Every four or five years, there is a regular ritual in Philadelphia during which the local public transit agency (SEPTA) goes on strike. Half a million people have to find some other way to get to and from work. Every time this happens, they lose a little more ridership. And now the period between strikes seems to be shrinking. Eventually they’re going to kill themselves this way.

Frankly, I can’t wait for them to go under. I rely on SEPTA to get to work every day and they’ve made it clear (over the last 20 years of my actively using them) that they will never, ever improve themselves. The best they can do is complain that they don’t make enough money, that the transit workers want benefits that SEPTA can’t afford, that the state has to bail them out because Philadelphia will be paralyzed without them. I’m more than a little sick at being held hostage by my public transit company.

The way I see it they have to go completely belly-up and be rescued from outside before anything will ever improve. It seems terribly obvious to me that the entire infrastructure is either corrupt or incompetent.