Tokens No More: SEPTA Announces Plans For Smart Cards
John Sykes, a SEPTA senior construction inspector, demonstrates how an app for smart phones will be used to pay for SEPTA’s buses, regional trains and subways. These gates will be installed at University City, 30th Street Station, Suburban Station, Market East & Temple University. As mentioned in today’s DAILY GRINDER, if friends from out of...
Continue ReadingDAILY GRINDER: ‘Empty Suit’
We’re saving the “Haha, this news is some kind of April Fool’s joke” for every other site on the Interwebs today. Everything you’re about to read isn’t a joke. But in full disclosure, some of it’s told in a not-that-serious manner: Today’s the day…SEPTA announces plans for what spokesman Richard Maloney is calling its biggest project “in our...
Continue ReadingDAILY GRINDER: New Black Panthers Off The Hook?
It’s been about a year since someone died on a SEPTA bus. This time, the bus stopped and paramedics were on the scene. It appears to be of natural causes. [Daily News] Everyone, including Republicans, hate Tom Corbett’s budget. Seventy-eight percent of Pennsylvanians don’t like his crippling education cuts. So what’s he say? “The final number of...
Continue ReadingFresh Produce Rare in ‘Smart’ Philly
Half of you are eating fewer than three servings of fruits and vegetables a day, according to the Public Health Management Corporation. Among those, 66.5 percent are below the Federal Poverty Line and Philly residents are far less likely to have access to fresh produce than, say, “suburban adults.” The PHMC released these and other 2010 findings in recognition...
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SEPTA’s Slap, Seat and Card Dilemmas
Well, SEPTA’s having some trouble. Or, at the very least, this has been a tough week. It started Monday when the Inky reported the many, many problems going on at the South Philadelphia factory that’s supposed to be building those new railcars. They cited material shortages, design flaws and inadequate equipment, which was to be expected. (It’s SEPTA and...
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Check Out This Graphic Showing Local Pennsylvania Governments By Size
This comes to us by way of University of Pittsburgh Regional economist and blogger Christopher Briem. He writes: Well, below is what you get for the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania…As before, the size of the individual entries are proportional, though not in a linear way, to the number of full time employees a government has.
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Riding Dirty On SEPTA
We all know the joys of riding SEPTA’s subways: it often smells of dried piss or marijuana, the car’s ridiculously annoying brakes screech so loudly that one is lucky to still be able to hear after one’s departure, and sometimes, people get stranded on them for 45-minutes. There is something it’s missing, however: one man thought the...
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The Phlog: Fire Strands Dozens of SEPTA Passengers in Subway
Daniesha Pittman, 18, holds her three-month-old baby, Eric Monroh at the intersection of Broad and Girard Streets. A fire forced them, along with dozens of other passengers, to remain in a stationary SEPTA subway car for nearly forty-five minutes today. “They told us we were going right past Girard. Then we stop...
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Rising Gas Prices Are Bad For You, Good For SEPTA
As gas prices go up, so does SEPTA ridership, according to an article in today’s Delco Times: With gas prices hurdling the $3 mark in recent weeks, the trains and trolleys are becoming more crowded. A conservative comparison — using factors such as gas, parking and public transportation ticket prices, miles driven per week and fuel mileage — shows that...
Continue ReadingDAILY GRINDER: ‘Green’ Lights, Jihad Jane, Abortion and SEPTA Love Stories
Sustainable, but collision-causing: Philly’s cool-burning LED traffic lights suck. They’re green, sure, but you need to be able to see the yellow and red if you want them to work. [Daily News] Remember Jihad Jane? She’s set to plead guilty in Philly federal court this week, after originally thinking she’d fight charges she and others plotted to kill Swedish...
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