OK, the Supertrain it was not.
There are estimates that as many as 2 million people attended the Phillies' victory parade today -- we'll never know exactly but I think that it's a fair guesstimate that the number of people coming into Center City was about twice a typical weekday, maybe more. How could Philadelphia handle such an influx? Well...it didn't, and at the same time it did.
It didn't because SEPTA and its sister rail line PATCO didn't have nearly enough trains to handle all the people trying to come by mass transit. Thousands of people who waited 25 years to see a championship parade may have to wait another quarter-century now -- because the train was too crowded to get on:
Many inbound trains were so packed that they simply sped by stations. Some frustrated passengers took outbound trains to the end of the lines in order to find a seat on an inbound train.
At the Clifton-Aldan Septa station in Delaware County, regular commuters on the R3 line this morning had to compete with Phillies fans stacked four-deep on the platform. Workers who thought they were catching the 7:50 a.m. train watched in frustration at 9:26 a.m. as the fifth train in 96 minutes passed without stopping, too full to take passengers.
Maloney said SEPTA was trying to run the trains on a printed schedule. "But once you get past an hour late, it doesn't really matter any more."
I'm working the night desk here at the Daily News, and we have a heart-wrenching story for tomorrow's paper about lifelong fans who were thwarted from seeing the big parade because of the mass overload on SEPTA and on PATCO. So what could be the good news here?
Well, for one thing, so many hundreds of thousands of people took mass transit today because public officials like Mayor Nutter asked them to. Which shows that Americans will ride the train if they're asked by the right people in the right way: Imagine if our leaders tried harder to woo riders to mass transit on a regular basis, instead of once every 25 years or so.
More importantly, with 2 million people coming into Philadelphia, what people had expected -- a car traffic fiasco -- never really materialized. There was slow going when you came up against the parade route, but getting in and out of the city wasn't too different from a normal day. The significance of that -- when you think about it -- is huge. It means that Center City Philadelphia could handle a lot more jobs and more residents without a crippling increase in car traffic, which would an enormous savings in fuel and pollution....
IF....
Philadelphia actually had enough rail capacity, including more trains more often, and passenger cars with greater capacity (like the double deckers used frequently on New Jersey Transit), to handle such a huge increase in commuters on a daily basis. The fact that you can bring so many extra people into Philadelphia on a Friday without total car gridlock should be a teachable moment for the region's public officials, a chance to see what a real mass transit might be able to do if the infrastructure were in place.
Wouldn't it be awesome if the city had all the rail and subway and asphalt it needed to easily accommodate 2 million people by 2013, the year of the Phillies' sixth consecutive championship parade?
If there were more jobs, SEPTA would buy more rail cars. You don't buy more rail cars for championship parades. How many people took SEPTA because Nutter asked nicely, but didn't have a game plan to back it up? what will they take next time?— dreinterests
Comment removed.- HS, ah, yapping again about another perceived fault of Wills. I have never seen you post anything but hatred and negativity. Why? Did Will reject your advances to him back when you were in the fifth grade? Do you have a Chris Matthews mancrush on Will, and this is your way of flirting? And I see you're posting this during the "wee hours of the morning". Did you at least clean up after yourself? Hanky, you are an extremely boring read, why don't you go play with the rest of the kiddies and leave the intelligent posting to the adults. Puh-leeze.— Some Boca Dude
- My daughter lives by the Swarthmore train station, she tried to catch it from there, no luck, called me, I took her down to the airport,no luck, but her determination to get there she joined two other guys, they split the fare of a taxi and were dropped right at city hall!!! Improvise and overcome is what one had to do yesterday to see the parade.— nuffera
- We caught the train at Lansdale, it was the first stop and completely filled up, with a lot of people unable to get on. Sped by every stop. We were also lucky to get on the first train back, where a family from Doylestown told me their train in did the same thing. Later, while taking my son out for Halloween a neighbor said they tried Septa to no avail, so they drove down and had absolutely no issues. Its a shame for those who couldn't make it, but it was a great time.— RG
- After this experience - who will Ever listen to public officials when then say to take mass transit - I sure wont.— flyersfan74
- Dont worry. After BHO gets elected, the jobs will flow into Philly, Septa will run like the European train systems and everything will be right with the world. And Will wont have anything to cut and paste about except sports.— urkidnmepal
- Comment removed.
- I walked from manayunk to work at 15th and south. opened the bar at noon, and served drinks til 9ish...I really think Septa dropped the ball on this one. in this era of higher gas pricers, and their crowing about being "green" it's more and more evident that Septa is mismanaged and short sighted. they remove the ticket machines in the stations last year but don't hire more ticket salespeople? It's not just about money, it's about working smarter.— bingo
- Septa is mismanaged - no doubt, but there is also, clearly, a lack of commitment in terms of needed financial resources. We have sleeze like sloboat to thank for that - he's more than happy to celebrate Philly's team, drive on Philly's streets, have fun in Philly because he lives in (heh) NJ and there ain't no fun to be had there, all the while insulting and smearing Philly's residents each opportunity he gets. But he'll whine like a stuck pig if anyone suggests that pry open his death grip on his precious wallet long enough for a few of his precious dollars to slip out and help support better public transportation. Study after study shows that if better public transit were provided, more people would use public transit. Everyone would benefit. SEPTA missed an opportunity - but until skinflints like sloboat and his kin are willing to be less greedy and more willing to pay proportionally for what they use - the money to improve SEPTA just won't be there.— Talking point sleuth
- The unfortunate truth is that the cart cannot come before the horse. That is, the service capacity needs to be in place before the expected ridership increase. In the case of a special occasion (like the parade), trains could have been borrowed from other transit systems - such as seriously underutilized Amtrak cars - but the shame is that the experience was so poor for so many. I take SEPTA every day, and while there are definitely problems (such as the ticket machines as mentioned) the recent increase in service on the subway lines has been a pleasant surprise. The thinking is that a reduction in wait times and passenger congestion will bring more ridership; this is almost invariably true. But as I say, the increase in service must come before the desired result, that being the increase in riders. SO, the increases in services come before the increases in ridership, which directly means before the increase in fares! The only way to assume such capital costs, you would think, would be reductions in corporate white-collar bloating and reasonable restrictions on unionized-labor contracts. BUT there are huge federal grants available for just that kind of capital cost increases! All the idiots have to do is get the darn grants! And on a personal note, yes, I was not amused that the Broad Street Line stopped running southbound trains (as I live south of where I watched the parade) but I walked three blocks over and took the bus - no problems. Even got a seat.— citylumberjack
- When Nutter was telling people to ride Septa yesterday, he should have told Septa that too. Septa was trying its best to get a riot going at Broad and Pattison. It was a 20 minute wait just get through the turnstile. There was no crowd control, no telling people what was going on. Just having us all stand there. Nothing better than taking people who have been drinking and screaming all day, and then have them stand in a big crowd and not tell them anything. And then we got down the steps, there were no trains. The conductor said the express was to the right, local to the left. And the express was next. He was wrong. We waited 15 minutes for a train, only to see the express pull up on the other side, and it was too crowded. So we had to wait 5 minutes for the local to pull up. We could not get off at City Hall because the concourse was too crowded to get through. We went to Girard and had to wait 25 minutes for a trolley that runs every 10 minutes. It took me close to 2 hours to get from the stadium to Fishtown. Way to drop the ball septa!— AreaMan
- I drove. I parked by the stadium on Pattison, walked 3 blocks, and saw the whole thing. As soon as it passed, my girlfriend and I got the he11 out of there. We basically got into and out of the stadium area in about an hour, and that includes the time walking to and from the car. It was actually easier than going to an Eagles game or Phillies game. People, it's not that hard. You just have to know how to work the system!!!— GHOST OF GU1D0 MERKENS
- CLJ - do you have some links on those huge federal grants you mentioned?— Talking point sleuth
- Comment removed.
Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, blogs about his obsessions, including national and local politics and world affairs, the media, pop music, the Philadelphia Phillies, soccer and other sports, not necessarily in that order.
E-mail Will by clicking here.
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