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Conspiracy Kyle: A SEPTA Train Carrying Broad Street Runners Broke Down on Purpose
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
A SEPTA subway train with hundreds of runners on it broke down before the Broad Street Run Sunday, which ended up delaying the start. Classic SEPTA move. To make it worse they forced a ton of riders to run to the starting line so some people ended up tallying more than the 10 miles they signed up for:
I was on this train! Lucky me. We voluntarily got off at Hunting park and jogged the 1.25 ish miles to the start because we had no other choice. The lights went out twice in our train car. No announcement or anything from septa. What an absolute garbage system. pic.twitter.com/vmJcxLPvlo
— Sarah B (@sarahstyliste) May 4, 2025
Now people of course are just going to chalk this up to SEPTA being SEPTA, but I feel like there might be more to the story. Gimme a minute while I put my tinfoil hat on.
Think about it. For those that don’t know, SEPTA is staring down the barrel of a $200 million deficit starting in July. They need all the funds they can get or they’re going to start cutting lines and trains and stopping service at 9 p.m., which would significantly affect those at late-night sporting events. The release of that report was the last time they made major news, which was almost a month ago. They’ve gotta stay in the headlines. They’ve gotta get creative with raising awareness and if you wanted to raise awareness for the nightmare funding crisis you’re facing why wouldn’t you have a “garden variety” mechanical failure? Now I have no idea what “garden variety” mechanical failure means because this author’s collar is white as the driven snow, but I looked it up and the definition is, “of the usual or ordinary type; commonplace.” I’ll be honest, when I first heard “garden variety” it sounded much more serious than some normal failure. I’m sitting here thinking seven different things broke at once when it sounds like they just had to unplug it, blow on it, and plug it back in. A major city’s transit shouldn’t just come to a halt with no back ups because of a common mechanical failure, but maybe I’m giving SEPTA too much credit… OR SOMETHING STINKS!
Think about it, if you wanted to get some eyeballs on your situation wouldn’t you want this to happen before one of the biggest events of the year, when almost 40,000 people use your services? Of course you would! You have to breed outrage! You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette! Get people mad at you and then turn around and point out to them that the lack of funding contributes to the shitty infrastructure. Remember inaction breeds doubt and fear. Nothing says inaction like stopping in the middle of the tracks and cutting the air conditioning so that now everyone is experiencing the horrors of being stuck in a rat-infested tunnel and sweating on each other. They didn’t even make an announcement, for god’s sake. Just waited for another train to push them to the next stop and told everyone to get out. And look now everyone is talking about it. Were then any other issues on any other trains? Doesn’t sound like it. Like I said something stinks and this time it’s not the bum piss in the stations! I’m onto you SEPTA! HIT THE MUSIC!
P.S. Lets be honest, SEPTA will be bailed out. It would be malpractice with every event coming down the pike in 2026 if SEPTA wasn’t running as efficient as it could be (which is always at probably 50% tbh).
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com