By Jeff Gammage
The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 11, 2010
Colin Weir rides the bus to work, and takes subways and trains elsewhere, so he spends a lot of time traversing the underground walkway in Center City. And he's got a suggestion for SEPTA:
"Take a few thousand gallons of bleach to the concourse," he said. "The whole thing is a cesspool of urine."
Another thing: The outdated maps, like the one on the southbound platform at Walnut-Locust station? They need to go. And the overbearing fluorescent lights and endless, blind corridors don't exactly make you feel safe.
Weir's laments echo those of others who ride and rely on SEPTA. For many of them, public transportation is not a luxury but a necessity.
Today, SEPTA stands at a telling moment, poised in the aftermath of November's nasty, six-day strike, and in advance of summer's scheduled fare hike. Both events have riders weighing the quality of service they get for their money, how it's delivered, and whether it will improve.
In interviews and conversations, many said they have noticed positive changes, but too often the trains are still late, the subway stations still reek, and the workers in the glass booths still don't have a kind word.
SEPTA's management team says it is actively focusing on customers, making service a higher priority. For instance, in summer 2008 SEPTA launched "Customer Connection," a program that lets riders meet agency workers to ask questions and offer suggestions.
"We are devoted to focusing on our core business - serving our customers," general manager Joseph Casey said then.
That alone is a big change at an agency that's been traditionally, notoriously customer unfriendly.
"Customer service is an easy term to throw out there," SEPTA's Kim Scott Heinle, assistant general manager for customer service and advocacy, said in an interview. But "there's no switch to throw. It's a whole combination of things."
Heinle said SEPTA management is listening hard to riders and transit advocates, using that information to help guide changes - like the advent of Quiet Ride.
That program designates the first car of most rush-hour trains as havens where cell-phone use is banned and passengers must speak in whispers - a blessing to riders seeking 30 or 40 minutes of peace on the way to or from Center City.
It hasn't been perfect. Some riders don't know the rules or choose to ignore them. Conductors can hesitate to intervene, leaving miffed passengers to confront offenders.
Which gets to the basic yin and yang of SEPTA.
Is service better than it used to be?
Definitely.
Spokesman Richard Maloney points to a 1980 Philadelphia Magazine story that described the subway as "40 miles of terror." The story depicted a system where violent thugs preyed on passengers, drunks collapsed in their own vomit, and confused out-of-towners struggled through "the pit of decay, danger and official disinterest that Philadelphians meekly accept as their subway system."
Does that mean SEPTA is all it should be? No. Even the people running the system admit that.
But one of the difficulties with measuring "service" is that SEPTA performs innumerable jobs at untold locations.
SEPTA serves five Pennsylvania counties - Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery - that cover 2,202 square miles, the landscape ranging from dense city neighborhood to rolling country field.
Its 13 commuter-rail lines travel as far north as Trenton and as far south as Newark, Del. Its 1,417 buses drive more than 45 million miles a year - roughly the distance from Earth to Mars.
SEPTA's annual budget is $1.1 billion. On an average weekday, the agency transports more than 1.1 million people. That's like moving the entire population of Dallas every day.
Carl Everett, a veteran rider who lives in Havertown and travels to his Center City office via the Norristown High Speed Line and the Market Street elevated subway, said he was generally satisfied with SEPTA.
Definitely, the trains could be cleaner and the signs clearer. But basically, said Everett, a lawyer at Saul Ewing, SEPTA is doing what he needs it to do: move him quickly, efficiently, and relatively cheaply from home to work and back again.
Another complication in judging service is that, because SEPTA is a public agency, its vehicles and facilities are open to all. So problems walk through the front door: crooks, drunks, rowdy teens, drug abusers, the mentally ill.
Passengers leaving Suburban Station via the stairway at 15th Street and JFK Boulevard often are greeted by puddles on the landing. When the stairwell is cleaned, it doesn't stay that way, for the simple reason that homeless people use it as a bathroom.
"We could clean up, and 10 minutes later somebody could be urinating again in that same space," said Paul Levy, executive director of the Center City District, which cleans the concourse through a contract with SEPTA.
Some riders say the concourse areas do seem cleaner since the Center City District took over the job about a year ago. And the presence of Center City District workers, in their bright teal uniforms, enhances a sense of safety.
Matthew Mitchell, of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, an advocacy group, said that overall, "the net quality of service seems to have improved slightly recently."
He credits Heinle, the assistant general manager, and Casey, who was picked in early 2008 to lead SEPTA, for "really paying attention to customer service and looking for ways to improve the system."
Weir, a Center City video editor who writes a blog called SEPTA Watch, said that despite the agency's challenges, he's optimistic.
The Regional Rail has the potential to be the best in the country. The Broad Street subway offers a speedy, inexpensive alternative to the madness of clogged traffic and pay-through-the-nose parking at the sports complex.
"I think the future is bright," he said. "There's expansion and reconstruction projects being planned for the first time in years. . . . Ridership is going up, and hopefully service quality will, too."
Perceptions
SEPTA regularly asks people to judge the transit system's performance. In those formal surveys, which generally involve 20-minute interviews with each of about 2,400 respondents from across the region, the agency tends to do pretty well. Surprisingly, people who don't ride SEPTA tend to think worse of it than those who do.
In three surveys between 2004 and 2007, non-riders scored SEPTA more poorly in terms of convenience, reliability, value, travel time, cleanliness, and personal safety.
Regular riders, however, rated SEPTA higher.
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest mark, the agency scored 7.4 on its overall performance in 2007, up from 7.1 in 2005.
SEPTA scored 7.4 on reliability and on-time efficiency, 7.5 on the courtesy and helpfulness of drivers, and 7.7 on the operational safety of the vehicles - all higher marks than in 2005.
SEPTA's 2008 survey saw some gains.
On the 0-to-10 scale, SEPTA scored an 8 among riders who were asked if the transit system was convenient and easy to use. Riders rated SEPTA staff - from cashiers to conductors to managers - no worse than 7.
But people like Albert Yee, a Philadelphia photographer, say that when SEPTA provides fast, courteous, and clean transportation, the agency is merely doing what it was designed to do.
"That's what's supposed to happen," he said, wondering at the occasional rudeness of bus drivers. "I don't expect them to smile and laugh and tell a joke and shake my hand every time, just to do their job."
Yee collects riders' tales on his Web site, www.SEPTAfail.com. One early post was a photo from Market East Station: A sign that advised passengers, "Direct line to telephone information." And below it, a wire and empty jack. No phone.
"It was," said Yee, "what SEPTA embodies to a lot of people."
Looking ahead
To the public, the strike and the fare hike - its size not yet known - seemed linked like the cars of a train. But that's wrong. SEPTA has been planning to raise fares in 2010 since it last boosted them in 2007.
If they're going to pay more, riders say, they want improvements. Like the provision of accurate, real-time information to people waiting at bus stops. And a single fare card that could be used on buses, trains, and trolleys.
SEPTA officials say they are working on exactly those kinds of ideas.
But the ability to alert people to when the next bus will arrive - as opposed to where it is at the moment, a different question - is some years off.
SEPTA wants to create an electronic fare system that could substantially replace the tokens and tickets used for buses, subways, and trains. The goal is for passengers to be able to wave a "smart card," or maybe even a credit card or cell phone, at a sensor on a turnstile, and then be on their way.
The agency hopes to award a $100 million contract this spring, and have part of the system operating by the end of 2010. It will be several years, officials acknowledge, before a smart-card system can be fully installed.
"Take a few thousand gallons of bleach to the concourse," he said. "The whole thing is a cesspool of urine."
Another thing: The outdated maps, like the one on the southbound platform at Walnut-Locust station? They need to go. And the overbearing fluorescent lights and endless, blind corridors don't exactly make you feel safe.
Weir's laments echo those of others who ride and rely on SEPTA. For many of them, public transportation is not a luxury but a necessity.
Today, SEPTA stands at a telling moment, poised in the aftermath of November's nasty, six-day strike, and in advance of summer's scheduled fare hike. Both events have riders weighing the quality of service they get for their money, how it's delivered, and whether it will improve.
In interviews and conversations, many said they have noticed positive changes, but too often the trains are still late, the subway stations still reek, and the workers in the glass booths still don't have a kind word.
SEPTA's management team says it is actively focusing on customers, making service a higher priority. For instance, in summer 2008 SEPTA launched "Customer Connection," a program that lets riders meet agency workers to ask questions and offer suggestions.
"We are devoted to focusing on our core business - serving our customers," general manager Joseph Casey said then.
That alone is a big change at an agency that's been traditionally, notoriously customer unfriendly.
"Customer service is an easy term to throw out there," SEPTA's Kim Scott Heinle, assistant general manager for customer service and advocacy, said in an interview. But "there's no switch to throw. It's a whole combination of things."
Heinle said SEPTA management is listening hard to riders and transit advocates, using that information to help guide changes - like the advent of Quiet Ride.
That program designates the first car of most rush-hour trains as havens where cell-phone use is banned and passengers must speak in whispers - a blessing to riders seeking 30 or 40 minutes of peace on the way to or from Center City.
It hasn't been perfect. Some riders don't know the rules or choose to ignore them. Conductors can hesitate to intervene, leaving miffed passengers to confront offenders.
Which gets to the basic yin and yang of SEPTA.
Is service better than it used to be?
Definitely.
Spokesman Richard Maloney points to a 1980 Philadelphia Magazine story that described the subway as "40 miles of terror." The story depicted a system where violent thugs preyed on passengers, drunks collapsed in their own vomit, and confused out-of-towners struggled through "the pit of decay, danger and official disinterest that Philadelphians meekly accept as their subway system."
Does that mean SEPTA is all it should be? No. Even the people running the system admit that.
But one of the difficulties with measuring "service" is that SEPTA performs innumerable jobs at untold locations.
SEPTA serves five Pennsylvania counties - Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery - that cover 2,202 square miles, the landscape ranging from dense city neighborhood to rolling country field.
Its 13 commuter-rail lines travel as far north as Trenton and as far south as Newark, Del. Its 1,417 buses drive more than 45 million miles a year - roughly the distance from Earth to Mars.
SEPTA's annual budget is $1.1 billion. On an average weekday, the agency transports more than 1.1 million people. That's like moving the entire population of Dallas every day.
Carl Everett, a veteran rider who lives in Havertown and travels to his Center City office via the Norristown High Speed Line and the Market Street elevated subway, said he was generally satisfied with SEPTA.
Definitely, the trains could be cleaner and the signs clearer. But basically, said Everett, a lawyer at Saul Ewing, SEPTA is doing what he needs it to do: move him quickly, efficiently, and relatively cheaply from home to work and back again.
Another complication in judging service is that, because SEPTA is a public agency, its vehicles and facilities are open to all. So problems walk through the front door: crooks, drunks, rowdy teens, drug abusers, the mentally ill.
Passengers leaving Suburban Station via the stairway at 15th Street and JFK Boulevard often are greeted by puddles on the landing. When the stairwell is cleaned, it doesn't stay that way, for the simple reason that homeless people use it as a bathroom.
"We could clean up, and 10 minutes later somebody could be urinating again in that same space," said Paul Levy, executive director of the Center City District, which cleans the concourse through a contract with SEPTA.
Some riders say the concourse areas do seem cleaner since the Center City District took over the job about a year ago. And the presence of Center City District workers, in their bright teal uniforms, enhances a sense of safety.
Matthew Mitchell, of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, an advocacy group, said that overall, "the net quality of service seems to have improved slightly recently."
He credits Heinle, the assistant general manager, and Casey, who was picked in early 2008 to lead SEPTA, for "really paying attention to customer service and looking for ways to improve the system."
Weir, a Center City video editor who writes a blog called SEPTA Watch, said that despite the agency's challenges, he's optimistic.
The Regional Rail has the potential to be the best in the country. The Broad Street subway offers a speedy, inexpensive alternative to the madness of clogged traffic and pay-through-the-nose parking at the sports complex.
"I think the future is bright," he said. "There's expansion and reconstruction projects being planned for the first time in years. . . . Ridership is going up, and hopefully service quality will, too."
Perceptions
SEPTA regularly asks people to judge the transit system's performance. In those formal surveys, which generally involve 20-minute interviews with each of about 2,400 respondents from across the region, the agency tends to do pretty well. Surprisingly, people who don't ride SEPTA tend to think worse of it than those who do.
In three surveys between 2004 and 2007, non-riders scored SEPTA more poorly in terms of convenience, reliability, value, travel time, cleanliness, and personal safety.
Regular riders, however, rated SEPTA higher.
On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest mark, the agency scored 7.4 on its overall performance in 2007, up from 7.1 in 2005.
SEPTA scored 7.4 on reliability and on-time efficiency, 7.5 on the courtesy and helpfulness of drivers, and 7.7 on the operational safety of the vehicles - all higher marks than in 2005.
SEPTA's 2008 survey saw some gains.
On the 0-to-10 scale, SEPTA scored an 8 among riders who were asked if the transit system was convenient and easy to use. Riders rated SEPTA staff - from cashiers to conductors to managers - no worse than 7.
But people like Albert Yee, a Philadelphia photographer, say that when SEPTA provides fast, courteous, and clean transportation, the agency is merely doing what it was designed to do.
"That's what's supposed to happen," he said, wondering at the occasional rudeness of bus drivers. "I don't expect them to smile and laugh and tell a joke and shake my hand every time, just to do their job."
Yee collects riders' tales on his Web site, www.SEPTAfail.com. One early post was a photo from Market East Station: A sign that advised passengers, "Direct line to telephone information." And below it, a wire and empty jack. No phone.
"It was," said Yee, "what SEPTA embodies to a lot of people."
Looking ahead
To the public, the strike and the fare hike - its size not yet known - seemed linked like the cars of a train. But that's wrong. SEPTA has been planning to raise fares in 2010 since it last boosted them in 2007.
If they're going to pay more, riders say, they want improvements. Like the provision of accurate, real-time information to people waiting at bus stops. And a single fare card that could be used on buses, trains, and trolleys.
SEPTA officials say they are working on exactly those kinds of ideas.
But the ability to alert people to when the next bus will arrive - as opposed to where it is at the moment, a different question - is some years off.
SEPTA wants to create an electronic fare system that could substantially replace the tokens and tickets used for buses, subways, and trains. The goal is for passengers to be able to wave a "smart card," or maybe even a credit card or cell phone, at a sensor on a turnstile, and then be on their way.
The agency hopes to award a $100 million contract this spring, and have part of the system operating by the end of 2010. It will be several years, officials acknowledge, before a smart-card system can be fully installed.