There's an episode of my favorite childhood comedy, Seinfeld where Jerry reveals to his Willy Loman-esque buddy George that he's got a special move he uses in the sack. He had been holding out on his best friend and went and told his mechanic, Putty (who was dating Elaine), the move. George was livid. George screeches:
I can't believe you're hoarding sex moves. I'm out there rubbing two sticks together. You walk around with a Zippo.
The shot above [via tumblr is the MTA of NYC's Zippo to SEPTA's two sticks. They've installed LCD screens along the L line, running under the main thoroughfare of 14th St through Manhattan through North Brooklyn to Canarsie. To put that into perspective, it's roughly the length of the Market-Frankford Line, cutting right through the city in the same east-west manner. Imagine knowing where all those trains were.
The LCD screens are updated every 15 seconds with the location of each and every train on the line. Imagine that - knowing where your train is and knowing if it's 1, 2, 3 stops or more away. A bigger look at the photo above here
I've heard the chatter about SEPTA's über state-of-the art inner workings. How the whole system is being overhauled with message boards. Hell, I've even seen some of the message boards being tested here and there. But I've been in NYC, DC even Atlanta and in those cities I know how much longer I have to wait in a reeking-of-piss, shit-stained station before a train arrives. Not in Philly. Not with SEPTA. I'm afraid that by the time this new state-of-the-art system is in place, it'll be 10 years too late.
SEPTA doesn't do too well with technology after all. I think we're the only major transportation agency still using antiquated tokens. Yes, we do have farecards, but can we buy them at machines that take credit cards or even $1 bills? Nope. Remember when SEPTA took out all the big token machines because they couldn't read the new $1 bills? Ouch.
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