SEPTA bus riders want faster service, but many hate how their routes could change

For years, Philadelphians have complained about SEPTA bus service.

A majority of riders said they were willing to make more transfers or even walk farther to their regular stop if it meant arriving at their destination 10 to 15 minutes sooner, according to a survey of 2,456 regular bus riders recently released by Transit Forward Philadelphia (TFP), a coalition of nonprofit groups that advocates for improvements in public transit.

“The system currently is not working for riders,” said Yasha Zarrinkelk, the coalition’s advocacy director. “For us, it just illustrates the need for a change.”

SEPTA agrees. The transit agency has been working for about two years on a complete redesign of its regional bus network to try to solve the reliability problem and attract more riders.

Yet when SEPTA leaders unveiled specific proposals for shorter, straighter routes in October, riders in neighborhoods across the city pushed back on the plan, saying such a broad upheaval in their lives would do more harm than good.

“The 12 bus is essential to Southwest Philadelphia,” said Diane Settles, 65, who rides the route from the Kingsessing area to Center City, often for shopping. “Sure, we have the trolley, but it’s not ADA-accessible, and that makes it harder to board and take my grandson in a stroller.”

The trolley also doesn’t go all the way to Old City. Currently, Route 12 travels down Locust and Pine Streets to Columbus Boulevard. The proposed network plan would take away the convenience of that one-seat ride and substitute three shorter routes that travel north and south.

“We want to make sure our voices are heard,” Settles said.

At a meeting last month, Roxborough residents were furious that two direct lines to Center City would instead stop at 30th Street Station, where they could transfer to the Market-Frankford El or other buses to continue. As a result of the outcry, SEPTA changed the plan to keep both routes, though the current Route 9 would be local with more stops and a longer trip.

Though public meetings have ended for now, people can still comment on the proposal by email and phone. SEPTA planners are making tweaks to the draft plan based on what they have heard. A final plan is due within several weeks. Then there will be another round of community meetings and, later, formal hearings.

Ryan Judge, director of strategic planning and analysis for SEPTA, said the agency wants to get “as much feedback and constructive criticism as we can.”

Kelvin Carrington has some. He said he has never driven and relies on Route 17, which he catches near his home, a little north of Washington Avenue and South 20th Street.

» READ MORE: Everything we know about SEPTA’s plan to remake bus service in Philly, and how it could affect your route

“From where I live, I can get everything I need,” said Carrington, 71, a retired library assistant. He likes that he can go all the way to Penn’s Landing on Market Street. If the proposed changes are implemented, he’d have to walk a couple of blocks farther to catch a bus and transfer at 22nd and Market Streets, standing at a stop with no shelter.

That all would be a hardship because of a medical condition, he said.

“They have no idea,” Carrington said. “I have been riding that [17] bus longer than anyone at SEPTA’s been on their job.”

Judith Robinson, a North Philadelphia community leader, said she’s been talking to fellow riders of the Route 33 for months about the proposed redesign and found many who were not aware big change was afoot.

Robinson said many of her neighbors and fellow riders feel powerless, that it’s basically a done deal, despite SEPTA’s reassurances to the contrary. She found it frustrating that many of the public meetings happened as the holidays approached and people had other things on their minds.

“It’s like talking to a zombie,” Robinson said. “They want to talk at you, not with you.”

City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson of Point Breeze grew up riding the Route 17 bus. As head of the transportation committee, he’s scheduled a Jan. 23 virtual hearing on the Bus Revolution at 10 a.m., with testimony from SEPTA officials and riders. Council members have been hearing complaints and questions from their constituents, and Johnson doesn’t think SEPTA has explained the changes well enough.

“I’m all for efficiency, but not at the expense of hardworking residents,” Johnson said, adding that many people are surprised and just learning about the overhaul. “When people get up to go to work and find the bus route they may have taken for most of their lives has been changed, without them being aware, there’s going to be a dramatic shock.”

» READ MORE: Roxborough is the epicenter of dissent for SEPTA’s bus overhaul

Many of those changes drew strong support before SEPTA unveiled the new bus plan. About 56% of overall respondents to the TFP survey — including 69% of riders over age 65 — said they’d be willing to make at least one transfer in exchange for a faster ride. Twenty-five percent of seniors said they’d gladly make two transfers for a faster ride. People over 65 are an important bloc of the agency’s bus riders, in part because their tickets are subsidized by state funding; seniors also might have challenges with mobility that could make it harder for them to transfer or walk farther to catch a bus.

The group conducted the surveys from July 2021 through January 2022, when the Bus Revolution project was in its first phase, with SEPTA presenting possible scenarios and walking people through them at earlier community meetings.

Bus redesigns in other cities — and big changes of almost any kind — often reveal the same contradiction between the ideas, which people support, and fear or annoyance about proposed specifics.

“People need to be able to see and experience the benefit first,” Zarrinkelk, of TFP, said. That’s of course impossible in the literal sense at this point. But SEPTA could do more to make the possible benefits of the Bus Revolution more real to people, he said.

“Getting there takes coaxing and messaging,” Zarrinkelk said.