Suburban Station

Above ground, Suburban Station has a strong profile. It is a slab-shaped, art-deco-style office building, erected in 1929. Large illuminated signs over the doorways proclaim the building's name. Below ground, where you get the trains, Suburban Station has no such definition. It has tracks that are not beneath the building, and that don't really seem to be part of the station. There are also signs pointing to Penn Center Station, which someone unfamiliar with the inconsistencies of local nomenclature might not know is the same as Suburban Station.

A $32 million, four-year plan for remodeling Suburban Station gives SEPTA a model for a new concourse that could help keep commuters dry, safe, well- informed and spending money. The plan offers a world of difference over existing conditions in the leaky, dreary concourse, which has commuters and retailers feeling damp and unhappy. The recently completed plan recommends numerous ways to improve access to the station and pedestrian traffic in the concourse. It also suggests creating one management group for the many retail spaces in the three-block, underground concourse, now the shared domain of SEPTA, the city and individual developers.

A a homeless woman was seriously injured about 8:30 this morning at Suburban Station when she was on the tracks while a train was approaching, SEPTA said. Sylvana Hoyos, a SEPTA spokewoman, said it was not clear if the woman had been actually hit by the train on Track 4, as initial reports indicated. The woman, said to be about 44 years old, was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital suffering a broken hip, broken leg and a 6-inch laceration on her head, police said. Police initially said the woman was hit by a train when she looked to see if it was approaching on the platform.

Eighteen people were injured yesterday in a chain-reaction collision of three SEPTA commuter trains on snow-slick tracks at Suburban Station. Most of the injuries were minor, but police said one passenger suffered a broken nose and another a broken arm. And the engineer of one train was taken away on a stretcher with neck injuries. The accident happened at 9:45 a.m., when an outbound Chestnut Hill West train pulling into Suburban Station struck a waiting Media-bound train, which then rammed a waiting airport express train.

A sniper opened fire at a crowded SEPTA commuter train in Center City early yesterday, slightly injuring one passenger, but most of those on board were unaware of the shooting. The sniper attack occurred at 7:38 a.m., as the R-2 train from Marcus Hook passed 20th and JFK Boulevard en route to Suburban Station, police said. Four bullets struck the four-car train, and a fifth pierced the side of one car, passed through the passenger compartment and lodged in the wall panel on the opposite side.

SEPTA opened a new "accessible travel center" in Suburban Station on Thursday to make it easier for commuters with handicaps to learn to use buses, subways, and trains. The center has a full-size replica of the front third of a SEPTA bus and mock subway and rail platforms, as well as training videos and piped-in street and train sounds. "It was really real. It was like sitting on a real bus," said Roderick Powell of Chester, a blind man who chairs SEPTA's advisory committee for accessible transportation.

With the first stage of SEPTA's Railworks project completed, commuters once re-routed by construction along three rail lines are now back on track. But the Suburban Station concourse merchants, who once brewed their coffee, sold them lunch and shined their shoes, say their businesses may have been permanently derailed by the huge project. Business has been so bad since April, when Railworks began, that several merchants have not paid rent to SEPTA for six months. Several have laid off one, two or three employees.

A SEPTA airport train struck the rear of a loaded Chestnut Hill West commuter train at the height of the evening rush hour yesterday at Suburban Station, injuring 42 people and setting off vibrations in the steel tracks and electrical wires that could be heard blocks away. Most of those hurt apparently suffered relatively minor injuries - bruises, cuts or scrapes - according to hospital and police officials. Only one person was admitted to a hospital, police said. Many of the injured were on the Chestnut Hill train, which was preparing to leave the station.

Suburban Station's maze of dingy, confusing corridors soon could be changed into an underground mall, lit through atriums and containing coffee bars, a food court, and a variety of shops in a coordinated design. The plan would at least triple the rail terminal's retail space - to as much as 200,000 square feet, about half the size of the Gallery (not including the Gallery's anchor department stores). The Suburban Station of the future also would be rider-friendly, with sweeping views to train platforms below, new signs, and an attractive and easy-to-use ticket counter.

More stores, brighter lighting, modern bathrooms, and an end to summertime swelter are in store for thousands of commuters who use Suburban Station every day under a $42 million renovation plan announced yesterday by SEPTA general manager John K. Leary Jr. SEPTA, in partnership with U.S. Equities, the Chicago real estate firm that oversaw retail renovations at 30th Street Station, is scheduled to complete the project in four years. The goal is to turn the dated, dingy underground commuter terminal - the region's busiest rail hub - into "a bright, modern retail gateway for Center City Philadelphia," Leary said.

AS JAMES THROWER leaned against a wall outside SEPTA headquarters on Market Street, the paratransit worker's smirk said it all. "We immediately started hatin', " the 34-year-old joked with three of his co-workers. "I play the lottery every day. I'm in the casino every week. I just wish it was me. " A SEPTA co-worker breezed by the group. "Y'all winners?" she asked excitedly. Thrower and his buddies answered in a chorus: "We wish!" The wish, of course, was to be one of the 48 SEPTA workers who bagged the $172.7 million Powerball jackpot in Wednesday night's drawing.

SEPTA opened a new "accessible travel center" in Suburban Station on Thursday to make it easier for commuters with handicaps to learn to use buses, subways, and trains. The center has a full-size replica of the front third of a SEPTA bus and mock subway and rail platforms, as well as training videos and piped-in street and train sounds. "It was really real. It was like sitting on a real bus," said Roderick Powell of Chester, a blind man who chairs SEPTA's advisory committee for accessible transportation.

As outbound trains whisked commuters home at the end of a workday last week, dozens of others around the waiting area and hallways of Suburban Station had no plans to leave. An elderly Ukrainian man who spoke only broken English fished through a trash can, found a half-filled McDonald's cup, and took a sip. Another man who said he was from Cuba shuffled from one end of the station to the other, clutching a dirty blanket. A young man shouting with slurred speech sat at the top of the steps leading to a platform.

Bernard Goldentyer, 81, of Philadelphia, project manager of the Center City Commuter Tunnel for the city Department of Public Property, died Tuesday, Jan. 3, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital of complications from heart failure. The 1.7-mile-long commuter tunnel was completed in the spring of 1984 at a cost of more than $300 million - more than $653 million in 2011 dollars - linking SEPTA lines that had ended at the Reading Terminal and at Suburban Station. In a 1977 interview before construction began, Inquirer reporter Richard Ben Cramer described Mr. Goldentyer as "a short, thick energetic man with sand-and-gravel hair and stubby fingers that he licks to make better speed through books of plans.

THE SMELL of burning rubber was overwhelming in the ancient Silverliner II railcars as SEPTA's crowded Paoli/Thorndale local left Suburban Station during a recent evening rush hour. The ventilation system wasn't ventilating. The seats, which had been beaten into pancakes since their 1960s debut, slanted visibly toward the floor, encouraging riders' butts to surrender to the laws of gravity and slide off. By the time the Regional Rail train reached Overbrook, several riders had asked the conductor about the smell.

WHEN SEPTA's new Silverliner V made its maiden voyage last October, taking reporters and a few startled Regional Rail riders on the five-stop run between Suburban Station and Cynwyd, it had that new railcar smell emanating from plush, blue vinyl seats, that magic-carpet ride and that seductive bedroom voice announcing SEPTA stations as if they were topless joints. The "Little Silverliner that Could" - three railcars from Hyundai Rotem's South Korea factory - held the promise that, as soon as SEPTA put 117 more into service, Regional Rail riders could blow a goodbye kiss to the butt-busting battalion of Silverliner IIs and IIIs, built during the '60s, when Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney were young.

FRANK McNamara knows exactly where to stand on the Suburban Station platform so he can walk right onto the QuietRide car on SEPTA's Fox Chase line. The quiet car, the first on the regional rail trains during peak hours, is supposed to offer a little getaway - no loud rings, never-ending conversations or headphones blasting. McNamara also knows there are times when people break the QuietRide rules, knowingly or not. It's uncomfortable to remind people, so when he does it, he tries to be extra polite.

A a homeless woman was seriously injured about 8:30 this morning at Suburban Station when she was on the tracks while a train was approaching, SEPTA said. Sylvana Hoyos, a SEPTA spokewoman, said it was not clear if the woman had been actually hit by the train on Track 4, as initial reports indicated. The woman, said to be about 44 years old, was taken to Hahnemann University Hospital suffering a broken hip, broken leg and a 6-inch laceration on her head, police said. Police initially said the woman was hit by a train when she looked to see if it was approaching on the platform.

SEPTA on Thursday took a $9 million step toward its long-awaited, long-delayed electronic fare system, although questions remain about how rail passengers will use the system. A SEPTA board committee okayed a $9 million contract with LTK Engineering Services, of Ambler, to manage the installation of the new fare system. The full SEPTA board will vote on the contract next Thursday. SEPTA officials plan to award a contract in September for the new fare system, which will allow passengers to pay their fares with credit cards, debit cards, cell phones, or electronic SEPTA cards.

SEPTA not long ago jacked up prices for all services, including Regional Rail. As someone who takes the R8 (excuuuuuuse me, the Fox Chase line), the cost for this line should've been lowered. For the last month, SEPTA has cut the number of cars on the line. Between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m., there are enough people on the trains to fill five cars. Yet SEPTA decided in its very finite wisdom to have four and sometimes even three cars on these trains. One morning, they even had two cars. People are packed like sardines on these trains.