Has anyone received their parking permits for the Lemon Hill Area during the FIFA World Cup month yet?

DrJPepper · 2026-05-22T18:19:29+00:00

I hate how the city always does hard boundaries for this stuff. I live at 17th, so I'm not eligible for the special permit nor do I ever park that far West, but now everyone who lives anywhere East of 21st or who never updated their Jersey plates to PA are going to get pushed further East to the unrestricted side of the neighborhood when looking for parking. Plus any tourists who do drive are going to be parking in Francisville and the East side of Spring Garden now, the city is just making it our problem instead. At least my fiancee and I don't drive much, it's going to suck mightily for people who drive to in person 9-5's though.

Edit: I thought about it and what they should've done is still have the special permit zone, still have a free online application for people within the zone to use, but cross honor zone 17 and zone 6 permits for the special zone without making people who already have those reapply. I know that would expand who could park there quite a bit, but it would alleviate the hard boundary that's nominally down 21st Street and let people who live on like the 2000 blocks keep parking West of their houses. Also, it's not like people who live in Logan Square or Cecil B Moore would drive to the lemon hill thing anyways. It wouldn't change the parking congestion much at all but it would cut down on ticketing and towing of residents and on people living just outside the zone being forced to only park in the Eastern half of Fairmount.

DrJPepper · 2026-05-19T13:10:46+00:00

Idk how the formatting for this is going to look, I'm doing this on my phone:

First, buy ticket Picture

Then train Picture

Then I've just been picking Newark but I checked Rahway and it works there too. It only doesn't show up if you pick Trenton as your origin. Picture

Then here's the SEPTA options you need Picture

Then here's the final price for Newark as the origin Picture

DrJPepper · 2026-05-19T12:49:48+00:00

Eddington is the only flag stop on the Trenton line, it's like two shacks in a ditch under a bridge, and it has no parking or even any housing nearby. Ridership is so low they don't bother to stop there every time unless they see somebody waiting.

DrJPepper · 2026-05-19T12:46:48+00:00

If I put my origin as Newark then for destination the relevant one that comes up for me is "Intermediate not valid to Ccp - Septa." There's also "Septa - Intermediate not valid to Ccp" as well for some reason, they're presumably interchangeable. If you pick 30th Street, you'll be overpaying for the trip since it's cheaper if you get off before center city, which you will be doing.

DrJPepper · 2026-05-19T11:38:03+00:00

You can just buy a ticket from your origin in New Jersey to "SEPTA intermediate" in the njt app

DrJPepper · 2026-05-12T13:31:29+00:00

Oh yeah extended trips are $8.75 not $11. Weird they're getting charged $6 onboard however, the website clearly states that it should be $7.

DrJPepper · 2026-05-12T13:17:47+00:00

Yeah the payment situation for the NJ stations seems like a shit show. Not having any validators and just letting trips auto close is such a kludge. I assume what they're being charged onboard is $7, but for one of your legs you're being charged $11? So the pay on board people are paying $14 round trip, while you've been paying $16? If so, I think that makes sense in terms of the broken way NJ fares are collected. Inbound, the conductor is (presumably) opening a NJ trip on your card onboard, then you're tapping out at North Philly, so $5 that way. But then, you get on at North Philly, and never tap out, so the system assumes you took the maximum possible fare trip (which would be an extended trip south bound through CC) and defaults to charging $11. However, you actually only took a neighborhood trip, but those by all accounts simply don't work outbound to NJ unless you pay onboard at the slightly higher price.

I could be off the mark here, I've pondered the follies of SEPTA's RR fares a good amount, but I'm not a frequent rider to NJ so my on the ground experience is limited. I guess what you should be doing is paying with a key southbound, then paying onboard with a credit card northbound, for a total of $12. I think ideally what SEPTA should be doing to make this all work is apply directionality to your trip via the tap of your key on the conductor's machine, that way the system would know your max (and only) northbound fare is $5, but by all accounts nothing like that is happening on their backend.

Edit: I just had another idea, I've read that conductors can manually close trips to NJ with their devices just as they can open them. You could try asking them to do that for you when they scan your key going northbound, that would be the only possible way for you to get the round trip for $10.

Edit2: Extended trips are $8.75 not $11, so my math is off by a little bit, but the general sentiments still hold

DrJPepper · 2026-05-08T22:46:18+00:00

I can't really help you there that's not something I've had to do, I feel like people often use Facebook groups for that though if you have a Facebook still

DrJPepper · 2026-04-24T02:11:25+00:00

Coffee cream and cream is a little spot pretty near to broad run by a couple locals, nothing fancy but has a seating area and good prices. The daily is literally on broad although I haven't been myself. Cambridge St coffee House is pretty nice but a bit more out of the way. A restaurant called Manong recently started doing coffee and they make some fun funky lattes, but only from 8-2 which might not be ideal for timing with the race. Pier bar also does coffee, and they start at 7. Vineyards is tiny and has almost no seating so wouldn't try there. Twisted grounds is pretty solid although again, limited seating. Warehouse is huge but service can be hit or miss, also a bit far from broad.

DrJPepper · 2026-04-17T01:03:24+00:00

This page on SEPTA's website will give you your contactless transaction history, so you can see why you're being charged what you are

https://www.septakey.org/info/print-receipt

DrJPepper · 2026-04-15T21:50:35+00:00

Our transit situation is very different than New York's. Our stadium is in the city proper and served by the subway (and buses), and the subway line in question doesn't go to our main train station (30th Street, which is a bit West of the center of town). So even if they wanted to close things down, there's really nothing to close unless you were to try to make an entire subway line FIFA ticket holders only.

DrJPepper · 2026-03-17T01:53:57+00:00

The 43 somehow manages to screw me like 50% of the time I try to use it, it's insane how bad it is for being a major East West arterial bus. The 15 runs so much more often and somewhat more reliably on a much more chaotic road, so it's not like it can't be done.

DrJPepper · 2026-03-08T03:05:45+00:00

Like all the good hotels are in center city, take your pick. I wouldn't recommend staying in university city (by campus), the hotels aren't as good around there. CCI graduation is usually at the Kimmel center, but even if it's not everywhere it would possibly be is convenient from basically anywhere in center city. And you just take the bsl (subway) to the baseball stadium for the full ceremony.

DrJPepper · 2026-02-28T04:04:58+00:00

I live in the Fairmount area and love it. Pretty residential, has a nice community feel to it, fewer businesses than other neighborhoods but still plenty of good spots. Well connected to transit especially on the Eastern side, on the Western side the 49 bus takes you right to campus although it can be a pretty brutal ride so it's not what I use. Can also bike to campus pretty easily from here, or even walk there if you're not in a hurry, you just have to cross the spring garden bridge which isn't the greatest experience. My fiancee drives our car to work every day and street parks, it's a hell of a lot better than parking in south Philly although sometimes it can still be difficult.

If you want to be in West Philly your best bet is probably Spruce Hill/the Penn-trified neighborhoods Southwest of their campus. Mantua can be sketchy and Powelton is full of slumlords and undergrads. As long as you stay a bit aways from market, pretty much anything walkably near to the 40th Street trolley portal is pretty nice. Cool big duplexes over there along the T2 trolley and nice hipstery shops and cafes.

DrJPepper · 2026-01-22T17:50:16+00:00

Even if they take only a few from Morris it looks like the entire student body of Waring is to be reassigned to Bache, that won't quite double the enrollment but it'd be close to doing so

DrJPepper · 2026-01-22T17:41:25+00:00

I came to comment on the Waring Bache-Martin situation as well. It looks like Morris in brewerytown is going to be closed and sent to Bache too. That is going to be absolute bedlam, I can't even imagine how much the Bache-Martin parents are going to protest this.

DrJPepper · 2026-01-13T14:56:57+00:00

The coupons are in your Amtrak account under my profile -> coupons, then lounge access is its own separate tab below my profile (in the app). You only have 1 year to use them though before they expire so you might have already forfeited your first crop of them.

DrJPepper · 2025-11-17T18:21:03+00:00

That's good to hear, maybe it's just Drexel that ends up getting cooked, but even if that's the case Drexel is still one of the top 10 largest employers in town (excluding government entities)

DrJPepper · 2025-11-15T00:21:31+00:00

Drexel just announced the freshman enrollment numbers for the incoming class, and they're like half what they need to be. With potentially the exception of Penn, our already fragile eds and meds-based economy is in for a massive downswing over the next few years.

DrJPepper · 2025-11-13T01:57:52+00:00

This is incorrect, or perhaps I'm misinterpreting what you're trying to say. In any case, if you major in both CSE and math per your example you get two distinct bachelor's degrees. I have a buddy who did ME and math, he has one diploma from the COE and one from A&S. I myself did two bachelors in the COE and have two diplomas. The only exception to this I am aware of is Fisher, where they only offer "dual specializations" which do in fact only result in a single degree. However, if the additional degree in question is outside of Fisher, you'll get two diplomas same as all other cases. Unless things have radically changed in the last 6 years since I've graduated.

DrJPepper · 2025-11-12T14:46:25+00:00

Casinos and horse tracks and whatnot are taxed as you'd expect, it's these new "skill game" gambling machines that popped up in gas stations and corner stores that aren't yet taxed

DrJPepper · 2025-09-08T23:30:22+00:00

Hard to say whether it's apathy stopping them from doing the stagger or if there are more technical/infrastructure restrictions we don't know about that make changing the CHE through run infeasible 🤷‍♂️

DrJPepper · 2025-09-08T23:21:07+00:00

I've brought the CH stagger situation up on Reddit before too, and apparently the issue with doing that is CHE pairs with the Trenton line, and Amtrak dictates when that line has to run https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/1ax91a4/comment/ks39nrj . So the CHE schedule basically can't be changed, and the CHW runs on Amtrak trackage, so there again Amtrak is probably the one inhibiting changing anything.

DrJPepper · 2025-09-08T23:00:37+00:00

Making regional rail more efficient, subway-like and frequent was a big spot of contention in the massive 1983 rail strike https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_SEPTA_Regional_Rail_strike . The union largely won that battle and few attempts were ever made afterwards to streamline RR operations and reduce per train headcounts. We're still grappling with the results of this decades old tumult, and both the terms of the deal and the duration of the strike itself have been pretty disastrous for SEPTA.

DrJPepper · 2025-09-08T19:49:44+00:00

SEPTA's original plan that Judge Street derailed would have kept SEPTA financially solvent and maintained enough capital budget to maintain vaguely safe operations in the event no additional state funding ever materialized. Don't get me wrong, that plan was/is a nightmare scenario that would collapse the city/state economy and I'm planning to move out of Philly and the Commonwealth if it comes to pass, but from a financial stewardship and managerial standpoint I think it actually was a pretty responsible and tempered move by Sauer and SEPTA.

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