(The following editorial appeared on The Intelligencer website on July 1.)
PHILADELPHIA — It wasn’t that long ago that SEPTA officials were in panic mode over falling suburban ridership and seeing little reason to hope that the system would ever attract great numbers of riders beyond the immediate Philadelphia city limits.
What a difference $4-a-gallon gasoline can make.
We’re not witnessing a case of, “If you build it, they will come.” Rather, it’s, “If gas gets expensive enough, they will come.” And they, new SEPTA riders, are coming in droves, particularly to the authority’s regional rail lines, which are running at capacity and still scrambling to keep enough cars on the tracks to handle an 11 percent increase in ridership. The story is being repeated in major cities around the country.
SEPTA is planning what it calls a “major shift” in all transit services, and for once that means more frequent trains and buses rather than fewer. What will limit the expansion are two things: the numbers of rail cars that can be acquired (other cities are looking, too,) and the rail infrastructure itself. That latter hasn’t been viewed as seriously as it should have been over the years, since getting people to ride the trains out here in the suburbs has in the past been a hard sell for a couple of reasons: One, riding the train can be inconvenient and, two, people love their cars too much.
“Convenience” has taken on a whole new meaning since a fill-up started costing 70 or 80 bucks. Now, adjusting schedules and walking a little bit aren’t such a bad trade-off for less frequent trips to the gas station.
We’ve all heard and experienced firsthand the fallout from spiraling crude oil prices. We shouldn’t dismiss the benefits, however. The sudden popularity of mass transit is certainly one. If more people are riding the trains and buses, fewer are driving, which means less congestion on the roads, less fossil fuel consumption and less pollution.
It remains to be seen whether the old dog of suburban highway commuters can be taught the new trick of leaving the car home and riding the train or bus to work permanently. SEPTA has a golden opportunity to show what it can do. Elected officials responsible for securing mass transit funding have to pay attention to what’s happening, too, and take it as their responsibility to expand existing systems and explore possible new ones.
The days of cheap gasoline may well be over. In terms of mass transit, at least, that’s not a bad thing.