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this blog posting "Philadelphia Bicycle News: Schuylkill River Trail Map"
has a link to a good detailed google map of the trail, side trails, train stations etc
iSepta was created to make navigating the SEPTA schedules simple on your phone. It was designed by Jason Tremblay and developed by Chris Conley and Randy Schmidt of ümlatte.
SEPTA Plans Service Upgrades
By: Dan Hirschhorn, The Bulletin
03/27/2008
Philadelphia - SEPTA riders can expect significant service upgrades in the fall, with the transit agency planning to spend more than $10 million increasing the frequency and capacity of buses and trains.
The planned improvements come as SEPTA is enjoying its first dedicated funding stream in a decade and ridership is increasing across the transit system, the country's sixth-largest.
SEPTA officials announced the plans for increasing service at a press conference yesterday, where they unveiled the agency's proposed operational budget for fiscal year 2009. The budget still needs to go through public hearings over the next couple weeks.
"All of these service initiatives are part of SEPTA's commitment to improve service and convenience for our customers around the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania," SEPTA's chief service planner Charles Webb said.
The proposed budget of $1.08 billion represents a spending increase of about 5.6 percent over the previous year. But SEPTA remains cautious about increasing spending, and is spending significantly less than it could. Even though a landmark transportation funding law enacted last summer is proving the transit agency significantly more in state subsidy than it has budgeted for, SEPTA is not using that money to improve service.
The fare hikes, which SEPTA says it needs because a court case stopped it from eliminating 60-cent paper transfers, saddle riders with higher fares less than three months after other fare hikes.
As part of its fare hike resolution approved this afternoon, the SEPTA board agreed to review today's fare hikes if it wins a court appeal and is allowed to scrap the paper transfers.
The new fares, effective Monday, increase the price of a token to $1.45 from the current $1.30 and the price of a transfer to 75 cents from the current 60 cents. The cash fare would remain $2 - one of the nation's highest.
Riders, still smarting from SEPTA's July fare hikes, are outraged.
We, together, can make SEPTA work better for all of us.
SEPTA is having a difficult time. As citizens and riders, there isn't much we can do directly that will affect the big, expensive challenges of city and regional mass transit. These must be handled by politicians and managers and employees. But, we can help make SEPTA work better for us.
In fact, YOU can help make SEPTA work better for us.
On this website, you will find signs that you can print out and post—providing better information for riders at stations, shelters and stops.
The city has told the transit agency that it might reclaim part of the subway system unless it is granted "certain rights."
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia is trying to get more clout with SEPTA by threatening to take its subways and go home.
The city owns the Broad Street subway and half of the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated line, both of which it leased to SEPTA in 1968 when the transportation agency was created.
The lease was written to expire on Dec. 31, 2005, or when SEPTA made the last of its required rent payments, whichever came later. In 2005, unable to agree on whether the lease was about to expire, the city and SEPTA extended the lease until the end of 2007.
Transit crisis awaits a mayor
SEPTA, parking fees and a regional outlook are crucial issues facing the primary contenders.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
One gauge of a city's health is its mobility.
A city that thrives is one where congestion doesn't become gridlock, where commuters, shoppers and beer trucks can coexist. Bustle is good, immobility is bad.
For Philadelphia's next mayor, the big transportation challenges will be to improve mass transit and deal with chronic traffic and parking problems. And the mayor will have to persuade skeptical suburbanites to help because the city's transportation network is the hub of a vast regional web.
"Where does transportation land on your priority list? It has to rate very highly," said Steven Wray, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, citing transportation's importance to the region's economy.
Center City "can't continue to boom without a transportation policy," said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania.
The agency vowed to appeal the ruling in a suit brought by Philadelphia
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
The transfers live.
A Common Pleas Court judge ruled yesterday that SEPTA must not eliminate the paper transfers that permit bus and subway riders to change vehicles for 60 cents.
The transit agency said it would appeal Judge Gary F. DiVito Jr.'s decision.
SEPTA had wanted passengers to pay full fares ($2 with cash or $1.30 with tokens) whenever changing from one bus to another. The city sued, saying that poor and minority passengers would be especially hard-hit by the elimination of the transfers.
In ordering the board to reinstate the transfers, DiVito called the SEPTA decision "capricious and . . . a manifest and flagrant abuse of discretion."
"What the evidence demonstrates," DiVito wrote, "is that SEPTA's board (1) voted to eliminate paper transfers (2) to mollify the legislature in hopes of ensuring funding (3) without any study of the impact on those who would be most adversely affected (4) without any semblance of a 'modernization plan' ready (5) with no agreement with the school board in place when (6) they could have designed a plan with an equitable impact on all of its riders."
City concourse gets a breath of fresh air
Warren of tunnels is now scrubbed daily.
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
As a sensory experience, few things can match Philadelphia's Sherwood Forest in August.
For the uninitiated, Sherwood Forest is what police and public works crews call part of the concourse below 15th Street linking Suburban Station with tunnels to City Hall, the Municipal Services Building, and the Broad Street Subway.
It's a copse of concrete columns inhabited not by Robin Hood's Merry Men but by a band of homeless people seeking shelter from the elements. And in August, when Philly's temperature and humidity soar, the pungent odor of urine-soaked concrete is unforgettable.
But help is here.
The Center City District, the privately funded organization created to improve cleanliness, safety and the quality of life downtown, has begun tackling the quality of life below ground along 31/2 miles of corridors connecting the subways, Market East Station and the Gallery, Suburban Station, and much of South Broad Street's Avenue of the Arts.
For the first time, at least in anyone's memory, crews are cleaning the concourses 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Center City Underground
SEPTA expands senior discounts
On the day transfers disappear, those 65 and up can ride buses and subways free even during rush hour.
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
Tomorrow, even as it begins charging higher fares for transfers, SEPTA will start passing along a new break for senior citizens.
Thanks to the new state transit bill, restrictions on senior discounts will disappear.
That means riders 65 and up will ride free on buses, as well as the Broad Street Subway and the Market-Frankford Line, all day every day. Seniors have had to pay full fare on weekdays from 7 to 8 a.m. and 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. They rode free at all other times.
On Regional Rail, all senior rides contained within Pennsylvania will cost $1. Most senior rides have cost that, but seniors have had to pay full fare for weekday trains arriving in Center City between 7 and 8 a.m. and departing between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.
Money to finance the new policy, being implemented statewide by the state Department of Transportation, comes from the transit bill signed by Gov. Rendell this month. A PennDot spokesman said the bill removed language that barred using state funds to pay for discounted rides during peak hours. The breaks for seniors are funded through the Pennsylvania Lottery.
WAS THIS LAWSUIT NECESSARY?
SEPTA'S TRANFER CRISIS DOESN'T NEED TO BE ONE
IS IT NECESSARY for SEPTA to eliminate transfers?
According to a Common Pleas Court judge, no . . . at least not quite yet.
Judge Gary DeVito granted a stay of execution for riders, ruling the transfers to remain in effect at least until Aug. 6.
In an all-day hearing yesterday, the day before it was set to eliminate transfers, SEPTA made a case that the 50-year-old paper transfer is outdated, puts a cash-handling burden on SEPTA drivers, and is hard to monitor.
And the city argued that SEPTA's proposal is unfair, unwise and, now with an expected influx of state dedicated funding, unnecessary.
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
After a daylong hearing at City Hall, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge decided that he needed a few more days to decide whether to prevent SEPTA from going ahead with its plans to do away with the 60-cent transfer.
So last night, Judge Gary F. DiVito issued a temporary injunction maintaining the status quo until Monday - blocking a plan that was supposed to go into effect this morning.
Under the transit agency's plan, passengers using cash or tokens are to be charged a second full fare whenever they move from one bus to another - or between buses and the Broad Street Subway or Market-Frankford Line.
Attorneys representing the City of Philadelphia had asked DiVito yesterday to issue a temporary injunction blocking the change.
City officials said that as many as 45,000 adult riders and 18,000 schoolchildren could be affected by the change, which Mayor Street opposes.
Posted on Tue, Jul. 31, 2007
...
The city is protesting that the elimination of transfers will impose an undue hardship on some riders by increasing their fare by 200 percent. It is also concerned about the burden this could put on the 30,000 schoolchildren who get tokens.
The city claims that SEPTA and the school district have not talked about the transfer situation. The district says otherwise, and that it has had a series of meetings with SEPTA on moving to an all-transpass system, but that many problems remain to be fixed.
Is elimination of transfers critical to SEPTA's ability to make its budget? SEPTA needs to make a better case for exactly how. Can it postpone the transfer elimination for even a few weeks to make the transition easier? That shouldn't happen unless it forces the key parties - the city, SEPTA and the district - to get in a room and find a win-win solution for everyone. Unless these players find a way to be better allies, malt-liquor ads are going to be the least of our problems.
Politicians who helped it get a dedicated financial base and its riders want to see improved services.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Memo to SEPTA: Be careful what you ask for.
The state last week gave the Philadelphia region's long-suffering transit authority what it had always needed: money. Now, riders and politicians expect something in return: better service.
After years of blaming budget crises for its dingy subway stations, antiquated fare system, crowded trains, balky buses, and indifferent customer service, SEPTA has funding for this year and a dedicated, inflation-sensitive source of money for years to come.
Gov. Rendell on Wednesday signed a landmark transportation law, establishing new funding streams for mass-transit agencies. It provides about $156 million more in operating funds and $58 million more in capital funds for SEPTA this fiscal year, and eliminates the need for threatened service cuts or additional fare increases this year.
When he signed the bill, Rendell said he hoped SEPTA, and the state's other transit agencies, would use the money not to just stave off cuts but to "enhance some services."
He has lots of company.
Bus, subway and trolley fares won't rise, but passes will cost more. Transfers will be eliminated.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
SEPTA bus, subway and rail fares will increase by an average of 11 percent on July 9, following a 13-2 vote yesterday on the agency's new operating budget.
The SEPTA board also approved a "doomsday" plan to take effect Sept. 2, with 24 percent fare hikes and 20 percent service cuts, if the state legislature does not increase annual state funding by nearly $100 million.
For subway, bus and trolley riders, cash fares will remain at $2 and tokens at $1.30 under the new fare plan. But transfers will be eliminated on Aug. 1, meaning transit riders wanting to transfer will have to buy an additional token or use a daily, weekly or monthly pass.
Weekly passes for transit riders will increase from $18.75 to $20.75, and monthly passes from $70 to $78. Regional Rail riders will see costs rise as well; the price of a Zone 3 monthly pass will increase from $126.50 to $142.50.
By DAN GERINGER
Cash-strapped SEPTA's board of directors is expected to approve two drastically different survival plans tomorrow: one a modest 11 percent fare increase for existing service, the other a "doomsday" plan - raising fares 24 percent while cutting service 20 percent, which could devastate low-income workers, fixed-income seniors, the physically disabled and students.
If the state Legislature comes up with $100 million this summer to fill the chronically underfunded transit agency's budget hole, then the "doomsday" plan will be ditched, and only the 11 percent fare hike will go through.
But if the Legislature fails, riders will be forced to foot the bill by enduring longer waits for fewer buses and trains, and by paying much more for service:
SEPTA's base cash fare would rise from $2 to $2.50, tokens from $1.30 to $1.80, a TransPass from $18.75 to $25 weekly and from $70 to $95 monthly, and one-way Regional Rail fares would rise by as much as $1 during peak times and $2.50 off-peak.
The state leaves it little leeway for a local, dedicated source of revenue.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
When Pennsylvania legislators complain that SEPTA already gets more state funding and less local funding than most transit agencies in the United States, they're right.
But whose fault is that?
In Pennsylvania, the state prevents regional transit agencies and local governments from raising money in many of the ways used by their counterparts elsewhere.
Colorado and Georgia provide none of the money to operate Denver's and Atlanta's mass transit. Instead, they authorize local sales taxes, approved by local voters. New York, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are among the states where local property taxes are earmarked for mass transit. Los Angeles County uses a 1 percent sales tax, approved by county voters.
Thirty-three states have authorized local or regional sales taxes specifically for transportation.
Not Pennsylvania.
The Price of Inaction: An Analysis of Economic Impacts Associated with SEPTA's FY 2008 Operating Budget "Plan B" Alternative
Executive Summary
As of May 2007, SEPTA has a budget shortfall of $129.6 million. Without a source of funding that can balance the transit organization's budget this summer, SEPTA would be forced to implement "Plan B," which would cut service by 20 percent and increase fares by 31 percent.
The Economy League worked with Econsult Corporation to analyze the economic impacts of Plan B on individuals, businesses, governments and the region's overall competitiveness. The analysis builds upon generally accepted data sets and research models including SEPTA's ridership figures, Delaware Valley Planning Commission congestion modeling, Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission work, and U.S. Census data.
Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2007
Friends of SEPTA hop aboard a statewide effort to aid transit
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Mayor Street and other political, business and labor leaders rallied yesterday for more state funding for public transportation, but they acknowledged they don't have a specific plan to support.
By Mark Bowden
Once more, SEPTA is on the ropes. It faces a $130 million budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, and unless the state finds a way to plug the hole, services will be cut and fares increased.
In other words, business as usual. Mass transit gets short shrift most places in this country, but nowhere is the political deck stacked against it more deliberately than in Philadelphia. This despite the fact that the city is blessed with a transit infrastructure that would be prohibitively expensive to build today, is being used by about a third of the city's commuters (a percentage that is inching up), and is . . . you guessed it, gradually rotting away.
Study suggests shift of gears for Phila. commuters
Indications of a surprising gain for mass transit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
For the first time in nearly half a century, Center City vehicle traffic dropped while mass-transit ridership was up, according to new data from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.
After decades of increasing dependence on the automobile, the question is whether this a blip or the beginning of a transforming trend.
The numbers were gathered in 2005, when gas prices rose sharply after Hurricane Katrina. Experts say that may have been a big factor.
The number of vehicles crossing Center City's boundaries was about 1.015 million on a typical weekday in 2005, down slightly from 1.020 million in 2000, according to the commission's preliminary, unpublished data. In 1995, the number of vehicles was 990,000. Meanwhile, the number of mass transit riders entering or leaving Center City was 486,326 a weekday in 2005, up from 442,023 in 2000 and 484,151 in 1995.
The slight shift interrupted a 45-year trend. In 1960, when the commission began keeping track, 53 percent of all Center City trips were by mass transit; by 2000 the percentage was down to 26.5 percent. In 2005, the percentage rose to about 28.5 percent.
A benchmarking study of transportation funding and policy in Pennsylvania and similar states.
Executive Summary (PDF Format)
Full Report (PDF Format)
date: 2006 (October)
partner(s): Allegheny Conference on Community Development and the Pennsylvania Environmental Council
funder(s): 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, Associated Pennsylvania Constructors, CEO Council for Growth, and the William Penn Foundation
"It's sink-or-swim time," the transportation secretary told legislators. The agency faces a $130 million deficit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
HARRISBURG - As SEPTA heads toward another financial crisis, the Rendell administration said yesterday that it would not provide the stopgap financial aid used in recent years.
The administration won't divert federal highway funding to SEPTA or other transit agencies, Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler told the House Appropriations Committee.
"It's sink-or-swim time," Biehler said. He said the use of federal highway funding "was putting a patch" on the problem. "Now it's time to do something about it."
Posted on Fri, Feb. 16, 2007
SEPTA says fares will rise, service could drop
Gloomy transit forecasts are a rite of spring, but the agency's chief said this one's for real. Said a board member: Don't panic.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
SEPTA must increase fares by at least 11 percent and perhaps as much as 31 percent, the agency's general manager said yesterday, and she warned of service cuts and employee layoffs unless more money comes from the state.
If the state increases its subsidy of SEPTA by $100 million, the proposed fare increase, effective July 1, will be 11 percent, general manager Faye Moore said.
Without an increase in state aid from the current $300 million, she said, 1,000 of SEPTA's 9,200 jobs would be eliminated; bus, subway, and rail service would be cut by 20 percent on weekdays; and fares would be hiked by 31 percent.
| Posted on Fri, Feb. 09, 2007 |  |
| SEPTA scraps ticket machines - Inquirer Staff Writer The familiar orange ticket vending machines at SEPTA regional rail stations have been taken out of service, officials said yesterday, because the machines could not accept the new dollar bills. | |
Civil Action No. 88-1275
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
1990 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10895
August 9, 1990, Decided
August 14, 1990, Filed
COUNSEL: [*1]
Deborah Harris, Esq., Irv Acklesberg, Esq., COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES, INC., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
ALL DEFTS EXCEPT ROBERT J. THOMPSON, David P. Bruton, Esq., Michael Kubacki, Esq., DRINKER BIDDLE & REATH, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
JUDGES: Daniel H. Huyett, 3rd, United States District Judge.
OPINION BY: HUYETT
OPINION: MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
In this civil action, plaintiffs n1 allege that the means utilized by defendants n2 to allocate federal subsidies received pursuant to the Urban Mass Transportation Act, 49 U.S.C. §§ 1601-13, has a discriminatory impact upon the black community of Philadelphia in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. SEPTA has filed a motion for summary judgment, and oral argument was held on October 3, 1989. At the time of oral argument, it appeared that the parties wished to discuss an amicable resolution of this dispute. Therefore, I stayed disposition of SEPTA's motion for summary judgment pending the outcome of settlement negotiations. After several months, the parties advised that negotiations had proved unfruitful and sought disposition of the instant motion. For the reasons stated below, I will now grant SEPTA's motion for summary judgment. [*2]
No. 90-1656
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
935 F.2d 1280; 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 12485
February 1, 1991, Argued
May 29, 1991, Filed
NOTICE:
[*1]
RULES OF THE THIRD CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS MAY LIMIT CITATION TO UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS. PLEASE REFER TO THE RULES OF THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THIS CIRCUIT.
PRIOR HISTORY:
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA; (D.C. Civil No. 88-01275); District Judge: Hon. Daniel H. Huyett, 3rd.
JUDGES: Sloviter, Chief Judge, Nygaard, Circuit Judge, and Barry, District Judge. *
* Honorable Maryanne Trump Barry, United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.
OPINION: Affirmed