Septa is renaming the 69th Street Terminal! Now it will be a Transportation Center! What is that?? Another piece of local history lost. My friend, Jeff Marinoff says it best. His comments are below. SEPTA is going to change the name of the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby to the 69th Street Transportation Center. This after the recent 100th Anniversary of the 69th Street Terminal was celebrated by SEPTA. Back in 1980, SEPTA tried its very best to call the Kawasaki cars Light Rail Vehicles and the lines Light Rail Lines. Everybody called them trolleys and trolley lines. SEPTA finally gave up and reverted to officially calling them trolleys and trolley lines again. But this "Center" thing is really annoying. The word is so overworked. We have centers for everything. We have convention centers, sports centers, arts centers, performing centers, transportation centers and many other kinds of centers. In New York City, they have Lincoln Center and in Philadelphia there is the Kimmel Center. To me it's so unimaginative, tiresome and nauseating. So leave it to SEPTA to come up with the 69th Street Transportation Center. I wonder how much they paid a consultant to dream it up for them? And what will all the signage changes cost cost the taxpayers? And then they will certainly have to have a costly advertising campaign to announce the change. And all of the voice announcements on the buses, trolleys and subway cars will have to be changed, as well as maps, etc. SEPTA already has the Frankford Transportation Center, the Olney Transportation Center and several others. Somebody sat up nights dreaming the name up. When will Suburban Station become Suburban Transportation Center? How about 30th Street Transportation Center? How about Market East Transportation Center? It will go great with the Norristown Transportation Center. Is all of this as sickening to others as it is to me? So even if we discount the historic nature of the name 69th Street Terminal, this "center" thing is just obnoxious. SEPTA already has the Wissahickon Transportation Center, the King of Prussia Transportation Center, the Granite Run Transportation Center, the Chester Transportation Center, the Oxford Valley Transportation Center and the Willow Grove Transportation Center, among others. Just think, we could have Grand Central Transportation Center, Penn Transportation Center in New York City and Newark Transportation Center in Newark. Washington could have the Union Transportation Center......... Geez, I could charge a fortune in consulting fees for all of this wonderful advice !! No problem, the sucker taxpayers would pay for it !! | 