Saturday, July 17, 2010

SEPTA Nomenclature

I was reading my email at work with Pa DPW when I ran across this email from the University City Listserv. It discribes some changes to come soon to SEPTA Trollies in West Philly
SEPTA has announced it will terminate the "Green Line" on Jul. 25.
Fortunately for people who rely on this system, it is the name alone which is being eliminated.
This is part of a complex name-changing operation which, in SEPTA's words, "is eliminating the confusing 'R' and numbers and rebranding Regional Rail using the current end destination names. This change is an important, customer friendly effort to promote the use of public transit in our region and reduce the confusion and travel inconvenience our current system of duplicate R’s and line numbers creates for new riders and visitors and tourists unfamiliar with SEPTA Regional Rail. This will not change train service – only the way we refer to individual lines on timetables, signs for cars and stations, maps, and customer announcements."
SEPTA has issued a guide to the new, customer-friendly trolley terminology which spells it out plainly:


"What Things Should be Called: Trolley Lines (Routes 10, 11, 13,15,34,36)
What Things Should NOT be Called: Subway-Surface, Subway-Surface Trolleys, Green Line"
For customers who cling to customer-unfriendly terminology, bear in mind there are transit police.
All SEPTA trolleys will now use green as their Line color. So Girard Ave.'s Rte. 15, which crosses Lancaster Ave.'s Rte 10, is as green as ours.
So now that they have uniformly given all trolleys the color green,
they are getting rid of the name 'green line' :-)
This is all a part of changes that will take place on July 25. According to the website called Plan Philly, these include the renaming of the Regional Rail lines. Some of the other changes include:
The regional rail numbering change is only one part of a larger SEPTA effort to make the system more rider-friendly. The authority is also consulting with local elected officials about renaming several stations on the suburban trolley lines to tie the station names into local streets or geographic markers. The final decision on those name changes should be made in the next month.
And while SEPTA updated automated announcements on the Market-Frankford El several months ago, the authority is in the process of recording new messages on the Broad Street Line that will take into account changes in area attractions.
Mintz also said the infamous “doors closing” announcement will be re-recorded. The announcement was digitally shortened by SEPTA after it was recorded, leading to the strange intonation
Well, hope that was informitive. Next a report on 3rd Friday in Millville. Its late and tomorrow I have got to be alert and help out. I will cook some veggie in the crock pot. Stay cool everyone.
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2 comments:

Stuart said...

This is fascinating. I never understood the number scheme.

So I guess the Paoli Local (R5) isn't called that anymore?

Strannik said...

While I agree that calling trolleys by numbers makes more sense, I never understood why so many people have a problem with the regional rail naming system. So long as you pay attention to the route name, it makes perfect sense (at least to me)