(The Philadelphia Daily News posted the following tory by Gloria Campisi and Jim Nolan on its website on May 16.)
PHILADELPHIA — It’s worse than you thought.
SEPTA yesterday admitted that 31 emergency call boxes on its Broad Street and Market Frankford Elevated lines did not work.
That’s more than double the number of malfunctioning boxes – 14 at 12 stations – previously documented by the Daily News and first brought to light in Wednesday’s paper.
In a letter to board members sent by SEPTA General Manager Faye Moore and obtained by the Daily News, the transit agency admitted that 31 boxes, almost a third of the 108 emergency call boxes on the lines, were “out of service” yesterday.
The disclosure of even more malfunctioning call boxes is another black eye for the transit agency, which must close a yawning deficit left by decreased state funding.
City Council earlier this month voted to withhold its $56 million annual subsidy to SEPTA due to mounting problems and accountability issues within SEPTA.
Moore told board members that 22 of the 31 boxes were on the Market Frankford Subway Elevated line and would be returned to service “no later than Monday.”
“The failures were caused by trouble with underground cables installed in 1993 as part of the Frankford Elevated Reconstruction Project, Moore said.
Nine other boxes throughout the system are malfunctioning “due to failed printed circuit boards,” Moore wrote. She said the boards require specialized manufacturing but an emergency requisiton for the boards had been placed and service was expected to be restored “no later than May 31.”
The transit agency had told the Daily News earlier that the malfunctioning boxes would be fixed by the weekend.
SEPTA’s chief spokesman, Richard Maloney, said the agency expects work on 22 of the boxes to be done today, barring technical problems.
Maloney said that for safety reasons, stickers will be placed on the nine boxes with circuit problems telling the public they’re not working.
He said the cable failure occurred April 22 and the stickers should have been placed on the boxes then. SEPTA has been working on the boxes since the failure, he said.
Maloney could not identify the total number of stations that had inoperable boxes. In response to the Daily News story about stations where SEPTA police found inoperable boxes two weeks ago, Maloney said some were now working but most were still out.
Today, SEPTA goes before a City Council transportation committee hearing to answer questions on issues including renovation problems to the 52nd and Market streets station area and proposed cuts in bus, rail and trolley service.
Moore’s letter makes no reference to SEPTA’s other emergency call box shame – a $3.9 million computerized system that was installed on every station but is three years behind schedule and has yet to be brought on line to replace the old system.
SEPTA officials earlier this week said the system had a software problem and should be on line by the end of the summer.