March 9–16, 2000
cover story
Ask for an opinion about SEPTA and you’re bound to get a list of gripes longer than the Broad Street Line — the service is unpredictable, the stations are unsafe, the workers are mean. The simple truth is that these opinions are inherently skewed, because the majority of people who ride public transit are either on their way to somewhere they’d rather not be — work — or not getting away fast enough from it.
But what if you rode SEPTA, not to get from one place to another, but simply for the sake of riding? What kind of picture of this city and its commuters would you get? We told Hot Seats columnist Patrick Rapa to pick a train, any train, and get going.
The Rail World
 |
 |
|
|
A 24-Hour SEPTA Experience.
by Patrick Rapa
illustrations by Jason Fritzsche
Thursday, Feb. 24, 9:01 a.m. 3rd & Pine
Ever get to a bus stop just as a bus is leaving? It’s embarrassing. The driver doesn’t see you, but everyone already on board does. Staring out those shaded windows, they contemplate alerting the driver to your presence.
On one hand they know your situation — everybody’s been late for the bus. On the other, they have a dilemma. If the bus were to stop again, to open the doors again, precious seconds would be added to their commute. Besides, for most people, this might be the only chance they get today to be cruel and not get in trouble for it. The bus rolls on.
A common foolhardy maneuver at this point is to walk along the bus route, hoping the next bus will catch up. By the time the next one rumbles up Third, it’s not worth the $1.60.
About 12 women, each in subtle variations of the Ally McBeal skirt-and-jacket powersuit, stand on the brick sidewalk, waiting for a westbound bus at Spruce. Their heels are tall. Imperfect hair is being worked on. No one person is closer than five feet to another, which makes it easy for a jogger in headphones to cut through the pack.
Cabs slow down on their way by, trying to entice the women into their backseats. No one reacts when an Olde City Taxi honks and makes a pass by the bus stop. A woman with two briefcases clearly takes offense at the intrusion. Her Trailpass card is a mutually binding institution. She has faith in her mass transit system. The bus will be here.
10:15 a.m. Market East Station
As overslept members of the rat race hop off their regional rails and up the stairs, an actual rat combs the floor of this sitting area for something to eat or something to do.
It’s a baby, with a body about three inches long, the tail another two. Nobody seems to notice it peeking and careening around the corners of the big square benches. At one point it makes a sport of hopping over the large white Nikes of a man who would see it if it weren’t for the current issue of the Metro in his hands.
Above the rat on the far wall, 14 TV monitors display names of tracks people need to know to catch the next train out of here. No delays are reported. A couple guys with an A-shaped ladder are repairing the R8 TV, which is displaying a series of seemingly random numbers, letters and asterisks.
Whenever somebody comes stamping up to look at the monitors, the rat bolts for the tiny overhangs at the bottom of the benches, which seem to be built precisely for the concealment of rats. When the coast is clear it moves nose first back into the open.
The song on the public address keeps saying, "Playing with the Queen of Hearts."
10:36 a.m. R8 Chestnut Hill Local
The designers of these seats must have been very proud. An ingenious hinge system allows passengers to flip the seat in front of them to face the seat they’re on. Maybe the planners envisioned the R8 as some sort of social train where lovers sit across from each other, legs in each other’s laps as they watch North Philly slowly turn into green suburbia. Maybe the brownish-yellow two-person seats and the reddish brown three-seaters were supposed to inspire a relaxed but festive train experience. Instead, the hinges just make the seats a little wobbly.
No one on this mostly empty train is having a good time. Or a bad time. They’re hardly having a time at all. Everyone stares straight ahead or looks down at their laps.
A man in a trenchcoat gets on at Suburban Station and jokes with a ticket taker who keeps his aviator sunglasses on at all times. "You trying to leave me? You know I take this train everyday."
"Oh yeah?" The ticket guy doesn’t recognize him. He doesn’t regularly work this train.
Heading away from the city, the R8 cuts through a high dirt valley where gnarled tree roots jut right out from the wall. Every couple of miles there seems to be another field of construction equipment debris. The ticket taker makes small talk with a woman who identifies herself as a masseuse who makes house calls.
A guy dressed in a wool cap and a ragged jacket runs his hand up and down his salt and pepper beard and stares at his half-empty bottle of Hawaiian Punch. The poster-sized ad in front of him reads "Hey worker bee, use that stinger." It wants the man to report any software fraud he is aware of. Over his head sits a red tool box marked "Emergency Pry Bar."
Heading back toward the city, a bright green river of algae or sludge bubbles alongside the tracks. It disappears into the ground at the Queen Lane stop, then somehow restarts on the other side.
Wait. What sort of emergency requires a pry bar?
12:39 p.m. SEPTA Transit Museum, 12th and Market
No time to check out the museum full of old trains and memorabilia, but a visit to the gift shop is in order. There you can pick up models of the different local trains, expertly detailed down to the little blue and red SEPTA symbol. Other available items include SEPTA shirts, mouse pads and keychains designed to hold 10 tokens.
You know those metal contraptions you put your dollar and change into when you get on a bus? You can buy an old one of those for $35. Maybe you’re supposed to put it in your minivan.
The book Trains, Trolleys & Transit: A Guide to Philadelphia Area Rail Transit seems like a comprehensive, unnecessarily thorough book. It should make for light reading during the day’s less interesting moments. The woman behind the counter takes the $30 while explaining to an acquaintance about the time she told somebody to just do the job they were supposed to do. "Is that too much to ask?" Her acquaintance says no.
1:10 p.m. City Hall
A sign posted on a silver support beam displays the SEPTA motto "We’re Getting There." Taken literally, a slogan like this is both honest and cynical. There’s an implied "at least" — as if they’re telling us, yeah, SEPTA has its problems, but at least the trains go where they’re supposed to, don’t they?
Of course, the sign was intended to indicate a bigger optimism, that SEPTA was improving itself to meet the demands of its riders — that there’s a standard and the company is getting there. The other big SEPTA slogan, "Serious About Change," inspires more confidence.
Three pigeons swoop and soar through the underground tunnels, apparently trying to find the place they came in. Everyone ducks and laughs when the birds pass. One heads across a boarding platform and down a tunnel and is quickly pursued by the number 13 trolley to Yeadon, which operates, of course, by means of overhead electrical wires. This does not bode well for the bird.
A mother and three kids are waiting for the El and staring at a map of the entire SEPTA system. The blue, green and orange lines sprawl outward from here, meeting red, brown, yellow and gray lines. The map looks like the circulatory system of some complex beast, with its brain embedded right here, in the ancient soil beneath City Hall.
The mom leans down to her daughter. "Looks like an ant farm, doesn’t it?"
Yeah, that too.
1:35 p.m. Number 11 Subway-Surface train
This is probably the neatest trick in SEPTA’s arsenal, a tunnel-riding train that turns into a street-riding trolley. The bus experience is well replicated by these eight-sided electric streetcars, from the bumpy rides to the jolting stops to the no-nonsense drivers. The green line is even eligible for traffic delays.
The monotonous view of trucks and electronic stores provides an excellent opportunity to examine that book. Author Gerry Williams recounts SEPTA’s mighty history and fully illustrates the many different types of trains and buses and things available to take people places. Somewhere in this vast web of mass transit madness, electric trackless trolleys frolic through suburban streets. It’s interesting if you like that sort of thing. Mr. Williams does.
2:35 p.m. Broad St. Line, Olney stop
 |
|
|
|
A woman named Brandy and her husband Parris are slowly walking the platform, politely asking for 15¢ donations for a homelessness charity. In return, the charitable can sign a list on Brandy’s clipboard.
Every night, she and Parris and others pray for the names on their list. It seems like a pretty good deal, but they have only five names so far.
3:30 p.m. Market-Frankford El
SEPTA’s really proud of their "new" El trains. A little sleeker and a lot more clean and comfortable than the original sweatboxes that used to rattle from 69th St. to Bridge and Pratt, these trains seem to have improved the morale of their daily riders. SEPTA is "Serious About Change" after all.
Somebody has already figured out how to rip the padding off the seats. And whatever could have left the stain on the seat in the back corner of this car, it’s dry now and seems safe to sit on.
When the train gets to the Girard stop, the recorded voice of a woman announces "Doors are opening" and, sure enough, they are. A small group of grade schoolers get on, loosening their striped ties and dragging their plastic backpacks. Just for the hell of it, one boy decides to stick his foot between the doors as they are sliding together. "Doors are closing" comes the announcement."
"No they’re not," says the boy laughing as the doors pull apart.
"Please stand clear of the doors." The recording sounds pissed.
The boy joins his friends who are seated at one end of a car, shouting adorable obscenities at each other. "Why the fuck you kicking doors? Somebody oughtta bust a cap in your ass."
They talk like Dr. Dre, but they look more like little Skee-Los and Eminems. The chances of these little gangstas with Dorito dust on their cheeks actually possessing the nines and gats they would need to bust caps into each other’s backsides are, one hopes, pretty slim. Still, an older woman in a blue jacket stares at them, her face contorted in a way that implies sadness and anger and well-I-never snootiness every time she catches tidbits of their trash talk.
According to the Gerry Williams’ book, "Riding SEPTA transit vehicles is generally safe. Knowledgeable locals, however, will often avoid transit routes during the early afternoon when secondary schools let out. Students, especially when coming home from school, tend to be more boisterous than threatening." That’s a relief.
Some of the kids get off at one stop and the divided groups bang on either side of a plastic window at each other. Then they boisterously say goodbye by waving their middle fingers and swearing to kill each other tomorrow.
Out the window, the elevated train provides brief glances into the everyday lives of people who live along either side of the tracks. A man and his golden retriever walking past a house seemingly surrounded by white stoves. A beautiful woman leaning out a window with a picture-perfect glass of ice tea in her hand. A backyard empty save for a rusty, mangled jungle gym. The view disappears when the train suddenly becomes subterranean again after the Spring Garden stop.
