sauce for the goose: if free transfers on SEPTA are good enough for 11th and 12th Streets, they’re good enough everywhere
The service planners at SEPTA have been very busy bees for this year’s Annual Service Plan revisions, and that work shows in the sheer plethora of adjustments they have proposed, from suburban bus reroutings, to the extension of bus routes to the Delaware River waterfront. But the crown jewel of their work this year is …
Pittsburgh is the competition. Let’s steal their best idea: free student and faculty transit
Last spring, I waxed rhapsodic on the similarities between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, while calling for strengthening the transportation ties between the two cities. But today, I want to recast the Steel City as villain, not hero. Let’s take the Yinzers, for the moment, as our municipal rivals for our most precious resource: human capital. Because …
Knowledge is power, especially on bad days
Quick thoughts on SEPTA’s response this morning to the fire in Kensington across from York-Dauphin Station that shut down the El: Obviously, the root cause of the mess was an enormous fire on someone else’s property that SEPTA could not have prevented, but since “Large Fires in Kensington” seems to be the new normal, at least until …
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Sic Transit Philadelphia 