SEPTA is nearly done with a $20 million puddle-killing makeover at Eighth and Market

Saws whined as construction workers cut away pitted old concrete to get at the steel beams beneath. Three blue trash pails caught water streaming from the ceiling on Wednesday as rain pounded the city above.

Braking subway trains squealed. Commuters picked their way around puddles, a dance familiar to users of SEPTA’s Eighth Street Station. Swan Lake it was not.

Now SEPTA is nearing the end of a $20 million project to plug leaks in the station with sealant and other industrial-strength waterproofing goops, meant to coat the top of the tunnels of the multilevel subway complex. Workers poured the stuff through trenches cut in the streets and sidewalks.

“The bucket brigade will be relinquished to somewhere else,” said Kate O’Connor, chief engineer for bridges and buildings for the regional transit system.

Eighth Street Station opened in 1908 as a stop on the Market-Frankford Line. It also connects to the Broad-Ridge Spur, which began operating in 1932. The PATCO High Speed Line between New Jersey and Center City uses tracks and a station platform one level below.

With three lines converging, Eighth Street is the fourth busiest of the 28 stations on SEPTA’s Metro rail network, with about 5,800 passengers passing through on an average weekday.

It was an uncommonly warm day for mid-December and the rain made the station feel humid. Despite the buckets and puddles, plus water passengers tracked in from the outside, things have improved, officials say.

“We’re down to a couple of buckets,” said Kyle Stevens, a senior project manager who supervises the and Market Street work. He said the rain had an upside: “It helps us find problem spots that are left and target them.”

SEPTA moved to do the waterproofing project as water infiltration increased over the years and it became harder to keep up with spot repairs.

”It wasn’t in imminent danger of collapse or anything but we try to be proactive [in] … protecting assets that are critical to keeping an aging legacy system running,” O’Connor said. Waiting too long only brings a “heavier price tag,” she said.

Backlogs of maintenance and repair needs are common in public transportation. SEPTA has identified $5 billion worth of possible projects.

To coat the tunnels, the crews build a layer cake of waterproofing: bituminous material (a fossil deposit like soft coal); a special kind of cement; Sika, a powerful adhesive and sealant that costs $145 a square foot, and corrugated plastic.

They also inject the sealant from underneath the tunnel roof.

“It travels just like water, and it reacts to water,” said Chris Hopkins, a consultant to SEPTA on the project from engineering firm Michael Baker International. “You can see this [yellow] colored fluid and it seizes up all of a sudden” and plugs a problem spot.

The station work began in January and is almost done, Stevens said. One of the remaining tasks is to mill and repave the asphalt on the roadways. That may have to wait until the spring since asphalt plants shut down when it gets too cold.

It is possible that might be done sooner, said Chris Hopkins, a consultant to SEPTA on the project from the engineering firm Michael Baker International.

“You can’t control Mother Nature, but if she allows, it will get done by the end of the year, he said. Getting to this point on a project like that in the Eighth and Market station in about a year is “no small task,” Hopkins said, adding that similar jobs can take two years in some cases.

Crews have faced challenges. For one thing, Stanley said, they had to move an entire newsstand to make room for work near the station entrance on the Southeast corner of the intersection, including its utility connections.

The engineers also have to figure out the underground utilities, starting with research into which wires and water mains are abandoned, which involves working with the city and Peco. The water connections at the Northeast corner of Eighth and Market Streets is still in use. After all, it dates from the 1930s, which makes it a toddler of Philadelphia infrastructure.

In addition, SEPTA buses have had to be rerouted, the streets have been jammed with honking vehicles and pedestrians have had to detour behind barriers that also protect the workers.

But there are rewards too, in discovering surprise bits of history deep in the complex’s catacombs. In one empty cave stands an original wall from the long-gone Gimbels department store. And while stripping away plywood and paint around a column near the eastbound fare gates, workers found tile that reads, “Lit Brothers,” a discount department store that was open from 1891 to 1977.

That will be restored and put back.

“One reason I enjoy working for SEPTA is I love learning about how they designed and built things back then and why, how everything works,” Stanley, who is an engineer, said.