Rider Rant: Dynah

A rider rant from the weekend from reader Dynah...

I got on the 40 bus this morning near home in Wynnefield. Because I use a wheelchair, drivers usually ask where I'm getting off (I guess so they know how long I'll be on there taking up a bunch of seats). I told him 2nd St, the end of the route, and he told me he could only go to 16th because of the Broad Street Run (the 40 runs down South from 23rd to 2nd). Now I understand that sometimes it's not possible for buses to get places because of events, but just skipping 14 blocks of the route is more than a little detour- I personally can't make it that far and didn't get where I had planned to go.

What's worse, I was the only passenger who was informed of the shortened route. Everyone else getting on assumed it would go all the way- even the people who got on just blocks from the route's untimely end, paying full price to ride a few hundred feet. Also upset, quite understandably, was the elderly woman who said to the driver, after being told to get off at 16th, "How am I going to get to 6th? You should have told us when we got on that it wasn't going all the way!" I hope she had more luck reaching her destination than I did.

Anybody else recently have some event-related transit issues?

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Rider Rant: Len

I've never thought twice about the lack of announcements at subway stations. I had always assumed that there was a PA system, but I guess not. Rider Len writes...

Last week, there was a problem on MFL and the trains were running at 15 minute headway (or longer) in the peak period obviously creating a major crowding effect at the stations and trains. Well, when we got off the Route 15 trolley at Girard Ave, the trolley operator didn’t say anything, the booth person didn’t say anything, and we didn’t even know whether the trains were even running until 15 minutes later one arrived and we could not even get in waiting for two more trains. So, I sent a complaint to SEPTA. See the ridiculousness of the response below:

Thank you for contacting us. The adjusted headways on Monday morning were required due to emergency track work that needed to be completed. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience that you were caused as a result of this incident.

Press Relations was made aware of this well before it started for the purpose of informing our customers via the news media (KYW, local news channels).

Cashiers do not have the ability to make PA announcements throughout the station and it's near impossible to tell each customer entering the station.

And, there is my response back:

I am sorry to say but this is really a poor excuse: first, obviously I would not expect that the booth staff would tell every person about what's going on, but you could have very easily posted a sign outside. There is only one station entrance making it so easy.

Secondly, why don't booth attendants have abilities to make announcements at every station?? It sounds ridiculous that the only representatives of SEPTA at your train stations cannot have the ability to communicate what is going on to its patrons.

Thirdly, when we got off Route 15 trolley, the trolley operator did not make any announcements either.

And finally, you cannot possibly expect that all of your patrons are going to be listening to the radio in expectation of SEPTA having emergency work being done? PARTICULARLY, when you are on the Route 15 trolley going to work???

I would really appreciate this issue being escalated. Unfortunately, this seems to happen every time when there is any emergency work - SEPTA has traditionally been very poor in terms of its communication to its customers and something should really be done.

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