>When SEPTA replaced the PCC cars, many of them were sold around the >world, most notably to San Francisco. Their success is what prompted >SEPTA to spend money to referb the remaining PCC cars in their fleet >instead of just letting them continue to rust.
Actually, it wasn't the success of the trolleys in SanFran that got SEPTA to rebuild the 15 and the PCCs, it was pressure from the city, and I believe Mayor Rendells threat to "re-evaluate" (read reduce) the subsidy that the city pays SEPTA if SEPTA didn't follow through with their promise to return trolleys to at least one of the three "temporary" suspended lines (15, 23 & 56). I do hope that everyone in the neighborhood who can comes out to ride the trolleys. If a regular circulator ran through the neighborhood linking us with Powelton and the stores along Walnut street, and the fare on the circulator could be kept below a dollar, I believe that ridership would be off the charts. Of course, someone has to figure out how to pay for such a service. UCHS has a link for a proposal (http://www.uchs.net/Streetcars/trolleyloop.html) that was made some years ago now for a west philadelphia circulator that would require very little new track but has, of course, gone nowhere because of a lack of dollars. It would be nice to see some of the larger stakeholders in the neighborhood would collectively put up some dollars to fund something like this on a regular basis. 40th & market is becoming quite a zoo trafficwise and it would be nice to have regular, inexpensive transportation that could whisk one away from that mess back to the more residential areas. Portland, OR has an area that they call the "Fareless square" (a big square area on the map) where there are no fares charged at all. The idea is to circulate people through the CBD and discourage car use. It works very well and people use public transport more. Those people pay fares when traveling farther out and become regular transit riders. We need a similar system here in Philadelpia. Since we're apparently the "smart side" of the city now, why can't we have some smart transportation? How many of us would ride a trolley from, say, 50th & B-more to 40th & Walnut if it only cost $.50? How many would ride if it cost a token ($1.30) or full SEPTA fare ($2)? Quite honestly, I don't think a ride that short is worth $2 and I'm a big public transportation supporter! -j. scott clinton ---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
