A SEPTA subway train with hundreds of runners on it broke down before the Broad Street Run Sunday, which ended up delaying the start. Classic SEPTA move. To make it worse they forced a ton of riders to run to the starting line so some people ended up tallying more than the 10 miles they signed up for:
I was on this train! Lucky me. We voluntarily got off at Hunting park and jogged the 1.25 ish miles to the start because we had no other choice. The lights went out twice in our train car. No announcement or anything from septa. What an absolute garbage system. pic.twitter.com/vmJcxLPvlo
— Sarah B (@sarahstyliste) May 4, 2025
You had one job SEPTA (tt/neilbrown31) pic.twitter.com/jyU58zllaJ
— Crossing Broad (@CrossingBroad) May 4, 2025
Now people of course are just going to chalk this up to SEPTA being SEPTA, but I feel like there might be more to the story. Gimme a minute while I put my tinfoil hat on.
Think about it. For those that don’t know, SEPTA is staring down the barrel of a $200 million deficit starting in July. They need all the funds they can get or they’re going to start cutting lines and trains and stopping service at 9 p.m., which would significantly affect those at late-night sporting events. The release of that report was the last time they made major news, which was almost a month ago. They’ve gotta stay in the headlines. They’ve gotta get creative with raising awareness and if you wanted to raise awareness for the nightmare funding crisis you’re facing why wouldn’t you have a “garden variety” mechanical failure? Now I have no idea what “garden variety” mechanical failure means because this author’s collar is white as the driven snow, but I looked it up and the definition is, “of the usual or ordinary type; commonplace.” I’ll be honest, when I first heard “garden variety” it sounded much more serious than some normal failure. I’m sitting here thinking seven different things broke at once when it sounds like they just had to unplug it, blow on it, and plug it back in. A major city’s transit shouldn’t just come to a halt with no back ups because of a common mechanical failure, but maybe I’m giving SEPTA too much credit… OR SOMETHING STINKS!…