Dear SEPTA: Fuck You.
Via the indispensable SEPTAWATCH comes the little-noticed news that effective July 31, SEPTA is planning on doing away with 60-cent transfers (already unfair and obsolete when you consider how well the Metrocards work in NYC). That means that if you need to transfer between a trolley/the El/the Broad Street line and the bus, it won’t cost you 60 cents extra: it will cost you another full $2.00 fare. And sincee there’s no free interchnage between buses as there is for the underground system (trolleys, the el, and the Broad street line all connect for free under City Hall and 30th Street Station), I have to assume that changing buses will also cost a full base fare.
This disproportionately affects the low-income workers who ride various forms of SEPTA to jobs in the burbs. It affects senior citizens who ride the buses to get to senior centers, the grocery, and the doctors. It affects students of all ages. In short, it’s yet another example of the bastardy that goes on at SEPTA, an agency that for too long has run roughshod over the needs of Philadelphians. It’s the same agency whose spokesman claims that ““We will not be applying for the fundamental reason that it is at the moment logistically impossible for us to mix the fuels at the capacity we need”, even though SUNOCO (whose refineries are based in Philly) says SEPTA has actually never asked.. It’s the same agency that blames the riders for not being able to understand SEPTA’s maps, which have all the detail of a 2-year-old child’s self-portrait.
As you can see, the map shows the stops on any given line, but unlike PATCO, NYC’s MTA, or even Boston’s creaky and shitty MBTA, SEPTA doesn’t give you any idea of where the stops actually are. Just look at SEPTA’s green line: does it give you ANY idea where the trolleys stop in West Philly? We know they go to Angora, Yeadon, Upper Darby… but what PART of Yeadon? Look at the R5 to Thorndale, which makes a stop in Bryn Mawr: where in Bryn Mawr? The same stop as the Route 100 trolley? That can’t be, they’re so far apart: there is simply no indication from looking at SEPTA’s map as to exactly where you’ll end up.
Of course, this is the same agency that refuses to sell tokens at every location, that refuses to give change for a five dollar bill, that refuses to shift to smart-cards.
Fuck SEPTA: if this plan goes through, Philadelphians should do more than boycott the system. They should make it impossible to run the system itself. They should takeover the headquarters at Market Street, making it impossible for anyone to enter or exit the building. And City Council is obliged to help us: SEPTA (not to mention Harrisburg) has fucked this city over one too many times, and an accountability moment is coming.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
