WHYY
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Outreach worker Kenneth Harris engages with a client outside Somerset Station. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
If you take SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line to Somerset Station and exit onto Kensington Avenue, you might run into someone like Kenneth Harris.
He’s an outreach specialist for Merakey, a social services agency that recently partnered with the authority to help people struggling with homelessness and addiction who take refuge in the transit system.
“I hate that somebody is stuck in that rut,” said Harris. “Active addiction is a horrible situation and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
New structures at the Somerset station aim to keep people from loitering at the exits and give riders a clear path. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
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WHYY
By
Bill McKinneyMay 2, 2021
Kensington residents protested the closure of SEPTA’s Somerset Station by marching down Kensington Avenue on March 23, 2021. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
I began writing about the Kensington neighborhood where I live and work a few weeks ago in response to the sudden closing of the SEPTA station at Somerset. The abrupt service disruption brought to the surface many issues my community has dealt with for years and in the weeks since, I have watched the news tick on.
This week yielded an announcement of grant funds designed to help the community build “resilience” and improve quality of life amid a crushing opioid epidemic. Before that: news of a remade Opioid Response Unit out of City Hall, an update to a 2019 city “roadmap to safer communities” and from the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: All Hands On Deck a new strategy for Philadelphia to reduce violence with a goal of putting the most violent criminals beh
16 hours ago
After SEPTA drivers and other employees spoke out about threats to their safety experienced on the job at stations and while operating vehicles, the authority contracted security guards from AlliedBarton for deployment along the Market-Frankford Line to assist SEPTA police with patrolling the line. The 90-day contract is worth up to $1.5 million.
The new budget proposal also allotts funds for up to 200 new cleaners assigned to stations and vehicles. Cleanliness has also become an issue of contention for riders and workers during the pandemic, and became an urgent issue recently when needles and urine contributed to the destruction of elevators at the Somerset Station, leading to a sudden, temporary closure.
WHYY
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Outside Allegheny Station in the Kensington section of Philadelphia. (Natalie Piserchio for NPR)
SEPTA will close Allegheny Station for overnight repairs for three nights starting Friday, April 23. The closures, lasting from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., are for deep cleaning and maintenance work.
“We know that it is an inconvenience and we will impact some people and some people’s work schedules as well,” said SEPTA general manager Leslie Richards. She said the choice to do it over the weekend was to “impact the least number of people during the work schedule.”
Also, on April 23 at 8 p.m. SEPTA will shut down the elevators at the station for repairs. No date has been set on when they’ll reopen yet.
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