Septa invests $11 million to modernize its real-time data systems and plans to have countdown timers installed in all subway stops by next year. More recently, Septa installed screens at Reading Terminal Market to offer visitors a real-time guide to transportation options nearby.
Septa, late, but always catching up.
There has been a quite a few transportation developments happening in deep South Philly as of late. Septa recently announced that bike racks are coming to their Oregon station on the Broad Street Line. On a larger scale, the Philly Transit Shelter Project, which aims to bring 600 new transit shelters to the city, has started making some moves in South Philadelphia.
Today, we got report of the new bus shelters being put up on the Southwest corner of Broad St and Oregon Ave, where route 7 and G runs. We received some inquiries last Friday when the old bus shelter was torn down and completely removed. In less than a week, the new transit shelter is up and almost functional.
That is a pretty quick turn around time for this area of the city. Let’s hope the new shelters on the other routes will be built just as quickly.
Philadelphia city’s bike-sharing system, Indego, celebrates its first birthday last Thursday. Playing off its wide success from the first year in the city of brotherly love, Indego will implement 24 new docking stations throughout the city this coming year, including the inclusion of 300 brand new bikes.
Once again, the new bike share locations will include very few locations in South Philadelphia, drawing negative feedback from South Philadelphia residents. Concentration of regular bikers are most dense in South Philadelphia, where supplies of biking stations are fewest. Higher supplies of bike-sharing stations would help lower the demand for parking in the already congested South Philly neighborhoods.
The new NACTO bike share guide suggests that studies show that “bike-share stations placed within a 3- to 5-minute walking distance of each other throughout a contiguous service area are essential to a system’s success.”
Indego stations to be added:
UberPOOL, a new feature from Uber that will allow riders to share trips with people heading in the same direction, will soon launch in Philadelphia, according sources from the Philadelphia Business Journal. UberPOOL supports carpooling, minimizing traffic, and reducing emission. Cheaper than UberX, which is already cheaper than regular taxis, UberPOOL could save riders up to $0.55 per mile compared to UberX.
This news comes just days after Philadelphia Daily News revealed that the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) was collaborating with private taxi companies to prevent Uber from operating in Philadelphia. This government agency was reported to have directly worked with private business owners on sting operations that resulted in the impounding of many UberX cars.
Last year, Mayor Kenney sponsored a resolution calling on the state to legalize UberX and Lyft in Philadelphia. UberX and Lyft are currently legal in all other parts of Pennsylvania, where the PPA does not operate.
The latest update from Septa reveals that SEPTA Key will be launched at the end of this year or by 2016 at the latest. The new fare system, which has been installed in most SEPTA stations for months now, will allow users to purchase reloadable cards. Tokens will be phased out completely.
Modeled after Chicago’s transportation system, this new fare system will let users use their transit cards as debit cards and use their debit cards to pay for rides on buses, trolleys and the subway systems.
SEPTA is still working out kinks to ensure that the failures and errors with CTA’s Ventra card will not be an issue with SEPTA Key.
