Tracy Davidson

I don’t know if this is the proper place to say this, but if not, I guess you’ll get to read it anyway and maybe help the thousands of others that are just as irate as I am with SEPTA. The first problem is this: I’m a daily Blue Line rider (the EL) and I heard not too long ago, and was thrilled to hear, that for, I can’t remember the exact dates, but for certain consecutive days, it would be $1 to ride, or $1.75 to ride the EL or subway with a transfer to a bus – now I just looked at their site and they say they’ve extended this to include the following: 2/21, 2/22, 2/27 and 2/28, that the fare would only be $1 to ride either the EL or the Subway, or $1.75 for a transfer to a bus or trolley line. Being so used to always paying with $2.75 to the ticket person behind the ticket window,and also a long day, I slid my $2.75, got my transfer and got on the train to get back to 69th St. to catch the Route 111 bus. After getting on the train, I heard several women talking about how they feel they just got ripped off because they slid their $2 to the ticket person, when it was only supposed to be $1 to ride and that the ticket person accepted the $2 and didn’t say a word, like, “Here, miss, but it’s only $1 to ride today so here’s $1 back, etc.” After hearing these women talking, I became irate because I do not like to feel taken advantage of in any way, and that’s exactly how I felt – taken advantage of. Like, did the ticket taker at the window just take that extra dollar and slip it into his pocket? If so, and he did that to say 80 riders that day, then he easily made $80. There were no signs posted ANYWHERE (this was at the 8th St. terminal, a very busy one), that it was only $1 to ride that day, which would’ve been helpful. I am IRATE over this because #1, I am on a very tight budget, and #2, it is just plain wrong and it just adds to my anger with SEPTA as a company in general. My second issue I wanted to bring up is the following: I live in Drexel Hill and have to be in the city every morning at around 10AM, so I always catch the bus that comes to State Rd. and Mason Ave. at 9:23AM – there are usually the same two or three of us waiting every day for the bus. It has gotten a little bit better lately because I believe they’ve possibly gotten a new driver, but for a good year, that 9:23AM bus would either not show up at all or show up closer to 9:55AM, with a different driver than that same driver who always drove the 9:23 bus (meaning that basically, that route never ran and this was just the next bus doing his and he was on time. I always give it until 9:30AM to get there thinking traffic jam, anything, etc., but then I start calling the hotline to find out what is going on. Generally what happens is the following: I get a customer service rep on the phone who tries to be helpful and I do not become angry with them – it is not their fault. That person will say, “Let me look into where that bus is on the GPS system” to which I’ve also asked, “Is every bus hooked onto the GPS system?” and the reply I get is the it is the bus driver’s responsibility to hook it up when they start their route, but yes, that they are most definitely supposed to be logged onto the GPS system so they can be tracked in situations like this or others. So, back to what I was saying, I get put on hold for sometimes up to 15 minutes, the CSR comes back and says something either like, “The driver isn’t logged onto the GPS system so we don’t know where the bus is” or even better, “Well, miss, since the driver didn’t log onto the system, there is another bus coming around 9:55AM and you will just have to take that one.” At this point, I ask to log a comlaint in, because I have an understanding boss, but I cannot be late once a week b/c SEPTA decides to do things they’re not supposed to do – they’ve offered to write letters to my boss, NO, I want to be reimbursed for my time out there standing, for my lost minutes on my phone holding forever, and for the hours I’m missing from work. But since I know that won’t happen, I want something done. I’ve logged so many complaints that they have my name, address and all of my complaint numbers in their system (at last call, I believe it was my 47th complaint that year, not to mention the days I just couldn’t be bothered calling because I knew I’d get the same old song and dance.) Anyway, after I log these complaints, sometimes, maybe one time out of five, I will get a call from a supervisor calling to apologize for the inconvenience. I always ask the supervisor, “Well, don’t you think that it’s fair that I would get reimbursed somehow, like maybe a packet of tokens sent via mail when this happens, because it happens SO frequently, or how about a weekly transpass sent to me, again, because it happens SO frequently. The retort is always that, “Miss, that is just not feasible.” I believe it it feasible and if nothing else, something needs to be done. It is not fair to make people stand out there for 45 minutes waiting for a bus and then have no explaination as to where that bus is when I call and ask – if the driver had done what they were supposed to do, maybe I’d be more understanding – maybe there is a traffic jam, maybe the bus broke down, maybe an accident, who knows? But, I always get the same reply and it is really affecting my position at work. A letter from SEPTA will do no good, my boss believes me that I am late all the time because this Route 111 bus just doesn’t seem to care about it’s riders (not just the Route 111, SEPTA in general). It is terrible customer service not to rectify an ongoing issue, especially when I have documentation of all of my complaints and the CSR can see that when I call in, that this just isn’t a once in a while occasion, this is happening consistently on a regular basis. Tracy, is there anything, a news story, anything that can be done about this? I know that I am not the only one experiencing this problem, and I think we dedicated riders should be reimbursed reasonably. SEPTA constantly advertises how great of a system it is, that they’re a “green” system, they’re great for the environment, it cuts down on exhaust fumes from too many cars on the street, makes parking a non-issue. Yes, it does, but when the system just isn’t working right and noboby is doing anything about it, what is the next thing that can be done? I think this is a a VERY important issue. And again, I’d like to say that this new driver “Tyrone” who has been on for about a month now, has been on time and is friendly and great. But what about all of those times I sat there along with two others, fuming that this bus is not there, once again I am late to work, once again, I am burning up minutes on my phone being placed on hold only to have the CSR always come back and say the same darn thing. Please help!!