Latest news with #SEPTA
Axios
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Axios
Philadelphia road closures for Pride and Roots Picnic
Philadelphia's Pride March and Roots Picnic are headlining a jam-packed weekend in the city. Why it matters: Parties, performances and one big Pride festival will draw tons of people downtown. That also means a potential traffic mess: The multi-day events are closing down several streets in Center City and elsewhere. 🏳️🌈 State of play: Philly's Pride weekend — among the largest LGBTQ+ celebrations in the country — kicks off today at the Rocky Steps (9am) as organizers tour city landmarks with a 600-foot rainbow flag. Saturday features the Pride Promenade and L.U.V. Awards (7pm) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Tickets: $50-$100) The weekend culminates Sunday with a march (11am) starting at Sixth and Walnut streets and a street festival (noon-7pm) in the Gayborhood. 🎤 Meanwhile, the Roots Picnic takes over Mann Center in West Philly on Saturday and Sunday with performances by Meek Mill, Maxwell, Lenny Kravitz and Glorilla. 🚧 Road closures: For the Roots Picnic, road closures are already in place around the West Fairmount Park open-air venue, including South Concourse Drive between Belmont Avenue and 52nd Street. Starting today, crews will shut down more streets, including Wynnefield Avenue between Parkside and Belmont avenues. Streets will reopen on a staggered schedule through next Thursday. Roads in the Gayborhood will close 6am-9pm Sunday for the Pride Festival and March, generally stretching between Walnut and Pine streets, and Broad and 11th streets. Other street closures include: Juniper Street from Walnut to Cypress streets. Manning Street from S. Camac to 12th streets. 🅿️ Parking restrictions will be in effect in the area on Sunday starting at 5am, so look for posted signs. Vehicles parked in those areas will have their cars relocated. 🚌 SEPTA will detour bus routes around the Pride events on Sunday from 4:30am to approximately 9pm. What else: There's plenty more going on this weekend.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Girl, 11, victim of hit-and-run speaks out: 'I can't believe somebody would just leave me on the street'
The Brief A young girl has broken bones and missing teeth from a hit-and-run. The family says police are looking for a black Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows. The incident happened Wednesday afternoon after school. PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia family is shaken after their 11-year-old was hit by a car in Juniata Park and the driver kept going. The young girl lost three teeth and suffered broken bones in her face. What we know Police say it happened Wednesday just after 4 p.m. Nylah Johnson Riley recalls crossing the street from near Dunkin to catch the number three bus waiting for her on the other side. It happened in the area of Kensington Avenue, Torresdale and Erie. She says a car she did not initially see came from around the bus and hit her. The family says police tell them they are looking for a black Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows and that a SEPTA bus camera may have captured the license plate. What they're saying "I just can't believe that," cried 11-year-old Nylah Johnson-Riley. "I can't believe somebody would just do that to me and just leave me on the street like that," she cried talking about a driver who hit her and kept going. "I couldn't believe that happened to me. Yesterday was the most scariest day of my life," she said from her home after doctors discharged her from St. Christopher's Hospital for Children Thursday evening. "My swelling is going down now and my bruises, like my arm, is still hurting," she said. Nylah's mother and grandmother are equally devastated over what happened. "She told my mom she thought she was dead. Knowing that she was experiencing that and you were just evil enough to leave her in the street," cried her mother, Jabria Johnson. "My heart dropped. My heart dropped," cried her grandmother Desiree Riley. "Just left her. How do you hit a kid and just leave her? She was so scared." Traumatic injuries Nylah lost three front teeth, has multiple broken bones on her face and nose and a bruised arm bone. Next Wednesday she will have the first of many surgeries to come. "You can't say you didn't see her when she flew. Look at my baby's face. She gotta experience this and look at herself," said her mother. "I wanted to speak today so that I could show awareness and so people could find the person that did this to me," said Nylah. The Source Information for this article was provided by the Philadelphia Police Department and the victim's family.
CBS News
5 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
We rode a SEPTA bus with its fare evasion task force in Philadelphia. Here's how it went.
Dawn Cooper says she's been driving SEPTA buses for more than 25 years now. Having spent that much time shuttling people across the city, she's seen a lot. "Just when you think that's it, you see some more," Cooper said. One thing she sees all the time: people not paying for their ride. "Every day," Cooper said. "Over half, over half of the ridership does not pay." Fare evasion has become a costly problem for SEPTA. The authority has long focused on the rails, where people frequently hop turnstiles to skip the fee. Last year, SEPTA installed full-length fare gates at the 69th Street Station to cut down on fare evasion on the Market-Frankford Line. But, SEPTA officials tell CBS News Philadelphia, while they have more riders on the rails, they see a higher rate of fare evasion on buses. And when people don't pay while getting on a bus, it puts them face to face with drivers. "I don't even feel safe approaching or having any kind of negative confrontation with anyone," Cooper said. "So I just let them ride." Dawn Cooper says she's been driving SEPTA buses for more than 25 years now. Having spent that much time shuttling people across the city, she's seen a lot. CBS News Philadelphia Now, SEPTA is sending in reinforcements. This week, the authority launched a new task force with officers dedicated to riding routes with the highest fare evasion to make sure people are paying up. On Wednesday, SEPTA invited CBS News Philadelphia to ride along with two officers on the Route 18 bus, from the Olney Transportation Center to Fox Chase and back. It's a route where officials say they've seen some of the highest fare evasion. The officers were stationed at the front of the bus. One would get off to greet people who were getting on, while the other stood close to the fare box. "The farebox is here and they'd have to get past both of us. So fare evasion drops to basically zero when we're on the bus," Officer Brendan Dougherty said. "Most people are just here to ride a bus, they pay, and they're not a problem." From what CBS Philadelphia saw, Dougherty's assessment was pretty true. Most people who rode the Route 18 with us on Wednesday morning got on the bus ready to pay their $2.50. The officers did have to give a few reminders to some passengers, and one woman who was initially stopped just needed a second to put her bags down. "It's not like 'Stop! Don't get on.' Sometimes they have to sit down and get their belongings, and we have to understand that's how the flow of it works sometimes," Officer Nicholas Epps said. Still, there were plenty of people we saw turned away at the doors. "Gotta pay your fare," Epps said to one young man, who simply turned around and walked off. Dougherty talked with another man in the doorway during one stop. "I just said, make sure you have your fare ready. And he said he didn't have it. He didn't argue, just said, all right, never mind," Dougherty said. Officers Brendan Dougherty and Nicholas Epps riding a SEPTA bus as a part of the agency's fare evasion task force program. CBS News Philadelphia The officers say they also try to be nimble, hopping from bus to bus as they work their shifts. Epps says if everything looks good on the bus they're riding, they may get off at a stop and catch another bus going a different way. Epps says they try to send a message that they could be anywhere at any time. "It's like an omnipresence where like, I might not be on this bus, but you do know we ride the bus. And when you get at the bus stop, you don't know if we're going to be on the bus or not," Epps said. "So why would you not come to the bus with your fare?" We saw it firsthand during our ride-along as we hopped buses with the officers and headed back toward Olney. In all, CBS Philadelphia saw around 10 people stop from getting on the bus without paying, far from the majority who rode the route with us. But that's still about 10 people in one hour on one route. Spread that across SEPTA's vast network of buses, trains and trolleys, leaders say the losses mount fast. "It is a large sum of money," SEPTA Police Chief Chuck Lawson said. "In the millions. In the multiple millions. Could be as high as $30 million." The crackdown comes as SEPTA faces a $213 million budget shortfall. The agency has already released plans for massive service cuts and fare hikes if more money doesn't come from the state government, a topic that's sparked controversy for the last two years in Harrisburg. While stopping fare evasion won't fully fund that budget gap, every dollar counts for the transit authority right now, and Lawson says they'll be focused on making sure people pay. "At some station you attend, you're going to see cops there," Lawson said. "We're going to be enforcing the fare pretty heavily." Lawson said the task force will use data and focus on the routes that are seeing the highest levels of fare evasion. The chief also doesn't believe the task force will impact SEPTA's ability to keep an eye on the rest of its services. He says their officer recruitment and retainment has remained good, and force levels are at their highest in around 12 years. On the bus, the officers say enforcement is only one part of what they do. It's also about changing a culture in which some people think paying is optional. "We try to put that in people's heads that if it's anytime to start paying, it's today," Epps said. "We gotta get in the custom that this is not a free service, people have to pay their fare." For drivers like Cooper, having the officers on board also brings a sense of safety to their daily rides. "It definitely would make not only me feel better, but the ridership feel better also," Cooper said. "There's a lot going on on these buses, especially where we are right now, Broad and Olney. There's a lot going on. So seeing a police presence will definitely make a difference." Lawson says there is no timetable for how long the task force will run and that SEPTA could move officers around the system to where they are most needed.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Chester family receives 'disrespectful' anonymous packages after 8-year-old son paralyzed from hit-and-run
The Brief 8-year-old Ny'Leek Ellison is paralyzed from the neck down after a hit-and-run in February. The suspected driver was later arrested and charged. Packages with traffic safety materials inside, addressed to the victim, were recently sent to his home, prompting concern. MEDIA, Pa. - A family is seeking answers after they were sent anonymous packages with traffic safety materials inside addressed to their 8-year-old son, who is paralyzed due to a hit-and-run that occurred in Chester back in February. What we know 8-year-old Ny'Leek Ellison is now paralyzed after a hit-and-run that occurred in February near 9th and Tilghman Streets in Chester. It happened after getting off of a SEPTA bus with his brother Ny'Dir, coming home from school. Police later arrested the driver, who has been charged. Last weekend, anonymous packages arrived at the family's home with pedestrian traffic safety materials inside. The packages were addressed to the 8-year-old victim. The family wants to know who sent the packages and why? What they're saying "Disrespectful. This is disrespectful," said Anita Carrington. She is upset and angry over what came inside packages she says were delivered to her home in Chester last weekend. "Why would y'all send this to my house to my son?" she said. The packages were addressed to her 8-year-old son Ny'Leek, but with no sender information. They included a book called The Little Pedestrian's Guide to Traffic Rules, a traffic safety coloring book and a stop-and-go traffic paddle. "I felt as though somebody was trying to make a mockery of my son," said Anita. She and her son's father, Micah Ellison, have serious concerns about the sender's intention as it relates to their son. "He's 8-years-old and he's paralyzed from the neck down, so he's basically defenseless. So why direct this anger toward an innocent child?" he said. They want to know why someone would send something like this to a victim? "If it was something good they would have left their name or they would have sent a card, but there wasn't none of that. It was somebody being smart or should I say somebody being ignorant or dumb," said Micah. Anita says she filed a report with Chester Police. "I took it to the higher authorities so that somebody can address this situation," she said. Meanwhile, Ny'Leek is at Shriners Children's Hospital after he was transferred from CHOP. "His spirits are up. His smile keeps my day bright even when it rains," said his father. "He can eat and he talk through the grace of God. He's on a ventilator, they say, for the rest of his life," said his mother. They say the messages in the books are good but not encouraging for their son whose life will never be the same. "It's unacceptable. It's unacceptable," said his father Micah. What you can do A GoFundMe was created to help aid in Ny'Leek's long road to recovery. What's next Caleb Campbell, the suspected driver, was later arrested and charged. He was scheduled for a court date Wednesday morning. The Source The information in this story is from the victim's parents and court documents.
Miami Herald
7 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Transit cuts would pose an ‘existential threat' to Philadelphia's Center City, business owners say
PHILADELPHIA - At Reading Terminal Market, CEO Annie Allman says, there's a common refrain among merchants during bad weather: "If SEPTA is running, the market is open." Now, Allman said, the phrase seems foreboding. What will happen if SEPTA reduces service, eliminating dozens of bus and Regional Rail lines? She is "horrified" by the possibility. "I've never used the phrase existential threat as much," said Allman, who is CEO and general manager of the nonprofit Reading Terminal Market Corp. "This would just cripple Philadelphia, and it also would crush the market." The proposed cuts, announced last month, would slash the transit agency's service by 45%, with reductions beginning this fall. Trains and buses would run less frequently, and 55 bus routes and five Regional Rail lines would be eliminated entirely. That could all be avoided if the Pennsylvania legislature manages to pass Gov. Josh Shapiro's latest proposal to increase state aid for mass transit systems. Last Monday was the first day of public budget hearings, and SEPTA users lined up to testify. The state budget deadline is June 30. Philadelphia leaders, commuters, and even the city's pro sports teams have expressed "deep concerns" about the planned cuts. Traffic projections have shown the move would result in longer commutes, with about 275,000 more people driving into Philadelphia daily. Several employers and business leaders said they worry there is not enough parking in the city to accommodate them. Inside the largely empty concourse at Suburban Station, SEPTA's potential cuts loom over the few remaining business owners, who say foot traffic and sales are a fraction of what they were pre-pandemic. And in the office buildings that tower over Center City, the possibility complicates the debate around return-to-office policies. "We don't need any more deterrence to come into the city," said Brenton Hutchinson, chair of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Philadelphia. "We want to see something resolved, and sooner the better, so that there's no disruptions." The impact of the proposed cuts would be "so far-reaching and so deep," said Chellie Cameron, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia. SEPTA connects suburban residents to their jobs in the city, and city dwellers to suburban offices, Cameron said. Consumers, patients, and students also rely on SEPTA. If cuts are implemented, "it's gonna fracture the connections that we have between the city and the suburbs," she said, "and that's really the underpinning of the success of our economy." "When we start to talk about bigger issues like upward economic mobility, and how we continue to create good-paying jobs for people," she added, "how are we gonna do that if [the system] we actually rely upon to connect our region together is fractured?" Philly workers would be 'tremendously affected' Scores of Philadelphia workers would have their daily lives upended by SEPTA cuts. "You will be adding hours to people's commutes every week," Cameron said, "and that doesn't just impact their ability to get into work. It impacts their ability to access childcare, to pick their kids up from school." Businesses are afraid of losing employees because of these ancillary impacts, she said. Employees of Philadelphia libraries, water and sanitation departments, and other municipal services will be "tremendously affected," by the proposed cuts, said Greg Boulware, president of their union, AFSCME District Council 33. "This will impact their ability to get to and from work and provide the services that the city of Philadelphia needs for all its residents," said Boulware, who represents around 10,000 workers. DC33 members are feeling "a huge amount of frustration," he said. Some are talking about using Uber or Lyft to get to work, but Boulware calls that an added expense "for workers that don't make enough money as it is." At Comcast, leaders are "discussing the challenges the planned cuts could bring," spokesperson John Demming said. And at Philadelphia International Airport, "Reliable mass transit makes working at the airport a viable option for many individuals," airport officials said in a statement shared by a PHL spokesperson. A setback to return-to-office policies Five years after COVID-19 shutdowns forced many professionals to work from home, some Philadelphia employers are still pushing to get their employees back in the office more often. SEPTA's woes are another hurdle for those ambitions. Although some workers have argued in favor of continued remote or hybrid work for myriad reasons, dramatic reductions in SEPTA service are seen by employers as the most reasonable argument against return-to-office efforts. Brandywine Realty Trust, one of the region's predominant office owners, reports that 50% to 60% of its tenants' workers use mass transit, even as public transportation usage never fully recovered from the pandemic. "If mass transit schedules are impacted, the issue is: Can they bring people back into work?" said Jerry Sweeney, CEO of Brandywine. In the event of cuts, Sweeney said, some of Brandywine's tenants are considering reserving additional parking, or modifying work hours so employees could commute at off-peak times. "The world of business today is already complicated with the macroeconomic climate," Sweeney said. "This is something that no business needs." Philadelphia's office market took a blow during the pandemic, and it has not recovered. The number of workers in offices in the core West Market Street district at the end of 2024 was only 63% of what it was in 2019. (That's 11% higher than 2023.) A report from real estate brokerage Colliers showed that in the first quarter of 2025, office vacancy ticked up in both Philadelphia and the suburbs, although it remains higher outside the city. Some office market analysts speculate that the proposed SEPTA cuts could make suburban office buildings more appealing, because it would be easier for workers who live in the suburbs to drive to locations outside Center City, where parking is more plentiful. Impact on Reading Terminal Market Some businesses with deep roots in Philadelphia will be left to deal with the fallout of SEPTA cuts if they occur. Reading Terminal Market sits atop SEPTA's Jefferson Station, where Regional Rail passengers catch trains, walking distance from several bus stops and subway stations. Monday through Thursday, Reading Terminal serves about 16,000 customers on average, said Allman, the CEO. That's up from 14,500 at this time last year, before the city implemented its return-to-office mandate. And "the bulk" of the market's 600 employees rely on public transit, she said. Allman does not know yet how the market would respond to SEPTA cuts. It may have to adjust operating hours. "Between all the good news of rising egg prices, and tariffs, and lack of international visitors this summer, I haven't really gotten to forecasting," she said with a laugh. For now, however, Reading Terminal is thriving, with nearly full occupancy, Allman said. Across the street at the Fashion District, occupancy is lower, but dozens of businesses are humming along, fueled by steady foot traffic. Suburban Station business owners worry A few blocks away at Suburban Station, the scene is different, with more at stake for business owners if transit is cut. The sprawling underground concourse, a bustling corridor on weekdays pre-pandemic, now has more closed storefronts than operating businesses. On a recent Thursday morning, foot traffic was light, and conversations with about half a dozen business owners and managers painted a grim picture of their potential future. More than 6,200 square feet of retail space is for lease, while several other large storefronts simply sit vacant, apparently not on the market. Business owners said sales are 20% to 50% of what they were before the pandemic. The concourse is so bleak, one business owner said, that commuters are increasingly exiting at the first opportunity, instead of walking farther underground and passing the stores as they once did. Some owners expressed concern that SEPTA cuts could worsen their situations, both by decimating the already-thin foot traffic and by making it harder for their employees to get to work. It would be just the latest blow. "We survived, kind of," said Michael Choi, manager of Penn Center Beauty Supply, referring to the pandemic. But business now is "slow, very slow." "It hasn't been good ever since COVID," said Kris Kim, owner of DBA Happy Jewelry. Pre-pandemic, the store would see more than 50 customers a day. Now, Kim said, they're lucky if a dozen people come in. When it comes to the future, "we're worried." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
