Peter Pan returns to Center City after hearing feedback on its Spring Garden bus stop

Peter Pan Bus Lines is coming back to Center City.

The line is slated to add a stop just off Ninth and Market Streets on May 6, underneath a Fashion District overpass.

According to company CEO Peter Picknelly, the new stop is in response to passenger feedback after the company moved to Spring Garden Street in November. Peter Pan Bus Lines will keep its pickup and drop-off point at the Spring Garden intercity bus stop, he said.

Passengers filling out surveys told the company they found Spring Garden harder to get to and expressed an interest in having a “downtown” stop again.

“We settled on [Ninth and Market Streets] thinking it was a good location, not too far from what was the old Greyhound Bus Terminal, and plenty of amenities for our customers in the mall,” said Picknelly, adding the company was increasing service by up to 50% as a result of the same feedback.

Greyhound, a Peter Pan competitor, leased and operated a terminal at 10th and Filbert Streets until last summer. Greyhound shut down the operation last summer in a cost-cutting measure and Peter Pan, which used to sublease space in the facility, had to move, too.

The first move, to Sixth and Market Streets, received much public criticism as travelers had no place to sit or access to restrooms. In a July column, Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron called it “a humanitarian disaster.” What’s more, the large coach buses clogged the bus lane meant for SEPTA in one of the city’s major arteries.

By November, the city moved the buses to Front and Spring Garden Streets, where area businesses and neighbors lodged some of the same complaints made in Center City. The Northern Liberties Neighbors Association described seeing more traffic as a result of an increase in rideshare passenger pickups and drop-offs.

Travelers also complained that the stop was not as centrally located.

Picknelly said the city was responsive to the company’s request for a Center City stop, working with Peter Pan since the start of the year in finding a suitable location. For inspiration, about 30 representatives from the mayor’s office and other divisions of City Hall embarked on a tour of three different kinds of bus depots Peter Pan has in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring and Baltimore in Maryland, Picknelly said.

The city has said the Spring Garden stop is only a temporary fix as officials look for a permanent intercity bus terminal location. The Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability floated moving the Spring Garden terminal to a surface parking lot across the street. It would include slips for Greyhound, Flixbus, Megabus, and Peter Pan to pick up and discharge passengers.

The office, however, has remained noncommittal, saying “ideas are still being developed, options are being weighed, and no plans for relocation have been finalized.” Yet just this week, the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association told residents the office was eyeing to move the Spring Garden stop as early as Labor Day.