Showing posts with label El. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El. Show all posts
Sunday, January 21, 2007
RUMBLE AT 69 ST
At around 18:00 yesterday, SEPTA "Transit Police" were alerted to a report of a fight on board a westbound El train that was pulling into 69 St Terminal. Police reported a white male in his 40s assaulted another passenger then fled in an unknown direction. The victim was transported to Delaware County Memorial Hospital.
Friday, December 29, 2006
BUSY DAY ON THE SYSTEM
It was a chaotic and hectic day across the system yesterday - a trolley derailment, a robbery, a foot chase, and a suspicious package made for a lot of work for SEPTA's "Transit Police".
* Shortly before 08:00, a westbound trolley derailed in the tunnel just east of 33 St Station, resulting in the evacuation of at least 5 trolleys. Suffice to say that the morning commute on the Subway-Surface lines was a mess.
* At the tail end of the PM Peak, a robbery was reported at the Margaret-Orthodox El Station. The incident occured at around 17:55, when a heavy set, light complected black male reportedly robbed his victim near the cashier's booth; it's unknown whether the victim was an employee or a passenger. Several police units responded to Tioga Station to search for the actor, but were unable to locate him (surprise, surprise). The actor fled with approximately $100.
* At around 20:00, Philadelphia PD officers were involved in a foot pursuit of a subject under unknown circumstances in the area of Broad and Lehigh. The actor fled onto the system at the North Philadelphia subway station and was reportedly apprehended at Susquehanna-Dauphin.
* At around 22:30, a report of a suspicious package at the North Terminal at 69 St came in to police. The situation was cleared a short time later, however details are very sketchy.
* At around 02:50 this morning, a SEPTA "Transit Police" car was involved in an accident at 11-Market. One officer was transported to Jefferson Hospital with non life threatening injuries (this was initially reported as a bus accident; we apologize for the incorrect report).
But, other than that, it was a safe and secure day on the SEPTA system...
* Shortly before 08:00, a westbound trolley derailed in the tunnel just east of 33 St Station, resulting in the evacuation of at least 5 trolleys. Suffice to say that the morning commute on the Subway-Surface lines was a mess.
* At the tail end of the PM Peak, a robbery was reported at the Margaret-Orthodox El Station. The incident occured at around 17:55, when a heavy set, light complected black male reportedly robbed his victim near the cashier's booth; it's unknown whether the victim was an employee or a passenger. Several police units responded to Tioga Station to search for the actor, but were unable to locate him (surprise, surprise). The actor fled with approximately $100.
* At around 20:00, Philadelphia PD officers were involved in a foot pursuit of a subject under unknown circumstances in the area of Broad and Lehigh. The actor fled onto the system at the North Philadelphia subway station and was reportedly apprehended at Susquehanna-Dauphin.
* At around 22:30, a report of a suspicious package at the North Terminal at 69 St came in to police. The situation was cleared a short time later, however details are very sketchy.
* At around 02:50 this morning, a SEPTA "Transit Police" car was involved in an accident at 11-Market. One officer was transported to Jefferson Hospital with non life threatening injuries (this was initially reported as a bus accident; we apologize for the incorrect report).
But, other than that, it was a safe and secure day on the SEPTA system...
Monday, July 24, 2006
EL SHUTTLE COMMENTS
Once again, SEPTA attempted to run a resonable facsimile of the El during one of it's 10-day shutdowns. The good news is this time, the service was restored when it was supposed to be. The bad news is that SEPTA seems to take pleasure in sticking it to riders trying (sometimes in vain) to connect to Red Arrow buses at 69 St. Would it really have been that difficult to designate at least 1/3 of the 40+ buses used on the shuttle to run non-stop between 40 St and 69 St to at least give suburban bus riders at least a sliver of hope of making connections in a reasonable amount of time? At least when the Frankford side of the El underwent major shutdowns on weekends, riders connecting from buses at Bridge-Pratt were able to get a close to non-stop ride to Center City (with a stop at Bridge and Torresdale) via I-95.
Of course, there's no limited access highway connecting West Philly with Upper Darby, but traffic flow during most hours along Walnut and Chestnut isn't too bad, so there's no reason why non-stop service couldn't be implemented.
And, of course, SEPTA's Minister of Mis-Information Richard Maloney made an appearance on Monday. After a stop at 69 St, Maloney made his way over to 40 St to "assist" with the operation of the shuttle. So, of course, being a good SEPTA hack, Maloney did ride with the people on the shuttle buses from 69 St to 40 St, right? Ummm, no...
Apparently using status that would nominally be reserved for Fearless Leader or some other high ranking Rotating Resume, Maloney and an unidentified female Hack were given a non-stop ride from 69 St to 40 St ... in the back of a SEPTA "Transit Police" cruiser driven by a high ranking "Transit Police" Lieutenant.
Well, at least someone was able to secure a SEPTA-operated non-stop ride between the two endpoints...
The running of the shuttles also allowed for the largest gathering of SEPTA "Transit Police" seen in Upper Darby since ... well, let me get back to you on that. No fewer than 8 "Transit Police" officers were observed going what they tend to do best - stand around, do very little, and wait for the next call to come in. Now, if only SEPTA's "Transit Police" were only half as vigilant at NJ Transit Police, then perhaps the quote marks around "Transit Police" will be removed. Until then, nothing's going to change...
Of course, there's no limited access highway connecting West Philly with Upper Darby, but traffic flow during most hours along Walnut and Chestnut isn't too bad, so there's no reason why non-stop service couldn't be implemented.
And, of course, SEPTA's Minister of Mis-Information Richard Maloney made an appearance on Monday. After a stop at 69 St, Maloney made his way over to 40 St to "assist" with the operation of the shuttle. So, of course, being a good SEPTA hack, Maloney did ride with the people on the shuttle buses from 69 St to 40 St, right? Ummm, no...
Apparently using status that would nominally be reserved for Fearless Leader or some other high ranking Rotating Resume, Maloney and an unidentified female Hack were given a non-stop ride from 69 St to 40 St ... in the back of a SEPTA "Transit Police" cruiser driven by a high ranking "Transit Police" Lieutenant.
Well, at least someone was able to secure a SEPTA-operated non-stop ride between the two endpoints...
The running of the shuttles also allowed for the largest gathering of SEPTA "Transit Police" seen in Upper Darby since ... well, let me get back to you on that. No fewer than 8 "Transit Police" officers were observed going what they tend to do best - stand around, do very little, and wait for the next call to come in. Now, if only SEPTA's "Transit Police" were only half as vigilant at NJ Transit Police, then perhaps the quote marks around "Transit Police" will be removed. Until then, nothing's going to change...
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
EL TRAIN GOES OFF TRACK...
On September 22, at around 21:30, a westbound El train derailed at the 15 St Station. The #3 car of the train (1176) reportedly jumped the tracks at the 15 St crossover west of the station. Four people were injured, and service was restored the following morning. The cause of the incident is unclear, but there remains a slow-order leaving 15 St station. According to one poster at the railroad.net forum, the 1176 car had some wheelwork done earlier in the day. Funny how the rest of the media missed that one...
Monday, August 01, 2005
FINALLY, SEPTA DOES SOMETHING POSITIVE FOR SECURITY
For all the criticism directed at Assistant General Manager for Public Safety James B. Jordan, and for that matter the SEPTA Transit "Police" Department over recent assaults and other violent incidents on the system, not to mention the seemingly inability to ramp up security when virtually every other transit agency on the east coast goes to Code Orange, Dan Geringer of the Philadelphia Daily News (a fully-paid subsidiary of "move-on-dot-org") reports in today's editions SEPTA's plans to have all subway and el stations equipped with digital surveillance cameras.
The days of blurry, black-and-white, first-man-on-the-moon images from SEPTA security cameras designed to catch turnstile jumpers are giving way to digital recorders focused on life-and-death crimes in these terrorist-scarred times.
In a federally funded pilot project, SEPTA has installed 16 digital recording cameras throughout its Cecil B. Moore [Temple University] subway station on Broad Street that relay the kind of crisply detailed color images to its Center City control room that enabled London police to identify suspects soon after the transit-system bombings there.
There will be 21 more "Smart Stations" here by 2007, and all 60 SEPTA stations will have full digital surveillance by 2010, said James Jordan, SEPTA's assistant general manager for public safety. The federally funded price tag is $80 million to $100 million.
"This is not something you can just go out and buy at Radio Shack," Jordan said. "We need to build a fiber-optic network in 25 miles of tunnel and bring 21st- century high-tech engineering into 19th-century architecture."
SEPTA's police and operations personnel in the central control room can see a continuous rotation of real-time images from station platforms, turnstiles, escalators, elevators and tunnels.
"I have three cases now where we were able to make arrests because of the digital cameras," said SEPTA Police Detective William B. Saunders Jr.
"We coordinate with Temple University, which has cameras focused on the street outside the station. We ask, 'Which way did he go after he left the station?' and they can tell us.
"We help them, too. If there's a retail theft and the suspect runs into the station, we've got him on camera and we work with Temple police to apprehend him."
Digital cameras also are running and recording at the Susquehanna-Dauphin, Allegheny and Erie stations.
These stations are in the particularly heavy crime areas of North Philadelphia along the Broad Street Line.
Images are stored on CD for a week to 10 days.
David Scott, SEPTA's deputy chief of police, said that the strength of Smart Stations is their ability to coordinate all security functions.
"If a fire alarm goes off, a red light on a diagram of the station pinpoints the location and a camera zooms in on the fire," he said.
"Intrusion alarms in the tunnels tell us if security is breached.
"We have 360-degree pan-tilt-zoom cameras that we can maneuver from central control.
"We are looking into cameras so smart that if someone leaves a briefcase for 10 seconds and walks away, there will be an audible alarm in the control room while the camera focuses on the briefcase."
SEPTA's Smart Stations compare favorably with new surveillance systems in other major East Coast cities.
That is almost hard to believe. In fact, that would almost be a first for SEPTA...
At Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Jeffrey Parker, director of subway operations, said a similar conversion to digital images transmitted by fiber optics was under way, hand-in-hand with the city's rebuilding of its 65 ancient stations.
Boston's unique twist is that images are monitored inside glass-enclosed booths at its major "hub" stations, allowing riders to survey the surveillance.
"Instead of putting the monitors in the basement of our control center so that no one would see them, we put our monitoring in very public places," Parker said.
"We want to be out in front of the public to show that we are keeping an eye on things."
There's a lot of scepticism about that statement, considering that many in Boston consider the T's Police Department almost as disorganized as SEPTA's ... and that's saying a hell of a lot.
Steven Taubenkibel, spokesperson for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, said that all its 86 stations have digital video-recording cameras that transmit both to a central control and to a manager's kiosk at every station entrance.
Unlike SEPTA, Washington's Metro also has digital video cameras in 100 buses and has just allocated part of a $49 million federal grant to install them in 125 more.
Recently, Taubenkibel said, a camera installed above a driver's head captured footage of an assailant hurling a brick through the open bus door and hitting the driver in the face.
"We showed images from the tape to the public and were able to apprehend the suspect," Taubenkibel said.
"We rely on the eyes and ears of our riders, but those cameras really help."
Recall that SEPTA reportedly had a similar bus surveillance project on the Neoplan artic fleet a couple of years ago. There were stickers on several of the Allegheny artics that indicated that cameras were in place. Haven't heard much about that in recent years, particularly since the VOH program went into effect.
DART First State and LANTA in the Lehigh Valley both have or are in the process of installing video cameras on their respective bus fleets. The DART buses have both interior and exterior cameras - at least on the NABI fleet (I haven't had a chance to look at their Gilligs that closely), while LANTA installed cameras on their New Flyers but not the soon to be retired 8900 series Orion Is (and yes there are still a few of those active).
As far as stations go, I can't speak as to whether or not similar technology would be implemented at key Regional Rail stations (ie. Suburban, Market East, Glenside, Paoli) or at the surface terminals (Bridge-Pratt, Olney, 69 St, Chester, Norristown), but that would make sense in the long run.
The days of blurry, black-and-white, first-man-on-the-moon images from SEPTA security cameras designed to catch turnstile jumpers are giving way to digital recorders focused on life-and-death crimes in these terrorist-scarred times.
In a federally funded pilot project, SEPTA has installed 16 digital recording cameras throughout its Cecil B. Moore [Temple University] subway station on Broad Street that relay the kind of crisply detailed color images to its Center City control room that enabled London police to identify suspects soon after the transit-system bombings there.
There will be 21 more "Smart Stations" here by 2007, and all 60 SEPTA stations will have full digital surveillance by 2010, said James Jordan, SEPTA's assistant general manager for public safety. The federally funded price tag is $80 million to $100 million.
"This is not something you can just go out and buy at Radio Shack," Jordan said. "We need to build a fiber-optic network in 25 miles of tunnel and bring 21st- century high-tech engineering into 19th-century architecture."
SEPTA's police and operations personnel in the central control room can see a continuous rotation of real-time images from station platforms, turnstiles, escalators, elevators and tunnels.
"I have three cases now where we were able to make arrests because of the digital cameras," said SEPTA Police Detective William B. Saunders Jr.
"We coordinate with Temple University, which has cameras focused on the street outside the station. We ask, 'Which way did he go after he left the station?' and they can tell us.
"We help them, too. If there's a retail theft and the suspect runs into the station, we've got him on camera and we work with Temple police to apprehend him."
Digital cameras also are running and recording at the Susquehanna-Dauphin, Allegheny and Erie stations.
These stations are in the particularly heavy crime areas of North Philadelphia along the Broad Street Line.
Images are stored on CD for a week to 10 days.
David Scott, SEPTA's deputy chief of police, said that the strength of Smart Stations is their ability to coordinate all security functions.
"If a fire alarm goes off, a red light on a diagram of the station pinpoints the location and a camera zooms in on the fire," he said.
"Intrusion alarms in the tunnels tell us if security is breached.
"We have 360-degree pan-tilt-zoom cameras that we can maneuver from central control.
"We are looking into cameras so smart that if someone leaves a briefcase for 10 seconds and walks away, there will be an audible alarm in the control room while the camera focuses on the briefcase."
SEPTA's Smart Stations compare favorably with new surveillance systems in other major East Coast cities.
That is almost hard to believe. In fact, that would almost be a first for SEPTA...
At Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Jeffrey Parker, director of subway operations, said a similar conversion to digital images transmitted by fiber optics was under way, hand-in-hand with the city's rebuilding of its 65 ancient stations.
Boston's unique twist is that images are monitored inside glass-enclosed booths at its major "hub" stations, allowing riders to survey the surveillance.
"Instead of putting the monitors in the basement of our control center so that no one would see them, we put our monitoring in very public places," Parker said.
"We want to be out in front of the public to show that we are keeping an eye on things."
There's a lot of scepticism about that statement, considering that many in Boston consider the T's Police Department almost as disorganized as SEPTA's ... and that's saying a hell of a lot.
Steven Taubenkibel, spokesperson for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, said that all its 86 stations have digital video-recording cameras that transmit both to a central control and to a manager's kiosk at every station entrance.
Unlike SEPTA, Washington's Metro also has digital video cameras in 100 buses and has just allocated part of a $49 million federal grant to install them in 125 more.
Recently, Taubenkibel said, a camera installed above a driver's head captured footage of an assailant hurling a brick through the open bus door and hitting the driver in the face.
"We showed images from the tape to the public and were able to apprehend the suspect," Taubenkibel said.
"We rely on the eyes and ears of our riders, but those cameras really help."
Recall that SEPTA reportedly had a similar bus surveillance project on the Neoplan artic fleet a couple of years ago. There were stickers on several of the Allegheny artics that indicated that cameras were in place. Haven't heard much about that in recent years, particularly since the VOH program went into effect.
DART First State and LANTA in the Lehigh Valley both have or are in the process of installing video cameras on their respective bus fleets. The DART buses have both interior and exterior cameras - at least on the NABI fleet (I haven't had a chance to look at their Gilligs that closely), while LANTA installed cameras on their New Flyers but not the soon to be retired 8900 series Orion Is (and yes there are still a few of those active).
As far as stations go, I can't speak as to whether or not similar technology would be implemented at key Regional Rail stations (ie. Suburban, Market East, Glenside, Paoli) or at the surface terminals (Bridge-Pratt, Olney, 69 St, Chester, Norristown), but that would make sense in the long run.
Monday, June 13, 2005
EL PROBLEMS
Earlier this evening, there were reports of busing between Bridge-Pratt and Erie-Torresdale due to "police activity". As of 20:00, it appeared that normal service had resumed. No other details about the incident are available...
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