Another infuriating day for commuters

As the SEPTA strike gummed up the city works for a third infuriating day, Philadelphia commuters persevered, proving their resilience, their patience and (let's be honest) their resignation that there's nothing they can do but accept and deal.

Stepping off the R7 Chestnut Hill East train at the end of the line at the end of his day, but not quite at the end of his rope, Jim Bondelid said that with each day, the inconvenience has become more tractable.

"Suburban Station is very confusing, but they've managed to organize the chaos," said Bondelid, a 55-year-old bond trader from Oreland. Unlike the first day, when the platforms were jam-packed and conductors could barely elbow their way through the standing-room-only aisles, he said that today , commuters were ushered into lines and had to buy their tickets before boarding.

Although he has not been inconvenienced nearly as much as other commuters who rely on buses and trolleys, he said he doesn't feel much sympathy for the union.

"The union is a monopoly," he said. "And people hate monopolies. One hundred years ago, corporations were the wolves. Now unions are the wolves."

In theory, the regional rail lines should be thrilled to have a huge increase in ridership, but getting its wish in the form of a human tsunami has proved overwhelming. The problem of volume was compounded by two successive disasters, neither directly related to the strike. On Wednesday, an electrical fire. Then today, a fatal accident.

Delays in reporting delays made the situation worse for Melissa Brunson, one of the city's good citizens actually willing to show up for jury duty. Brunson, 44, was unable to fulfill her civic responsibility because it took more than an hour for word to get through to Melrose Park station that the trains were stalled after a worker was killed on the tracks.

By then, there was no way she would make it to court on time.

"If they had let us know earlier, I could have been able to take a shuttle in," said Brunson.

Rosemary Fitzgerald, 58, a nurse-midwife from Wallingford, had no problem getting into the city, but when she arrived at Suburban Station to leave at 4:30 p.m., she found a crowd to rival Times Square on New Year's Eve.

"This is pretty amazing," she said of the mass of people converging into lines and snaking through corridors. "I'm shocked."

Despite several days' practice and the relative sanity of line formation last night, the trip home turned into a colossal headache for Ruth Wait. Wait, who works for a money management firm in Center City, headed for track 2, as directed by the helpful electronic signs in Suburban Station. Following the "long, long, long, long line," Wait said, she was herded onto the platform and thought she was boarding the R2. Twenty minutes later, she heard the conductor announce Washington Lane, and groaned.

She realized she was on the wrong train.

"I don't know when I'll get home," she said, standing on an unfamiliar platform in Chestnut Hill, waiting for a train to take her on the half-hour trip back into the city, where she would have to transfer to the right train to get her out to Abington. "Oh well," she said, feeling more sheepish than angry. Only appropriate, for someone who had just been herded into the wrong pasture.

Proving that youth and a higher education have distinct advantages, Jeff Notarianni, a 21-year-old business major at Temple University, described his sharp learning curve.

Calmly eating a bagel near campus, Notarianni said that on the first day of the strike, he skipped classes completely. Day 2, he biked up Broad Street from his South Philadelphia home to the North Philadelphia school. It proved such a long haul, he could barely function.

"I was just exhausted."

So he "mootched a ride" home. That was less taxing, but took 40 minutes longer than his bike trip.

Today, Day 3, he heard his roommates getting into a car in front of the house, ran out and managed to squeezed himself into the back seat.

He hadn't figured out what to try next. "I'm taking it day by day," he said. "I really hope this ends soon."

Since the strike started, Dashika Wellington, 33, has traded her briefcase and heels for a backpack and sneakers, hiking the urban trail from her Brewerytown home to her Center City office.

But last night, it rained. Wellington stood outside Two Penn Center Plaza bundled in a hooded coat and scarf waiting for a friend to make the 40-minute drive in from Fox Chase to give her a ride home.

Watching traffic crawl past City Hall, Wellington said, "It's definitely hard to be sympathetic to the union." Two people she knows were recently laid off from her law firm. "People are suffering and everybody has to grin and bear it. So does the union."

Contact Staff Writer Melissa Dribben at 215 854 2590 or mdribben@phillynews.com