(The Philadelphia Daily News posted the following article by Jim Nolan on its website on May 15.)
PHILADELPHIA — State and local legislators yesterday blasted SEPTA for failing to adequately maintain the emergency call box system on its subway lines, and for the long delay in getting a new $3.9 million system up and running.
And one city councilman said the latest public safety debacle on the cash-strapped transit agency was evidence that Council was right to withhold its annual $56 million subsidy to SEPTA.
“It’s a betrayal of the public trust,” said incensed Councilman David Cohen.
In a letter to SEPTA Board Chairman Pasquale Deon, state Rep. Alan Butkovitz, D-Philadelphia, said he was “very alarmed” to read yesterday’s Daily News story that nearly a quarter of subway stations on the Broad Street and Market-Frankford El lines have boxes that do not work.
Butkovitz said having malfunctioning boxes was worse than having no call boxes at all. “People, who might take other precautions, would mistakenly believe that they could get help via the non-functioning equipment,” he wrote, urging immediate repairs.
A SEPTA police check of the emergency call box system on the 22 stops of the Broad Street line and 28 stops of the Market-Frankford uncovered bad boxes at 12 of the system’s 50 stations.
The stations are:
Broad Street: Logan, Erie, Lehigh, Susquehanna-Dauphin, Fairmount, Tasker-Morris.
Market-Frankford: Somerset, Berks, Allegheny, Tioga, Erie-Torresdale, Margaret-Orthodox.
The Daily News also reported that a new, computerized emergency call box system installed years ago remains inoperable and is three years behind schedule.
Following the disclosures, SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker said the agency would take immediate steps to fix the boxes on the current system, which malfunctioned due to problems with an electrical communications cable.
He said the boxes should be back online by the end of the week. The new system should be online by the end of the summer.
Whitaker said yesterday the work began Tuesday and would be done by Saturday or Sunday.
SEPTA’s response, however, did little to appease city Council members, already angered by management’s handling of renovations to the 52nd and Market streets station – and by plans to raise fares and cut rail and bus service to bridge an impending funding gap.
“If they can’t take care of things like this, what message does it send about the rest of the system, the things we know nothing about?” asked Councilman Frank Rizzo.
Wilson Goode Jr., chairman of Council’s transportation committee, said the call box issue would be among those discussed at a special hearing tomorrow.
“I’m adding it to the list of things we’re disturbed about with SEPTA,” he said.