Giza aka Douglas Muth's LiveJournal

Yes, I know. I used to be such a big fanboy of PhillyCarShare. But, things changed over the last few months in a very negative way. Rates went up. And now with the sudden and unannounced closing of the Ardmore pod, there are no longer any pods within walking distance of my home.

Rather than reproduce the entire post here, I'll just point folks to where it lives on the Save Ardmore Coalition website:

http://www.saveardmorecoalition.org/node/2756

It's also been pointed out to me that local real estate developers in Ardmore were selling the town as being "walkable", and how car ownership was not required. Apparently the PhillyCarShare pod was cited as an example of such. Said developers might not be too happy at hearing of PCS's quiet departure. Whoops.

SEPTA decided to close Market East Station at 7 PM tonight for "police activity". This stranded myself and several thousand commuters both in the city, and in trains on their way to the city. Market East was completely evacuated. At the time I spoke to a SEPTA employee at Suburban Station around 8 PM, he stated that they were waiting on the "all clear" from the police before they could re-open the station.

Despite what the employee told me in the customer service office, he was almost immediately contradicted by a female employee there who stated that it was a "bomb scare" to another passenger.



These were not real times for the trains, but rather estimates on when SEPTA thought they would reopen the station.



A crowd of commuters gather at the closed station. SEPTA really dropped the ball here. They had NO signage or personal on hand. There were a few police officers inside of the station that were completely unhelpful in answering queries from stranded passengers. No announcements were made over the PA at Market East nor Suburban Station. Basically, we were left in the dark as to why the station was closed.



A crowd gathers inside of the customer service office.

I eventually got home with the help of a subway, light rail, and a 1.5 mile walk across town.

Just to underscore my comments above, I'm no security expert--there may have been a very good reason for closing down Market East. SEPTA themselves may have not even had a say in the matter, they might have just been told to close the station by police. What SEPTA could control is how they reacted to this crisis. They could have made announcements. They could have made signs. They could have put notices on the train status boards. And they could have drawn up some emergency action plan in advance, that provided alternate subway/rail/bus paths for passengers to take to their destination.

Did I mention I'm paying $116/month for this? You're doing a heck of a job, SEPTA.

Those who are new here might have missed my previous entry about the guy who flashed a TV reporter. Well, should anyone have concerns that it might have been a photoshop job, here is the video of that incident:



Relax, the naughty bits are blanked out. It's just a short clip of the actual scene. Still somewhat odd, though.

On my way into work this morning, I noticed that both the streets and the R5 were practically empty. I didn't think much of it until I went down to street level for lunch. As soon as I arrived in the lobby, I saw a horde of... what I can only describe as living, bleeding, and mangled corpses banging on the glass and shoving themselves against the doors. I ran back up 6 flights of stairs and let my co-workers know ASAP! I got some help and we were able to shut down the elevators and block off the stairs with office furniture.

We don't have much in the way of food here, other than a few vending machines. There is a deli across the street, but that might as well be a million miles away right now. Electricity isn't a problem, as we have a backup generator on the roof and about 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on site. We're kinda screwed as far as weapons go, however. As I write this, some of the other guys are scouring the utility closets and taking note of anything that can be improvised into a stabbing or bludgeoning weapon.

Last time I checked the view from the roof, there were a number of burglar alarms going off and some smoke rising from the direction of City Hall. There is NO police or military presence at this time. I also happened to have my HT with me and have been talking to other hams over what repeaters I can reach. The reports are all the same as here in the city.

For now, I'm going to stay put and hope that this is just a local outbreak that can be contained. As far as I can tell, Internet traffic has not been significantly affected. I'll keep updating as long as we have connectivity here and try to post some pictures later.

Someone asked over on pa_furry if there was a community for furries in SE Pennsylvania. There was not, so I went and fixed that. :-)



This community is for furries living in southeast Pennsylvania. That would include the following counties: Bucks County, Chester County, Delaware County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Have fun!

Earlier tonight, around 8 PM I was on my way to the train station in Center City Philadelphia. Imagine my surprise when after one fire engine races by me, so did another, and another after that, and then stopped at the end of the street. It turned out that there was quite a bit of fire department activity at the 1600 Lofts on Chestnut Street.

The units stayed there for about half an hour, and then some of them began departing. I left at that point and went to catch my train. I did not see any evidence of injuries or fatalities.

omnibahumut reports from his blog that the 1600 lofts is occupied by AIPH students and received reports that the "second floor was filled with smoke". It is unclear at this time whether any AIPH students were involved. (He also ventured closer than I did has pictures taken of the actual building)












( 7 more pictures behind the cut )

If there's one good thing about Philadelphia cabbies, when you need to get somewhere fast, they'll do their best to get you there as quickly as possible! In this case, the fare apparently was hungry and wanted to get to Old Nelson's Deli at 7th and Chestnut in Center City.

Unfortunately for him, a local street gang consisting of a street lamp, bike rack, two bicycles, and 3 newspaper machines had other ideas:





Man, those Philly cabbies don't screw around.




I guess if there's a moral to this story, it is this: when a Philadelphia cab driver asks you to pass the salt, pass the salt!

(Or something.)