Rider Rant: Nyssa

Here's a rider rant from Day 1 of the SEPTA strike of 2009.

I take a total of 3 buses to get to college, needless to say I already massively hate SEPTA and suffer from their douchbaggery daily, but this is unreal. SEPTA went on strike this morning, I was in bed more than half asleep when I heard on the news that they were on strike. I screamed NOOOOOOOOoooo, not that it properly expressed my rage.

Yesterday I was at 69th street station, going to buy my weekly pass, I asked the lady at the window for a weekly and then she asked me debit or credit, debit. Then she chats it up with the lady in the window next to her, FORGETS what I said just a minute ago about wanting debit and then I enter my pin. I was walking away from the window, looked at my card and saw that it was not a weekly, but a monthly.

Since it's SEPTA, I had to get to my bus so I'm stuck with this monthly pass. To sum up window lady freaking sold me a monthly because she was just too busy chatting it up with her bud than to pay attention, and on top of that I'm 70 dollars in the hole, money that could have been spent on a cute dress, and SEPTA is on strike for god knows how long. If I do happen to see anyone on strike, I might start a riot.

I will note that SEPTA has announced exchanges and credits for weekly/monthly passes which are redeemable starting at the end of the month. On a side note, apparently SEPTA Regional Rail conductors were punching TransPasses if you used them to ride Regional Rail during the strike. They were supposed to tell you they were going to be punching the passes (so you can't get a refund), but didn't always do so. From the same article:

Such punched passes, and the TrailPasses that kept being honored for regional rails, are not eligible for credits or exchange, SEPTA said.

Unpunched weekly and monthly passes are eligible, even if they were used before the strike.

"We only brought out the punch when there was a service disruption," explained SEPTA spokesman Jerri Williams.

Generally, people trying to use a TransPass - usually honored on buses, subways and trolleys - to ride the regional rails were told they might want to purchase tickets instead, she said.

"We hope that at the time they used it that was explained to them," Williams said.

"We hope," Williams says. Oh SEPTA, you truly are not even close to "Getting There"

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