There are a few more differences. One of the biggest is that the RTA functions more as an "umbrella" agency, as thunda stated; the CTA, Metra, and PACE each have their own boards of directors that set fares and operating policy for their respective agencies. RTA approves the overall budget for Chicagoland's three transit agencies and draws up a comprehensive five-year capital plan and two-year financial plan, but has no real say in how the plans are executed; that's left up to the CTA, Metra and PACE boards to decide.

SEPTA is a single operating as well as planning agency; the heads of its three operating divisions report to the General Manager, not independent boards of directors as in Chicago.

Given the CTA's current state of near-collapse, are you sure we should adopt the Chicago model for this region? SEPTA may have shown itself to be somewhat inept at project management, but at least it has kept up with capital renewal needs throughout the system.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

Yup, this is exactly the point I was trying to make before. The more you separate the city and suburban divisions, the more alienated the city division is from the wealth and (statewide) political power of the suburbs. For example, the CTA's chronic underinvestment. It's not that SEPTA doesn't favor regional rail ... I think they do ... but the split is a lot less wide than it would be if they were more organizationally distinct.

I think there's good reason to keep the RRD separate from the CTD. (plus there's suburban transit). they are all different unions and operating a railroad is entirely different than a bus or trolley system, both funcitonally and culturally. I do think it would be a good idea to merge the Victory and CTD divisions though.

I think SEPTA's biggest problem, other than lack of customer service (which is a big one, particularly when people didn't HAVE to ride the train) is the city itself. with a delcining population and job base, it was increasingly difficult to provide adequate service levels and providing service to jobs all over the suburbs is problematic to say the least. Intersuburban transit was somewhat accurately viewed as a form of welfare...thus dynamic is changing with gas prices (a bit) but would also change if the city began to grow economically as well. SEPTA woudl be seen less as an agency that gets poor people out of Philadelphia to find jobs and as an agency that provides transportation for a lot of people going to work. I also think expanding mass transportation to places that have little, in the form of intercity rail ,would go a long way towards pacifying people in Erie, Scranton, Pitt, altoona, etc. I also think the single biggest problem organizationally is the lack of people with useful backgrounds on the SEPTA board.

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"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

Oh, don't get me wrong, I totally agree that having SEPTA divided up into three operating divisions makes a ton of sense. But I think that keeping them all under a fairly tightly knit organizational umbrella makes a ton of sense, for political reasons. Basically, I'm saying that I don't think SEPTA's basic structure is really the problem. Its myriad problems lie elsewhere.

Ding ding!

Something to chew on:

From the latest State of Center City report: in 1993, CC had 41% of regional office space, where now it has 28%. Total regional office space is about 140.4 million sq ft.

If Center City had maintained its 41% share from 15 years ago, it would now have 57.6 million sq ft, instead of 40 million. That amounts, approximately, to a building the size of the Comcast Center coming online every year since 1993, and (assuming that space per worker is the same) 73,000 more downtown workers than there are now.

We may be few in number relative to the total population, thunda, but we reverse commuters are also beginning to fill the trains outbound in the morning and inbound in the evening. Fern Rock sees almost as many passenger boardings as Jenkintown, it seems, and anybody living near that station headed downtown would take the Broad Street Line instead.

They get off at places called Trevose or Fort Washington or Woodbourne or Wayne, there to board shuttle buses to places like Neshaminy or Oxford Valley or Great Valley.

Within Center City, their small numbers increased sixfold from 1990 to 2000, and probably continue to grow exponentially as the city center has become ever more a residential district of choice.

It's no substitute for a healthy job market in the city center, but from a ridership perspective, it's pretty much the same thing.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

Well, okay, granted. But like you said, a few hundred or thousand reverse commuters doesn't substitute for a healthy downtown job market (especially from the perspective of the city economy, rather than just SEPTA ridership). Besides, I'd bet that the majority of reverse commuters actually drive, as suburban jobs are usually too dispersed to be well served by transit.

Usually I'd never question you on a transit topic BUT, I'd venture to say the proportion of riders using SEPTA for the people who work in CC is far greater than those who work in places like Neshaminy and Blue Bell. the fact that the reverse trains are filling up is reflective of two things, IMO, the sheer # of jobs NOT in the city, and the number of people opting to live in the city DESPITE the fact they can't get a good job there. To service the city, you run trains and maybe build parking garages. for an equivalent 10,000 jobs in the burbs, you might have to provide 8 bus connections. omnivore's land use gripes are quite valid. if the great valley corp center were centered on paoli station it woudl be one thing, but as it is, it's up a dangerous hill

__________________
"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

for one reason or another, the outer/inner tracks are not express/local as you indicate although I'm sure all parties involved wish it were. perhaps this is the reason why a zoo stop never happened.

__________________
"You down wit OPM?"
Fumo: "Yeah, you know me!"

If by "not express/local" you mean Amtrak trains use those tracks too, yes, I understand that, but nonetheless, local trains stop at places Amtrak trains do not, and those places have platforms that allow access to the outer tracks only.

There appears to be no need anywhere else on the NEC from New York to Philly to add another set of tracks for those local stops, so I don't see why they'd be necessary for a Zoo stop, unless the location of the station just before/beyond notoriously complex Zoo Interlocking would mean that trains stopping there could produce routing nightmares back up the line.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden