SEPTA has its own historic day

Yesterday was a historic day for SEPTA.

And it wasn't pretty.

Suburban and Market East Stations were mobbed with parade-goers from noon until the evening, and frustrated riders waited hours in stairwells and on crowded platforms for trains to take them home.

SEPTA was so overwhelmed that it had to shut down all inbound regional trains, as well as the southbound Broad Street line, for five hours as it positioned cars for the crush of departures.

For many, the day was pure torture.

John Paine, 26, of Pottstown, left the parade around 1 p.m. and headed to Suburban Station to catch an R5 train to Paoli.

Three hours later, he was still waiting in a station stairwell.

"This is the first time I've used SEPTA, and the last time I use SEPTA," Paine said.

SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said the system had never handled this many people.

The agency had every bus, trolley, train and subway car operating at capacity all day, he said.

"Does anyone really expect us to have 500 extra buses and trains sitting around waiting for a parade?" Maloney asked.

On a normal day, the SEPTA system transports about 500,000 riders. Yesterday, the system was inundated. Because SEPTA uses paper tickets on its Regional Rail system, the agency won't know how many people rode its trains until Monday, Maloney said. But when that count is made, it will be a record.

"We're talking about a day in public transportation of historic proportions," Maloney said. "To have standing-room only on every vehicle we have over a sustained period of time - we've just never had it."

By 7:45 last night, the Broad Street Line and the Market-Frankford El were running on normal schedules, Maloney said. Only Suburban Station was still clogged with Regional Rail riders.

With hundreds of thousands of people descending on Center City, everyone knew yesterday would be a bad day not only for SEPTA, but for all public transportation.

But this bad?

So bad that SEPTA riders in Haverford watched with mounting anger as more than 10 morning trains - each packed with riders - raced by without stopping?

So bad that three Millersville University students taking Amtrak from Lancaster had to ride to 30th Street Station sitting in the women's restroom?

So bad that fans riding the PATCO High-Speed Line from New Jersey had to wait up to two hours to buy tickets?

PATCO trains were running at peak levels with six-car trains heading into the city every six minutes, said Ed Kasuba, a spokesman for the Delaware River Port Authority, which runs the rail line.

"It's been extraordinary," he said.

PATCO, which has an automated ticketing service at its stations, brought back flesh-and-blood cashiers to sell round-trip tickets to Philadelphia. He said many paradegoers were first-time or infrequent riders who didn't know how to use the system and slowed it down.

Kasuba said that for the last Phillies parade, in 1980, the PATCO line handled about 40,000 people - or more than twice its normal daily ridership of 19,000 people. This year, he predicted, that number would be "smashed."

He added that during the parade, NJ Transit buses were not able to maneuver the streets because of crowds. NJ Transit temporarily shut down bus operations. Things finally begin returning to normal on both PATCO and DRPA's four bridges about 6:15 p.m., Kasuba said.

All day, Suburban Station was a roiling current of fans in Phillies red moving in all directions. SEPTA employees in fluorescent green vests tried to keep things calm.

Taking a train from Norristown that morning was "perfect," said Greg Doney, clutching the hands of his young daughter and son after the parade. "Getting out of here is hell," he said.

At the day's start, riders who were catching trains at stations where lines originated had far better odds of getting to the city than those trying to hop on in the middle.

Maloney said that once a train was standing-room-only, its conductor would not stop.

That frustrated Derek Rapisarda, 26, to no end.

He arrived at the Haverford station around 9 a.m. - but didn't emerge from Suburban Station until 1 p.m. He said so many trains were blowing past Haverford that he decided to walk to the Bryn Mawr station.

But the trains didn't stop there, either.

Rapisarda returned to Haverford and finally got a seat on the 12:32 p.m. train with only 13 other riders, and missed the noontime parade. "I'm going to find my friends and look at their pictures," he said.

Kevin Sharpe of Wyndmoor took the train into the city with his son and daughter to meet his wife. But he was late, and the family ended up going to the office of Lisa Sharpe and watching the parade from a 13th-floor conference room.

"It was good, but I wanted to be there and not just looking down from the 13th floor," said Kevin Sharpe Jr., 9.