March 08, 2024
Thom Carroll/For PhillyVoice
SEPTA will hold public meetings in City Council districts 5, 7, 8 and 9 in March and April to solicit feedback on its bus route redesign from residents.
SEPTA has scheduled eight public meetings to solicit feedback on its plan to redesign its bus network. The first two take place next week.
SEPTA's board was expected to vote on the bus-route overhaul in December, but the vote was delayed several times due to concerns from riders and City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, who requested council be given more time to hear from constituents. The meetings will be held in City Council districts 5, 7, 8 and 9, which include nearly all of North Philly and portions of Northwest Philly.
"SEPTA and City Council members want to solicit further public input to make sure the network improvements will deliver better service for those communities," SEPTA spokesperson Kelly Greene said.
SEPTA's Bus Revolution plan aims to increase bus reliability and transportation times by creating more high-frequency routes. However, the plan plan reduces the number of bus routes from 125 to 106, and feed more routes to the subway system. In the suburbs, some little-used bus routes would be replaced with on-demand service.
The plan has been criticized for leaving off neighborhoods that already were disconnected from the bus system. After postponing the vote to January, and then to February, the SEPTA board decided to hold the meetings before approving the plan.
The meetings will be held:
• Tuesday, March 12 at 6 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 35 W. Chelten Ave.
• Thursday, March 14 at 5:30 p.m. at Casa Indiana, 2935 N. Second St.
• Wednesday, March 20 at 5 p.m. at Hope Partnership School, 2601 N. 11th St.
• Saturday, March 23 at 10 a.m. at Simpson Recreation Center, 1010 Arrott St.
• Tuesday, March 26 at 5:30 p.m. at Finley Recreation Center, 7701 Mansfield Ave.
• Wednesday, March 27 at 5:30 p.m. at Deliverance Evangelistic Church, 2001 Lehigh Ave.
• Wednesday, April 3 at 5:30 p.m. at Strawberry Mansion High School, 3133 Ridge Ave.
• Thursday, April 4 at 5:30 p.m. at York House, 5325 Old York Road
During the meetings, SEPTA officials will present the plan, and community members will get to ask questions and provide feedback. The plan has not changed since SEPTA released its final draft last year.
In February, Gilmore Richardson said that SEPTA officials lacked an understanding of how residents residents in Wynnefield, Strawberry Mansion, Lawncrest, Olney, Nicetown and Hunting Park use transit – despite two years of public comment and 200 meetings about the plan.
Gilmore Richardson, who grew up in Philadelphia, had worked with SEPTA throughout the two years of public comment, but felt that the plan largely benefitted wealthier neighborhoods.
"To many residents, the current version of the bus plan is just another example of the tale of two cities – a place where changes benefit more affluent communities and leaves those who have lived here and held this city on their shoulders the longest behind," Gilmore Richardson said at the time. "For years, I've been watching as experts and specialists show up in our neighborhoods to tell us what we need and what will make our lives better without ever really listening to what we want."
