Third Class
[News, "Fuel for Thought," Jenna Portnoy, Aug. 31, 2006] reveals yet another lost opportunity by a transit agency that seems to pride itself on how narrow-minded and intransigent it can be. Even better than trying to clean up its noisy, fume-belching diesel buses, SEPTA ought to replace at least some of those buses with zero-emissions vehicles such as trolley cars and trackless trolleys. Clean, fast and quiet, electric trolleys and trackless trolleys are the way world-class transit authorities move their passengers.
But in recent years, SEPTA has taken electric trolleys and trolley buses off the streets on eight different transit lines, replacing them with — you guessed it — noisy, belching diesel buses.
Diesel buses are third-rate transportation for third-rate cities. Philadelphia’s transit riders, its neighborhoods and all of us who breathe the air, deserve better.
Michael Szilagyi
Michael, Michael, Michael…
-sigh-.
How many times do we have to tell you? Philadelphia IS a third-rate city in every way, from our corrupt machine politics, to our lousy recycling, to our regressive and punitive tax system, to our poorly funded and failing public schools, to our poorly designed highways, to the corruption int he parking authority, all the way to our obsolete and inefficient public transit system. Our neighborhoods are filled with trash, teenagers kill each other in the street with impunity, and we tear down historic buildings to make way for parking garages.
Philadelphia has been a third rate city for years, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be a third rate city, and in fact will always BE a third rate city.
I wish I had better news for you, but that’s just the way it is.
When I moved here I had such high hopes about the city: now that I’ve spent almost a decade here, I’ve learned the truth about Filthadelphia, aka Killadelphia.
But hey Michael, look at the bright side: we’re not Camden.
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