PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starting Monday, SEPTA delays are imminent. The transit agency is instituting mandatory safety training for all of its employees in response to the recent string of crashes in Philadelphia and the suburbs.
For the next two months, each employee will be pulled away from their regular duties for a full day to take part in safety reinforcement training, SEPTA announced Thursday.
“The safety for our customers and employees is always our top priority, and we are redoubling our efforts to be even more intentional about safety in everything that we do, at all levels of the Authority,” SEPTA CEO Leslie Richards said in a statement.
Bus drivers and trolley operators will be the first to participate. Over the next two weeks, about 10% of bus and trolley drivers will undergo the training. Once all the drivers have gone through the training, all other SEPTA employees will follow.
“[It] will probably be rough for a few weeks in terms of service, in terms of delays people may experience on buses and trolleys,” spokesperson Andrew Busch said. “But we think for long-term, it’s very beneficial.”
Michael Pugh, a bus rider from North Philadelphia, thinks this is a step in the right direction.
“SEPTA needs to get their act together,” he said. “Train the drivers where there will be no accidents. I mean, accidents do happen, but if you train you should know what to look out for.”
There have been eight crashes involving SEPTA buses or trolleys in the last month. The circumstances for each incident have been different. A few of the crashes involved a SEPTA vehicle hitting another, like the first crash on July 21, when one bus backed into another one and a 72-year-old passenger was killed.
Dozens of people have been injured as well across all of the incidents.
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In some of the crashes, SEPTA was not at fault, like in Havertown earlier this week. A wrong-way driver had a medical emergency and started a five-vehicle crash. His SUV became wedged between a bus and a tractor-trailer.
In addition to the mandatory training, Busch said SEPTA will be cooperating with the Federal Transit Administration inspection of policies and procedures in the coming weeks.
He said plans were already underway to cooperate with the FTA after incidents last year. Busch expects the inspection process to take multiple months.