Philly’s roving Greyhound station could soon move to an Old City parking garage. Neighbors are surprised and alarmed.

City officials are considering the first level of an Old City parking garage as the site for a new temporary bus terminal for Greyhound and other intercity carriers, the latest plot twist in an ongoing municipal soap opera.

Neighbors of the AutoPark at South Second and Walnut Streets say they were blindsided by the news, which began circulating late last week. They’re fighting back.

A Change.org petition against the proposal by a group of concerned Old City residents had more than 950 signatures on Wednesday. Lawyers are involved. Amigos, a Spanish immersion preschool 25 feet from the garage entrance, is mobilizing parents to protest.

South Second Street, a narrow colonial-era roadway, is already crowded with delivery vehicles and three SEPTA bus lines, residents say. They fear more dangerous traffic and pollution and say that a stream of Greyhounds and the like would ruin the ambience of Old City.

“This area is a museum,” said Sara Rabinovic, who has lived in the Society Hill Towers for two decades. “A bus station in the middle of a museum doesn’t make sense.”

Besides, she said, “this would be forced on us without consulting us.”

The Second Street garage is only “one of the locations being considered” for a temporary station, the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Services (OTIS) said in a statement Tuesday. It did not define temporary.

“Everyone agrees that the city and bus riders deserve a better location and facilities,” said Job Itzkowitz, executive director of the Old City District, who said city officials briefed him Friday on the outlines of the Second Street option.

“The question is how to get there in both the short term and the long term,” he said. The district has not taken a position on the idea.

There could be “up to 70 buses serving as many as 2,600 passengers that will operate 19 hours per day,” Brett Scioli, general manager of Society Hill Towers, told residents Monday in an e-mailed message summarizing what community leaders say they have been told.

The city’s preferred permanent home for intercity bus service is adjacent to 30th Street Station, but that possibility is years away.

City officials have had to scramble to make other arrangements when Greyhound abruptly closed its longtime, leased Filbert Street station in June 2023, a cost-cutting move common in the industry. The former depot also is on the footprint of the Sixers’ proposed $1.55 billion new arena.

The bus carriers first moved to Seventh and Market Streets. Operations angered nearby business owners and became an embarrassment for the city as passengers waited in the elements with no food, water or shelter. Buses and double-parked personal vehicles clogged Market Street.

Greyhound, Flixbus, Peter Pan Bus and Megabus — the biggest carriers serving Philadelphia — are now using their second temporary open-air bus station in less than a year, without adequate amenities. That’s inequitable and unacceptable, city officials said.

“We need to move past the mindset of reserving basic expectations like accessible restrooms for train stations and airports and not for bus riders who are currently coping with a hodgepodge of curbside sidewalk options,” OTIS said in the statement.

Since last November, long-distance buses have docked at the curb near Spring Garden and North Front Streets, with some queuing up on Christopher Columbus Boulevard and others near the Market-Frankford Line’s Spring Garden Station, which is not ADA-accessible. Passengers wait on sidewalks, unsheltered from weather.

The setup has been a mess at times, said Jeff Hornstein, president of the Northern Liberties Neighbors, with rideshare vehicles clogging the streets and people loitering in front of businesses.

But the association has worked closely with OTIS and some improvements have been made, he said. Recently, the neighborhood group was negotiating with the city about a possible third temporary bus station — with waiting rooms and other amenities in an underused surface parking lot on Spring Garden Street.

As the association was trying to set up another public meeting on the possibility for April 24, Hornstein said, he was told that OTIS no longer thought the Spring Garden lot was an appropriate location.

“We were surprised, but not unpleasantly,” he said. “We said, ‘Godspeed and good luck.” Hornstein also said OTIS was a “good partner to work with” in a difficult situation.

On several levels the AutoPark garage has features that appear to make it a better temporary base of operations.

The first level of the garage, operated by the Philadelphia Parking Authority, has 13 berths for tour buses, and potential terminal space that has plumbing and is wired for electric service.

The garage was built in the early 1970s, intended as a drop-off and pickup location for tour buses; tour guides would begin walks at Welcome Park next door.

It is within a few blocks of the Second Street station on the Market-Frankford Line, which is accessible to people with disabilities and is a transfer point for at least six bus routes.

But some issues could complicate using the site. It’s owned by the National Park Service, which would have to get approvals in Washington, considering historic preservation and environmental standards.

Under the concept, the buses would drop off and pick up passengers in the garage but would be parked and lay over elsewhere, possibly in the Callowhill neighborhood, several people with knowledge of the city’s thinking said.