Transit

What is SEPTA doing wrong? Anyway I guess I can use NJ Riverline to get to Trenton and PATCO...But with the strike how will I get into the SEPTA Stations to get to those lines?

PolishPower2:

What is SEPTA doing wrong? Anyway I guess I can use NJ Riverline to get to Trenton and PATCO...But with the strike how will I get into the SEPTA Stations to get to those lines?

We had a strike in Austin a year or so ago.  I only lasted a few days.  Not many people were affected because public transit is not a major factor in the transportation picture in Austin, although hopefully it will change.

Public Transit is a huge deal in Phila. Center City has not been constructed to have a parking space for every person working or shopping there - by design. The economy depends on transit. The good news is that SEPTA has been content to keep the status quo w.r.t. the historical pre-SEPTA operations, so they have separate labor deals for each historic division. Whether this is by design or ineptness, I have not clue. I remember the SEPTA strike of 1980 or thereabout. It lasted about four months. The Regional Rail and PATCO were unaffected. The Regional Rail line trains were packed with people using the "close in" stations. I was using PATCO with a transfer to the Market Street Subway at 8th and Market at the time to get to work at 30th St. Station. During the strike I just hoofed it from 16th and Locust. Tough part was cold windy winter days going over Schuylkill River on Market St. This was before the days of the tunnel and the Market St East station. It's the same situation now. The City Transit (former PTC) DIvision is out. Everything else (former PRR, RDG and Red Arrow) is running. Now, if I were making the same commute, I'd hop off PATCO at 8th and Market, walk a couple blocks in the concourse, and jump on a SEPTA regional rail train to 30th St.

 Huh?  Transit strikes are routine in the Northeast including NYC.

Routine! You'd think so.  But when was the last really crippling strike?  They've actually been few and far between over the past several decades.  Midwest and West cities have had more than the Northeast.  Let me ask you, why would you say that?  .I mean give me strikes, dates, and lengths over the past 30 years in the Northeast and compare them to the South, Midwest and West and not just some political line or bias or misconception against the Northeast.  The only thing I will grant is that Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco have had larager rail mass transit longer than other cities anywhere else...L.A. is just come back into it over the past 15 years.

Doesn't anyone remember "Boss" Mike Quill, (Dirtballus Supremus), head of the New York City TWU, back in the '50s?  He would call a strike at the drop-of-a-hat!  Of course, that was before Rudy Giuliani was mayor...

In effect, that was my point...Quill, et al., goes back over 50 years.  No such labor actions have happened in such frequency in the East in the last 25 or 30 years as insinuated above.

Center City Phila is a much bigger employment center than it was even in 1980 when the last prolonged strike was. All you have to do is look a the skyline to see it. Those new office towers are all built dependent on transit - there is little or no parking as part of the development. If the Regional Rail went out, too, there is no way everyone could get to work.

My family (father, brother, and I) worked for Uris Brothers/Uris Buildings Corp. out of NYC.  We built two office towers in Philadelphia, years ago:  1 and 2 Penn Center.  Uris was an "Investment (read:  owner) Builder", the world's largest, and there was no draw to return to that city to build buildings.  Methinks politics of that city had something to do with the reluctance.  We did build, as half-owners, the Washington (DC) Hilton, but returned to our roots in NYC.  Washington (local) politics was a bear!

As far as strikes by public employees go, they should be totally outlawed.  Fire the bums!  Ronald Reagan did that with the Air Traffic Controllers, with admirable results!  If cops, firemen, transit workers, teachers, nurses, etc., don't like it, they can walk.  We can all cheer and say "Bye-bye"!   

Why stop there?  Get rid of minimum wage.  Get rid of healthcare.  Let's legalize slavery.  Why should I have to pay my employees?  Why can't I just go out and buy me a dozen good slaves?  Whip em if they don't work.

 Another case of "I got mine - screw you".     I just hope those firefighters and cops walk the day you need them. 

zugmann:

Why stop there?  Get rid of minimum wage.  Get rid of healthcare.  Let's legalize slavery.  Why should I have to pay my employees?  Why can't I just go out and buy me a dozen good slaves?  Whip em if they don't work.

sigh.

I just love the reducio ad absurdum.

Even with our month long transit strike up here in London ON---which stopped before Xmas, the bitter debate did not include stuff like the above---

Hyperbole hyperbole 

 

Well excuse me for simplifying the matter.  They don't want to pay employees.  Employees need pay.  And until a balance is met, meet the unions.

 

To me, unions are very american. Almost biblical.  David and goliath anyone?

The sad irony is that the transport agencies and the taxpaying public have less influence over transport operations than Unions. When a small minority can take the general populace hostage,against their will, the ideals of democracy are compromised.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public."
- Adam Smith

The problem is that when it is a public sector strike the people lose out in terms of access to the service---in this case transit. Consider what happens in a teachers strike--the only people really affected--in terms of access and recovery--the students. Who frequently have no say anyhow. I have a son in university--he paid his way---all $6,700 of it. If a strike occurs there then he has issues. Of course the cohort he is part of had seen strikes at every level of his education.

Don't blame him if he is a little wary of things--

Don't blame the transit user if he is a little wary of things either.

There needs to be a more effective way of dealing with management in situations like these. Because strikes do not affect those in management. For many drive cars and don't use transit.