An entrance to a Philadelphia subway station on the Avenue of the Arts.
Last week, Philadelphia got some shocking news. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) declared that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, known around here as SEPTA, was the “best of the best” in American public transit. This fall, SEPTA will receive APTA’s coveted Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award.
Many SEPTA riders are speechless with surprise.
According to a press release on the SEPTA website, APTA President and CEO Michael Melaniphy received a tour of SEPTA’s control center and called it “amazing”.
“SEPTA and its many accomplishments and achievements are models for the rest of the public transit industry,” he said.
Whether or not Melaniphy visited any of SEPTA’s subways, trolleys, buses or trains remains unclear.
People say that Philadelphians love to hate their transit system. But SEPTA’s not all bad.
Philadelphia’s Suburban Station, in the heart of Center City.
The three major city stations, Market East (next to the famous Reading Terminal Market), Suburban (next to City Hall) and 30th Street (of Witness fame), aren’t bad.
Another view of Suburban Station.
But starting just a block or two away from these central stations, it’s a different world. I can’t tell it better than these pictures can. I took all of these within about two hours, passing through a couple transit stations in the course of a normal evening on the job.
After brief rainstorm, water puddles everywhere in a subway station one stop south of City Hall.
On the way up to the street:
Roaches may be able to survive a nuclear disaster, but a thunderstorm over the SEPTA subway apparently does this one in.
Here’s the ceiling of the main concourse between Suburban Station and the north-south subway line.
The Broad Street Line subway.
Here is the ceiling of a Suburban Station entrance one block from City Hall.
Don’t look up.
I usually just hustle through, but when I take the time to look, it reminds me of an abandoned building.
Forget a trip to the caverns. SEPTA has all the stalactites you could want.
There are smooth, white lumps on the floor where the lime has dripped for decades.
Here’s the whole picture of that entrance.
If you come down into the subway, here’s how you can pay for your ride.
Get some change.
Buy your tokens. No, there are no smart cards and you can’t use a credit card.
Need help? Don’t have cash? Go to the ticket booth. Or not.
Informational signage.
Renovations are under way at the 15th Street trolley stop; here is an example of the signage to help riders find their way.
There are a lot of things to be proud of in my home city. But I’m embarrassed by the state of its public transit. Now, I can’t even say what I feel upon learning that these pictures show North America’s best public transit system.
Do you live in Philadelphia? Do you think SEPTA deserves the award? If you’re not from Philly, what is public transit like in your city?
