CBS 3 reports in “Equipment Failure Put SEPTA Riders At Risk” that on August 29, an inbound R5 train near Merion had a traction motor drop from its usual position under the train and was dragging the motor for an unspecified distance.

“It’s the worst you can get, it’s a catastrophic failure,” Charles Little said.

Little heads the union of 200 SEPTA car inspectors and he suspects bolts holding the piece of equipment, called a traction-motor, failed.

“It could have been a very serious derailment,” Little added.

This is the same type of failure that caused a fatal accident on the Market-Frankford Subway in 1990, though that one happened in the confined space of the subway, where the derailment caused one of the cars to be ripped apart by the support columns.

Here, the dragging-equipment detector probably notified the crews that something was wrong before they got to Overbrook, which has an interlocked crossover. The safety systems, which is on tracks owned and maintained by Amtrak and not SEPTA, most likely did their job and prevented an more serious incident.

However, SEPTA maintenance procedures should be reexamined, particularly since the 1990 accident revealed that inspection reports were falsified and work that was said to have been done was never done.

I have written a report on the Market Street Subway Crash of 1990.

SEPTA’s Regional Rail ridership was reported to be up 4.2% for fiscal year 2007, which runs from July 1, 2006 to the end of June, 2007. This is on top of a 6.3% increase the previous year, though the FY 2006 numbers were affected by a 7-day transit strike that brought more riders.

The FY 2005 annual ridership on the RRD was 28.6 million passengers, and my calculations show that FY 2006 was 30.4 million and FY 2007 was 31.7 million.

My ridership records go back to 1972, and it shows that 1977 (think oil crisis, Jimmy Carter) was their peak ridership at almost 34.4 million. They would need about 8.4% more to beat that record, which also was made at a time when SEPTA contracted for service to places such as Reading, West Chester, and Newtown.

The average weekday ridership went from 101,203 in FY 2005 to 106,999 in FY 2006 and to 111,493 in FY 2007 according to my estimate.

Since SEPTA didn’t put out an Annual Service Plan for 2008 this summer, I don’t have the actual numbers form FY 2006, but I hope that someone at SEPTA publishes their ridership census even as a separate report on their web site.

To put these numbers in context, I have some NJ Transit numbers. The NEC line carried 111,800 average weekday riders in FY 2007, and all NJT commuter rail lines combined totaled 267,700 weekday riders.

The Reading Eagle has an article about the latest study to extend rail service from Norristown up the Schuylkill River valley to Reading, PA in Berks County.

One idea for paying for both the initial construction and ongoing operating costs is to charge a $2 toll on Route 422, which would generate about $100 million in revenue over several years, according to the article.

Montgomery County transportation planners are moving ahead with plans to look at how to pay for passenger-train service between Norristown and Wyomissing. One option being considered is collecting tolls on Route 422. Here’s a look at the plan for the rail line, called the R-6 extension:

Where are the proposed stations? Wyomissing, Reading, Monocacy, Pottstown, Royersford, Phoenixville and Valley Forge.

What options for the rail line are under consideration? Planners are looking at seven options. All but one involves extending train service into Berks. Most are variations of electric and diesel trains between Berks and Montgomery counties.

What is the cost? A train line between Wyomissing and Norristown would cost $234 million to $297 million to begin the service, with annual operating costs of $5.4 to $7.4 million.

“Tolls on Route 422 could put rail line into Berks on track” [Reading Eagle]
February 21st, 2009

Comments are closed.
SVMetro is proudly powered by WordPress and the Minimal theme.

The clearest argument for I-80 tolls is that I-76, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which runs along the southern part of the state, has been a toll road ever since it was opened, and the economy of the area hasn’t been hurt by toll roads.

Also, the PA turnpike will also see increases in its tolls, but you don’t hear anyone really complaining about that, do you? In Philadelphia, turnpike goes through the heart of the largest suburban office center, King of Prussia. It also goes through other centers of development such as Fort Washington, and yet these places aren’t hurt by tolls.

The toll increases on the PA turnpike will pay for our fair share of the transportation budget. It’s not like the I-80 tolls won’t benefit roads in the north. The transportation bill passed by the state legislatures was a package deal which pays for both roads and transit, and roads still get the lion’s share of the funds.

The hypocrisy is that people have benefited by having I-80 built and paid by the whole state, while the PA turnpike was built and paid through tolls. They’ve been getting a free ride on a road (I-80) that was originally designed as a toll road. Now when they’re asked to chip in to help mass transit all over the state (and not just SEPTA in Philly), they won’t do anything to help.

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. It’s what’s being whipped up by people afraid of change on I-80. Don’t believe the hype.

I-80 was originally going to be a turnpike with tolls, the same as the PA turnpike (I-76) to the south, according to “Pennsylvania Highways: Interstate 80“:

The longest east-west Interstate in Pennsylvania, Interstate 80 was originally conceived as the Turnpike’s Sharon to Stroudsburg Lateral Connection prior to the Interstate legislation being signed. The first proposed alignment was from the Delaware Water Gap to the Susquehanna River, and one map showed the terminus in Millersburg. Later, it was revised to be a parallel highway to the mainline Turnpike. On June 29, 1956, when the Interstate Act was passed, all planning was moved to the Department of Highways.

Tolls on I-80 have been proposed several times, with proposals in 1998, 2004, and again this year.

The former Representative Bud Shuster, who can’t keep his hands off of other interstates, wanted to have tolls collected on I-80. The reason being that it is need of repair, and that most traffic on the highway is from out of state so tax those who use it most. The proposal was rejected by former Governor Ridge. Then an article in the April 7, 1999 Greensburg Tribune-Review reported that the Ridge Administration had gone back to this plan, but with him being selected as Secretary of Homeland Security and moving to Washington, this plan seems to have been axed. The idea of imposing a toll was not a new idea, and had gone back as far as the late Governor Milton Shapp’s administration in the 1970s. The plan was resurrected in the 1980s when the Turnpike Expansion bill was signed which led to the construction of PA Turnpike 60 and PA Turnpike 66, and the completion of PA Turnpike 43.

The idea of tolling the Shortway came back to the surface in 2004. On March 1, Department of Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler told the state House Appropriations Committee that a series of toll plazas could be built approximately every 30 miles along the Interstate. He also said that the feasibility study had been going on for several months and would take another two to complete.

This implementation is more like the Garden State Parkway system than the entry-exit system used on the PA and NJ turnpikes. The idea is that local travelers would not have to pay the tolls, only the intercity travelers and truckers would be paying tolls.

SEPTA 2007 Fare Increase Guide

Regional Rail will see immediate fare increases of about 50 cents for each zone, except for zone 6, which will increase $1. These are prices for advanced ticket sales at ticket offices. On-board fares are about 50 cents to $1.50 higher depending on the zone, and all the fares are whole dollars, so there are no cents involved. This is lower than the $2 on-board surcharge that was added if a ticket office was open, but the on-board fare is charged all the time. I see it as getting rid of all the quarters that had to be carried to make change on board the trains.

SEPTA is also introducing round-trip tickets which cost about 25 cents less for zones up to 5 and $1 less for zone 6 than buying two separate tickets. On-board versions of these tickets will be also in whole dollars.

Regional Rail zones remain the same except that West Trenton is now in zone 6, whereas it used to be in zone 5. (Trenton was already in zone 6.) Route 101 Media is now all one zone, whereas it was two zones before. Route 100 Norristown retains its old zone boundaries. On bus routes, there have been several changes in the zones, with many zone boundaries eliminated.

The Zone 1 TrailPass has been resurrected and is now used for Zone 1 Regional Rail stations, whereas before a city TransPass would have been valid. The off-peak, weekend, and holiday privileges of the TransPass still remain valid.

The prices for the TransPass (city weekly and monthly pass) and TrailPasses (Regional Rail weekly and monthly passes) have increased by about 11%. The old DayPass will be discontinued and replaced with a new 8-trip “Convenience Pass” DayPass. The new DayPass will no longer be valid for a single Regional Rail trip. (The font on the “Convenience Pass” looks like it’s straight out of the 1970s or early 80s.) This pass will not be sold on board buses or other vehicles, but must be bought at a SEPTA sales location. The price also increases from $5.50 to $6.00.

What remains the same is the $2 cash fare and the $1.30 token. I think that the token price should be raised to the same or nearly the same as cash, maybe to $1.75. In San Francisco, the fare is $1.50 for cash or for the rarely found tokens, and it’s valid for 2 hours of free transfers, in contrast to SEPTA’s no transfer policy.