4.4M The number of additional trips taken on SEPTA for the fiscal year 2009, which ended June 30. That's a 1 percent increase in ridership.
329.6M Number of trips on SEPTA in FY2009.
2 Percent decrease in ridership in the final quarter of 2009, which SEPTA says shows the realities of job losses and less people paying to use public transportation to get around.
Updated 15:22, July the 27th, 2009
For now, SEPTA gets escalator edge
PHILADELPHIA. The escalator at the Spring Garden station on the Market-Frankford Line was up and running yesterday — for now at least.
In what may be the ultimate battle of transit agency vs. machine, riders have come to expect a jog up the 41 steps of the station as SEPTA fights with a much maligned piece of equipment.
"It's horrible," said Theresa Carreon, 52. An employee at the Social Security Administration, she tackles the climb a few days each week commuting to work and going back home. "It's hard on some people with bad feet and bad knees, especially when it's so stinking hot."
SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams said that "major maintenance" was performed on the escalator Saturday.
"We have had similar calls and believe that the escalator's safety switches and devices have a problem that causes it to shut down and we have to send someone over to re-start it," she said.
For 21-year-old James Turner, the jog up the steps is no problem.
"I find it faster," Turner said one recent afternoon as he breezed toward the turnstile.
But for other passengers, the escalator is the most viable option – when it's working, which isn't often, according to some passengers.
Molly Kane, a volunteer at a drug treatment facility on Spring Garden, said she dreads going to the station twice a week.
"Yeah, every Friday and Wednesday," she said after slowly walking up the escalator.
