Hush Hour

SEPTA says its new passenger-enforced QuietRide program is going viral.

by Jakob Dorof

Evan M. Lopez

It's 4 o'clock on a Wednesday, and already Market East Station has begun to swell with the noise and bustle of the day's second rush hour. A table buried by several strata of self-help literature protrudes from the circulation of bags and bodies, manned by a guy offering "free stress tests."

Some dozen feet away, a wrinkled troupe of musicians sings gibberish hymns in sauerkraut harmony, which mixes winsomely with the arguments spilling in and out of nearby cell phones. Across the cluttered concourse, a cop tells a young man in checkered latex to turn down the Kanye while his friend pops and locks it for a transient crowd of five or six. The energy is in the air, tangible and heavy — no doubt a bit overwhelming for the frayed senses that come with the close of another workday.

Traditionally, the uncurbed conversations and transparent headphones of the regional rail have offered tired minds and headaches little respite. But recently, SEPTA seems to be making sincere efforts to give weary passengers a break: This week marks the midpoint in its QuietRide pilot program, a two-month experiment that uses the R5 Lansdale/Doylestown line to examine how a quiet car might work on heavily populated commuter trains.

"The fundamental difference is that cell phones must be turned off or on mute," explains Kim Scott Heinle, SEPTA's assistant general manager for customer service and one of the folks most responsible for the QuietRide. "It's OK to text as long as it doesn't make a sound. You can listen to music, but at a private volume. Conversations are accepted, but they should be brief and sort of hushed.

"The idea is that it's a quiet, relaxing environment for passengers."

Currently, the first car of every rush-hour train on the line is a designated QuietRide (six trains in the a.m., four in the p.m.), which will continue through March 13, at which point SEPTA will decide whether the concept can be expanded to other times and lines.

Of course, it's hard not be a little skeptical at first. This is, after all, the same SEPTA notorious for frequent fare hikes and a transportation service that, though many have come to rely upon it, can often be pretty unreliable. The fact that blogs like SEPTA Watch can air consumer grievances at a daily clip certainly says something.

But considering there's only one way SEPTA could stand to profit directly from this innovation — by adding a small fee for the silence — and it isn't doing that, one wonders if this might just be an act of genuine goodwill.

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Heinle says the QuietRide is part of "an overall passenger courtesy concept," similar to the eco-friendly "Go Green Go SEPTA" campaign launched last year. According to him, the notion of a quiet car came mostly from an outpouring of suggestions from customers.

The idea isn't exactly cutting edge — Amtrak blazed the trail for quiet cars as early as 2001, and has had one on every train for several years now. But as director of railroad services Kim Kennedy points out, the SEPTA offices green-lighted the quiet car idea only at the end of last year, and the turnaround on the project was a matter of weeks.

"Making it work on a commuter railroad is a challenge," she admits, in part an explanation for why SEPTA has taken its time to catch up. "Amtrak has an advantage because it's a long-distance train."

That said, as with Amtrak, the quiet car on the R5 Lansdale/Doylestown line is different from the others only in name: The QuietRide car's only distinguishing mark is its relative silence, which is why Heinle says this pilot period is important in getting the word out. But even then, he says there have been very few reported instances of confusion or rebellion — and almost none have required an intervention from a SEPTA employee.

"For the most part, I see more on the enforcement side from passengers," Heinle notes. "We can largely credit our riders for the success of the QuietRide — they've been handling it in a very mature, professional manner."

A ride on the R5 Lansdale line doesn't contradict Heinle's claim. Compared to the cars behind it, the QuietRide feels like something of a sanctuary — one for focused studiers, pursed lips and long, pensive gazes out the window. A young schoolgirl daringly brandishes a contraband cell phone but speaks so softly that she appears to be on mute. The loudest thing to be heard is the gentle murmur of a hushed side conversation, but for the most part, the car remains quiet enough for meditation. And to some of the passengers, that's exactly what this seems to be.

Likewise, Heinle doesn't hesitate to mention how well the QuietRide appears to be going over. As of last week, more than 500 passengers had used the online feedback form, and Heinle estimates that more than 95 percent of the responses have been uniformly positive. The rest, he says, commend the idea but have doubts that it can be enforced and maintained.

That might not wind up being an issue. Kennedy's job doesn't entail much time on the train, but she says that SEPTA conductors on all lines — not just the R5 — have noticed that many cars have grown quieter since the introduction of the QuietRide. On some lines, some passengers have even made efforts to make the first car a sort of unofficial QuietRide.

That said, while SEPTA won't make any official decisions until mid-March, Heinle and Kennedy are confident that, considering the way things have been going so far, the QuietRide is likely to expand to other lines. Customer feedback has certainly expressed a demand — so much so that Heinle even jokes that there might be a need for more than one quiet car per train.

Then again, considering that many other SEPTA passengers have already begun to follow the quiet car's example, there might not be as much reason for that as one might think. And according to Heinle, that's kind of the point.

"Yes, on the other trains you can use cell phones and whatnot, but we still hope the QuietRide reminds people to be respectful of everyone around you in general," Heinle says warmly, his voice taking an especially heartfelt tone. "I think cell phone culture has sort of made people forget about that, so we're trying to bring them back."

(editorial@citypaper.net)