While most big city transit systems have moved on to electronic passes or paper tickets, Philadelphia's riders are left to deal with tokens and transfer slips until SEPTA's plans for a system upgrade come to fruition.
After eight years of planning to create a SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) Key system, Philly residents are still waiting to ditch their tokens for the promised future of smart cards and smart phones. The Philadelphia Inquirer scolds the transit system for the long delayed roll-out of what some see as a basic component of a modern transit system.
Getting the new fare system right is the top priority, SEPTA officials say, hence their striving to work out all the bugs before it debuts. That's an appropriate aspiration given the potential for chaos if mass transit doesn't function. After two years of delays and $11 million in cost overruns, they had better get it right.
Delays in the $220 million SEPTA Key project have been blamed on any number of factors, including a lack of funding directed toward SEPTA and the complexity of linking up the various transit systems.
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