Planet SEPTA

by Isaiah Thompson

It was a tough week to be a lefty, judging from the tortured e-mails and blog posts circulating among Philadelphia's progressives, urging fellow libs to support the strikers amid widespread public anger. The way they saw it, the problem wasn't the Transport Workers Union, but the media. The media characterized the TWU as greedy, thus making SEPTA the good guy. Imagine that. SEPTA ... the good guy. If this seems like some sort of bizarro world, it is: Planet SEPTA. And on Planet SEPTA, the union isn't the only thing to be pissed about.

It is a strange place, this Planet SEPTA. Booth operators can handle cash well enough to take your money, but can't give you change. (A few weeks ago, I watched a young mother literally break into tears as she tried, in vain, to break a fiver at 34th Street.) On Planet SEPTA, there is sucker fare and token fare — but the trick is getting tokens. Fewer than half the stations in the system sell them. Last May, Councilwoman Maria Quiñonez-Sánchez asked SEPTA reps why tokens weren't available during peak times at stops in her district in North Philly. "We really are looking into it," came the answer. Six months later, there are no plans to put more tokens in stations, says agency spokeswoman Jerri Williams. She adds, though, that "those issues are kind of obsolete." Why? Because there's a big plan — the so-called "Smart Card."

Ah yes — the Smart Card. You and I may be stuck in the token-based present, but on Planet SEPTA, officials are able to travel through time and inhabit a glorious future in which the Smart Card has solved our transit woes. But after a long-delayed bidding process, SEPTA has yet to announce a contract for the cards, let alone a timetable for implementation. The agency guesses they'll be available in 2011. Or 2012. Oh, and it's still uncertain whether the agency has the money to implement them at all.

Not that SEPTA officials don't return to the present now and then. Just this week, the agency announced another fare hike. Our fares are still lower than New York's, but bang-for-buck-wise, it's another story. For 25 cents over SEPTA's cash fare, New York riders have 24-hour access to the whole metropolis. We, a quarter richer, get the hallucinogenic Night Owl bus. Try not to take it sober.

Forget the TWU. Maybe it's time for riders to win a few concessions. Before raising fares, SEPTA has to hold public hearings. After spending a week as pawns in the great Planet SEPTA war, we'll have a chance to exercise some leverage of our own.