Station Review #60: Allegheny (SEPTA)


Allegheny is a station on SEPTA's Market Frankford Line/L, located at Kensington Avenue and Allegheny Avenue in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. This station is not to be confused with Allegheny station on the Broad Street Line/B or Allegheny station on the Manayunk-Norristown line. 

History

Allegheny Station was originally part of the Frankford Elevated line, a line created by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (PRT). This opened for service on November 5th, 1922, and it ran from Bridge-Pratt Station to 2nd Street station, completely elevated. At some point, these two lines were merged together in the early 1940s. 

In between 1988 and 2003, Allegheny Station was rebuilt as part of the rebuilding of the entire Frankford Elevated. Due to this, Allegheny station is now accessible. 

Over the past few years, Kensington Avenue as a whole has gotten a reputation for being a hub for the Delaware Valley drug market, with people coming from as far away as Sweden for cheap drugs. Allegheny station and the intersection it is at, colloquially known as K&A, is part of the epicenter of this drug market, and due to this the station has gained notoriety. 

Tour

Allegheny station is pretty similar to every single other L line station along the Frankford Elevated line. Despite this, there are a few distinctions that could be made between it and the other stations. 

Allegheny station has a lot of space for people to get into the station, done in anticipation of how many people would use the station. There is an escalator as well as stairs. The entrance also is larger than usual, but I took no pictures of this to protect the identies of the 15-20 homeless people lying immediately in front of it. 

Behind the stairs, instead of a normal mural, there is a white wall with "K&A" printed over and over again. 

After this point, it's a normal station. There are two tracks, an elevator and two platforms. There are also two crossovers, and the eastbound platform only has an exit. Do note beforehand that the elevators here most likely will/do have puddles of urine in them. 

View from crossover

Other view from crossover

One of the platforms

Staircase from a crossover. 

The most striking thing about this station is how much trash there is. 

So much trash.

More trash

The sheer amount of litter, especially of used needles, is incredibly depressing to look it, as if this station wasn't already depressing enough. The needles are all over the station, please do watch where you step. This station would benefit from sharps bins. 

Transit Connections

There are three bus connections you can get at Allegheny station, these include: 

Route 3: This is a bus that goes from Frankford Transportation Center to 33rd and Cecil B. Moore, a bus loop in Strawberry Mansion. This bus route does the exact same things as the L between Frankford Transportation Center and Berks Street, before going along Berks Street, and then going south using 6th/7th street to Cecil B. Moore avenue, where it stays for the rest of the route. This route is useful for not only being a crosstown but also for linking Allegheny station and really Frankford Transportation Center to Temple University. This route is very unreliable and is detoured a lot due to how thin many of the roads it goes on are, but when it works the route 3 bus is incredibly useful.


Route 60: This is a bus that goes between 35th and Allegheny bus loop in Allegheny-West (also just known as Allegheny) to Richmond and Westmoreland bus loop in Port Richmond, via Allegheny Avenue (though three trips a day go to the Port Richmond Industrial Park). This bus goes to the Pep Boys headquarters and Temple University's Health Sciences campus, among other important places. The route 60 bus is also known for being very unreliable. Much like the 3 bus, it is also incredibly useful and is one of the most used buses in the entire SEPTA network. 


Route 89: This bus route is made to fill in many other gaps created by service cuts and cannot be easily explained by a mere paragraph, and is better experienced in person. The 89 goes between Arrott Transportation Center and York-Dauphin station, a trip the L can do within an incredibly long 12-13 minutes. Miraculously, the 89 meanwhile takes 50 minutes to do a trip between these two locations, making sure to go to any other neighborhood remotely nearby in a pattern similar to that made by a snake in the game Snake and Ladders. With ridership patterns, the 89 can be split into three bus routes at the very least. At peak frequency, there is one 89 bus every 20 minutes, otherwise the 89 comes every 30 minutes. 


Points of Interest in Kensington

Near Allegheny station there is a large doctor's office in the old Kensington Trust building, and a Walgreens on the other side of the street. There is also a library nearby in a park, though the park is covered in needles. That's probably not what interests most people at Allegheny station though. Kensington is not really a place to hang out in. Really, for the average person there is nothing good you can do there, besides leave.

That is, unless you either live there, or want to see the worst type of life America has to offer. This is the place that tells you how much the American Dream is a scam. How one can have their life figured out and one small change can lead them here, to be homeless, probably addicted to drugs that you use to try to feel less awful, and probably dead. Of the thousands of people along Kensington Avenue trying to survive, many will die there, and everyone you see there is probably far below the poverty line, barely able to provide for themselves in the first place. There is nothing good about this, certainly nothing here in the first place except suffering and devastation. Like I said earlier, nothing will really happen if you just pass through here on the train or even the bus,  Even if nothing happens to you, it's still such a depressing sight that you probably shouldn't go and visit unless you need to for whatever reason. 

Statistics:


Name: Allegheny 
Agency: SEPTA
Line(s): L
Locality: Kensington 
City/Township: Philadelphia 
County: Philadelphia 
State: Pennsylvania 
Ridership: 6109 per weekday (2018)

Amenity Checklist


Accessible: ✓
Bathrooms: ×
Bicycle parking: ×
Clean Station: ×
Connections to other transit routes: ✓
Easy passage for each side: ✓
Fare Payment Kiosks (if applicable): ✓ (as turnstiles)
Good Wayfinding: ✓
Indoor Shelters: ×
Maps: ✓
Multiple entrances/exits: ✓
Adequate Parking: ✓ (none)
Seating: ✓
Shelters: ✓
Station In Good Condition: ×
Ticket Kiosks (if applicable): ✓
Ticket Offices: ✓
TOD: ✓
Train Departure/Arrival Info (signs that update/screens): ×
Updated/Useful Signage: ✓

Final Verdict: 2.5/10.  

Station Directory

--------Philadelphia County--------
Frankford Transportation Center
Arrott Transportation Center
Church
Erie-Torresdale
Tioga
Allegheny
Somerset
Huntingdon
York-Dauphin
Berks
Girard
Spring Garden
2nd Street
5th Street
8th Street
11th Street
13th Street
15th Street
Drexel Station at 30th Street
40th Street
46th Street
52nd Street
56th Street
60th Street
63rd Street
--------Delaware County--------
Millbourne
69th Street Transportation Center 


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