Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
NO ANNUAL SERVICE PLAN THIS YEAR...
In a letter that I recieved today from SEPTA, the Annual Service Plan process for this year will not take place. Projects planned for the FY2008 Annual Service Plan have been pushed back to FY 2009, depending on SEPTA's financial status by this time next year. Based on reading the state's new budget from Gov. Edward G. Rendell (D-Pa./Comcast SportsNet) in which he's planning to shift increase the sales tax while somehow claiming property tax relief (which almost seems like a big lie, considering Pennsylvania's municipalities get little to no benefit from any sales tax revenues) and other proposals to fund transit, which would not affect SEPTA until next March at the earliest, Philadelphians can prepare for a disasterous recipe of service cuts and fare hikes...
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
NEW "GAMBLERS EXPRESS"
Among the new routes that SEPTA will start in two weeks are two routes that will offer direct service to the new slots hall at Philadelphia Park Racetrack/Casino in Bensalem Twp, Bucks County.
Route 50 will be separated from the existing Route 20 service, which would terminate at Franklin Mills as it always has, with late evening service extended to Philadelphia Park. Residential neighborhoods off of Academy Rd would be served by the existing 20 bus. The new 50 would operate from Bridge-Pratt to Franklin Mills before continuing on to Philadelphia Park.
That, on top of the existing 130 service and the new extension of the 1 bus from Northeast Philly to Philadelphia Park means that people in route to the slots houses that Fast Eddie built will have several options. That's more than can be said for patron's of the Harrah's race track/slots parlor in Chester City. But wait, there's more...
A new Route 150 will also be introduced, operating between Plymouth Meeting Mall and Philadelphia Park, using the existing deadhead routes between Frontier Depot and existing terminals in Lower Bucks County. A preview of the new schedule on the 150 that was posted on SEPTA's web site indicates a total of 6 weekday trips to Bensalem - departing at 04:15, 05:25, 06:15, 13:20, 14:20, and 16:10 - and 5 weekday trips to Plymouth Meeting - departing at 14:10, 16:10, 19:15, 21:45, and 23:18. On Saturdays, there will be four trips to Bensalem - 04:50, 07:40, 11:10, and 14:45 - with 6 trips to Plymouth Meeting - departing at 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:55, 19:55, and 23:18. Somehow, I doubt these trips will be valuable to anyone other than bus fans or whatever, but I guess there was enough political pressure from Bucks County to add as many routes as possible to the new casino.
And, on top of that, the 127 will also be extended from Neshaminy Mall to Philadelphia Park, a proposal that was never brought up during any of the service standards hearings. More than likely, the 127 extension will duplicate the 130's routing.
Route 50 will be separated from the existing Route 20 service, which would terminate at Franklin Mills as it always has, with late evening service extended to Philadelphia Park. Residential neighborhoods off of Academy Rd would be served by the existing 20 bus. The new 50 would operate from Bridge-Pratt to Franklin Mills before continuing on to Philadelphia Park.
That, on top of the existing 130 service and the new extension of the 1 bus from Northeast Philly to Philadelphia Park means that people in route to the slots houses that Fast Eddie built will have several options. That's more than can be said for patron's of the Harrah's race track/slots parlor in Chester City. But wait, there's more...
A new Route 150 will also be introduced, operating between Plymouth Meeting Mall and Philadelphia Park, using the existing deadhead routes between Frontier Depot and existing terminals in Lower Bucks County. A preview of the new schedule on the 150 that was posted on SEPTA's web site indicates a total of 6 weekday trips to Bensalem - departing at 04:15, 05:25, 06:15, 13:20, 14:20, and 16:10 - and 5 weekday trips to Plymouth Meeting - departing at 14:10, 16:10, 19:15, 21:45, and 23:18. On Saturdays, there will be four trips to Bensalem - 04:50, 07:40, 11:10, and 14:45 - with 6 trips to Plymouth Meeting - departing at 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:55, 19:55, and 23:18. Somehow, I doubt these trips will be valuable to anyone other than bus fans or whatever, but I guess there was enough political pressure from Bucks County to add as many routes as possible to the new casino.
And, on top of that, the 127 will also be extended from Neshaminy Mall to Philadelphia Park, a proposal that was never brought up during any of the service standards hearings. More than likely, the 127 extension will duplicate the 130's routing.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
NIBMY-ISM IN LOWER BUCKS
You just can't please some people...
Residents in the Trevose district of Bensalem Township were complaining about R3 commuters using residential streets near the Trevose station are now complaining about SEPTA's proposal to solve the problem:
Bill Kennedy, whose house sits near the bottom of a nearby hill, worried about drainage. "If they blacktop that field up the hill, where's all that water going to go?" he asked.
Charles Brinkerhoff, 71, said exchanging a glade of tall trees for a parking lot across the street would ruin the value of his house. Brinkerhoff also objected to building the project with tax money, diverted from federal highway funds by Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa./Comcast SportsNet)to bail out mass transit.
"Now, they're going to use this money to ruin my neighborhood," he said.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority has obtained a series of special zoning variances for the 120-car lot. SEPTA needs further approvals from the (Bensalem) township council and zoning hearing board. AP
People, get a grip...
Residents in the Trevose district of Bensalem Township were complaining about R3 commuters using residential streets near the Trevose station are now complaining about SEPTA's proposal to solve the problem:
Bill Kennedy, whose house sits near the bottom of a nearby hill, worried about drainage. "If they blacktop that field up the hill, where's all that water going to go?" he asked.
Charles Brinkerhoff, 71, said exchanging a glade of tall trees for a parking lot across the street would ruin the value of his house. Brinkerhoff also objected to building the project with tax money, diverted from federal highway funds by Gov. Ed Rendell (D-Pa./Comcast SportsNet)to bail out mass transit.
"Now, they're going to use this money to ruin my neighborhood," he said.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority has obtained a series of special zoning variances for the 120-car lot. SEPTA needs further approvals from the (Bensalem) township council and zoning hearing board. AP
People, get a grip...
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.
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