Inquirer editorial: Quick fixes needed to help SEPTA riders keep their cool
What car owner would take it in stride if cracks showed up in his vehicle's axle or frame only a few years into its expected road life? Similar circumstances face SEPTA, which has had to sideline a third of its commuter rail's cars because of a dangerous manufacturing defect that will be costly to correct.
What car owner would take it in stride if cracks showed up in his vehicle's axle or frame only a few years into its expected road life? Similar circumstances face SEPTA, which has had to sideline a third of its commuter rail's cars because of a dangerous manufacturing defect that will be costly to correct.
Day 2 of service disruptions for SEPTA Regional Rail found trains and platforms much more crowded than Monday, which was a holiday. Trains with no room for additional passengers were forced to bypass stations and operate as expresses Tuesday. Relief isn't expected anytime soon unless NJ Transit or Amtrak can loan SEPTA some compatible cars for temporary use.
Fortunately, commuters - who at times get riled even under normal circumstances - seem to be taking a cue from SEPTA officials in exhibiting relative calm in the midst of a truly frustrating situation. But as the transit nightmare continues, the riding public should expect not only SEPTA but Mayor Kenney to show more urgency to restore the rail system to a greater semblance of normal operations.
The agency's focus has to be on three areas: making repairs rapidly, stemming disruption for commuters until the whole fleet gets rolling again, and tracing both the cause of and responsibility for such a catastrophic failure of shiny new railcars that were meant to last decades.
SEPTA has in the past shown that it can deal with a repair crisis. When a North Philadelphia bridge carrying six train lines was suddenly closed in 1984, a new span that would cost $7 million today was erected in less than a month. In 1990, shortly after SEPTA's worst derailment killed four and injured 165 on the Market-Frankford Line, the agency fixed fault-prone traction motors on every subway car. Nothing less is demanded now.
Yet it's not encouraging that the agency has struggled to outline how and when repairs will be made to potentially devastating cracks in the weight-bearing beams of the railcars' undercarriages. One sign of how long the fix might take could be read in the agency's decision to offer refunds and credits on rail passes - a rare move.
For riders, the best news was that the flawed cars were discovered before any tragedy occurred, which is a credit to SEPTA's safety engineers. Beyond that, good news is in short supply. Commuters are finding that the modified Saturday service expected to be in force for weeks, possibly months, means they will face delays and trains so packed that some riders will be stranded on platforms.
In a city that prides itself on being bike-friendly, the Kenney administration could encourage more commuting by bicycle, perhaps opening up safe corridors for cyclists on some city streets. (Existing bike routes are mapped at bicyclecoalition.org.) Meanwhile, the city's year-old bike-share system could follow the example of its counterpart in Washington, which is discounting single-ride fares in response to mass-transit disruptions.
Above all, SEPTA needs to hear from South Korean carmaker Hyundai-Rotem, which encountered a number of delays in building the railcar fleet, final assembly of which was done in South Philadelphia. Scrutinizing how the cars were manufactured could help get them repaired and rolling sooner.