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SEPTA: Special Regional Rail Passes For Eagles' Super Bowl Parade Sold Out

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- SEPTA has sold out of the special 50,000 Independence Passes that were made available to Regional Rail customers to get to and from the Eagles' Super Bowl parade on Thursday.

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People started showing up at some Regional Rail stations as early as 3:30 a.m. to be in the front of the line.

Peggy arrived at Fort Washington around 5 a.m. and says she was about 30th in line. But when she got her chance to buy a ticket, she learned that the Independence Passes weren't available. So instead, Peggy had to pony up some extra cash for a weekly pass.

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"The difference is $37 per ticket. It's $47 to get the weekly pass, it would've been $10," said Peggy.

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SEPTA says even if you were able to snag one of the 50,000 Independence passes, you're not guaranteed a seat on the regional rail trains, which are running limited service to only two stops in Center City. That's why SEPTA's chief of surface transportation, Mike Liberi, says people coming in for the parade should do all they can to make the Market-Frankford Line and the Broad Street line their Plan "A."

"People that love in the northwest suburbs really can see -- should see -- Frankford Transportation Center and Fern Rock as not a viable option, but their first option," said Liberi.

Late Wednesday afternoon, SEPTA General Manager Jeff Kneppel sat down with Eyewitness News explaining the approach to the special pass system.

"What we didn't want to do was what has happened like at the 2008 Phillies parade—a lot of people waited out at stations along the Regional Rail and didn't make it in and missed the event," Kneppel said.

The EL and subway have the ability to carry tens of thousands of people an hour. But it's getting to those terminals and finding parking that's the problem.

So for hundreds of thousands, it's on to PLAN B.

Regional Rails will only be offering service to the Jefferson and 30th Street stations, and only the Independence Pass, or monthly or weekly trailpasses will be accepted on those trains.

Regional Rail AM inbound train service will end at approximately 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

 

 

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