(The following story by George Mattar appeared on the Bucks County Courier Times website on November 3.)
PHILADELPHIA — Mike Olszewski of Middletown uses SEPTA quite a bit to get around. He says it normally saves him time and gas money.
On Monday, he told SEPTA officials that he would have taken the train to Doylestown but it’s time consuming. He drove his car instead.
“I can get to Doylestown on the train, but if I do, it goes to Lansdale first and Doylestown is the last stop. It almost makes more sense to ride the R3 to Noble [Montgomery County] and ride the Route 55 bus up [Route 611],” Olszewski told SEPTA officials Monday. “The amount of time it takes to ride up here on a train is not appealing to most people.”
The retired postal worker pointed out that most service is routed out of Philadelphia and, while it runs north and south, it rarely, if ever “crosses” Bucks County. He wanted to know why.
Olszewski was among the few residents who turned out Monday to address SEPTA officials. The board has conducted town meetings in Philadelphia and four suburban counties. Monday’s session in Doylestown was the last, but sparsely attended. However, the ideas that surfaced all appeared sound to SEPTA’s Byron S. Comati, the director of strategic planning and analysis.
Comati said SEPTA is very interested in what the public has to say about service, what’s good and what’s bad. And the authority is working quickly to present for approval a 5-year strategic plan to the SEPTA board in February.
Comati told Olszewski that SEPTA looked at options to crisscross Bucks in the early 1990s, but the plan to link up with the Paoli line was scrapped, mainly due to economics.
Comati said the projected cost was between $400 million and $500 million in the early 1990s. Today, he said, it would cost almost 30 percent more.
Customer service remains SEPTA’s No. 1 goal. Comati said the agency is committed to four goals: cleanliness, communications, convenience and courtesy.
“Customer service always has to be worked on to be improved,” he said.
Other areas needing attention and long-term planning include funding. Today, just 52 percent of SEPTA’s funding comes from passenger fees. Some plans include an E-Z Pass-type payment system to expedite payment and ease of using SEPTA.
“The rest of the money comes from subsidies, both federal and local. It is a little easier now with Act 44 being passed,” Comati said.
The state Legislature passed Act 44 to dedicate transit funding in Pennsylvania.
“Before we had to be at the whimsical call of Harrisburg to even be considered,” Comati said. “The last four years were very tough. Act 44 gave us a funding stream we could rely on and now we can be proactive, rather than reactive.”
One SEPTA rider, Bill Lloyd of Doylestown Township, suggested that SEPTA cater to seniors. “We are living longer and many of us use SEPTA, so I am asking that you consider us in your long term-plans,” he said.
Comati said Lloyd raised a good point.
SEPTA plans on doing plenty in the next five years and things are beginning to happen to keep the ridership it now enjoys and gain new riders.
For example, there is a 200-plus townhouse development being built on Jacksonville Road in Warminster, within walking distance of the SEPTA station, which should help.
The Croydon and Levittown stations, both normally very busy stops, are slated for major repairs within the next few years. Croydon is slated to be rebuilt first.