SEPTA riders sound off on Regional Rail problems

A month after a major scheduling overhaul on SEPTA's Regional Rail, riders at Elkins Park had plenty of stories at a meeting Wednesday about missed trains, missed stops, and continuing confusion.

"This is a month after your rollout, and this is absolutely inexcusable," said Nomi Saunders of Elkins Park.

Saunders, who writes historical fiction under the name Nomi Eve, teaches a fiction class at Drexel University, and has faced conflicting information about which train she should board to get home from 30th Street Station. Even SEPTA staff could not tell her the correct schedule as recently as Monday, she said.

"We don't have the same level of service we did," she said.

SEPTA representatives attended the public meeting at the Elkins Park station to respond to rider complaints. The bulk of them were about the loss of direct service to Philadelphia International Airport and a flood of incorrect information on train schedules in print, online, and on the agency's app.

The response from SEPTA, at least about the incorrect scheduling information, was a mea culpa.

"We could have done a better job," said Ron Hopkins, the agency's chief operations officer. "We know now that we missed an opportunity, and that won't happen again."

Correct printed schedules were promised to be delivered to stations by Friday. The app, though, remains inaccurate, and SEPTA officials could not say when it would be fixed. A PDF on the agency's website has the correct information, they said.

"This is what killed us," Hopkins said, holding up one of the incorrect schedules.

One of the meeting's organizers, Elkins Park resident Joel Fishbein, said the inaccurate schedules made the changes seem more dramatic than they were. "There was an appearance that we lost a lot of service because of the incorrect schedule," he said.

The schedule changes, and the loss of direct airport service during rush hours, were necessary, Hopkins said.

On-time rates were in the 80 percent range, he said, caused in part by trains that ran from Jenkintown to the airport on the West Trenton and Warminster Lines during the busiest hours. Bottlenecks and long waiting times for boarding had a cumulative effect along the line, leading to delays. Converting trains to the positive train control braking system and the age of the trains exacerbated the situation.

Under the new schedule, those lines terminate in Center City during peak hours, 6 to 9 a.m. and 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. SEPTA officials recommended that Elkins Park riders going to the airport travel to Jefferson Station, where they can transfer to another train that picks up passengers at the same platform.

The need for a transfer to the airport took away one of the Elkins Park station's assets, riders said.

"We're a train community, and we depend on it," said Rita Poley, who said she will take her first trip to the airport on the new schedule next week when she travels to Los Angeles for a vacation.

SEPTA officials said when the new schedule debuted Dec. 13 that Elkins Park would receive the same service as always. Riders said that has not always been the case in the last month, and Hopkins sought to dispel rumors that the changes were a prelude to closing the station.

The greatest frustration, though, was caused by the consistently incorrect information. Communication and accurate schedules would have made a big difference, said Fishbein.

"If we had that, there would be a whole lot less frustration at this station," he said.

jlaughlin@phillynews.com215-854-4587@jasmlaughlin