54 (Richmond-Cambria to 33rd-Dauphin)
For a relatively simple and relatively short North Philadelphia crosstown, my 54 sure did get packed. I guess we’ll find out at the end if that’s normal or not…
I got on an eastbound bus a few blocks from the end of the route and just stayed on to head westbound again. Even though the intersection of Richmond and Cambria is considered to be the first stop, we looped around to Richmond and Somerset to lay over. The stop was surrounded by dirt from the ongoing I-95 construction, while the highway overhead was the source of a ton of dripping mystery liquid. Great place to hang out!
Once we headed off again down Somerset Street, we immediately entered a real neighborhood after escaping the underbelly of the highway. The street was lined with well-kept rowhouses, along with occasional corner restaurants. Around Aramingo Ave, things took a turn for the industrial, with big scrapyards and abandoned factories appearing everywhere.
The houses came back as we approached the El on Kensington Ave. We turned to run underneath it as a triple-bunch of 54s passed in the other direction (yikes); the road passed a few businesses, a few houses, and a few industrial lots as it went under some train tracks. Once on the other side of the tracks, we turned onto Lehigh Ave, a four-lane road with one of those weird do-whatever-you-want lanes in the middle.
Temple University Hospital occupied a huge tract of land, but even the street’s smaller lots were diverse: there were rowhouses, of course (some with retail), but you also had some apartment developments and a bunch of comparatively newer retail with parking lots out front. Some fast food restaurants and an abandoned supermarket showed up at the intersection with American Street, and a few blocks later, we passed a park opposite an elementary school.
At 5th Street, we passed some fake palm trees radiating from the wonderful Centro Musico, previously seen in our 39 review. A beautifully renovated library appeared at 6th Street, then after a supermarket, we got rowhouses for a stretch (plus some striking churches and cathedrals). Unfortunately, there were also vacant buildings and empty plots of land along here, too.
We crossed Broad Street at North Philadelphia Station, where the driver opened all the doors and it was an absolute free-for-all for the massive crowd of people waiting to get on. There were a few blocks of rowhouses and corner stores from there before we crossed under the Northeast Corridor and went by a park, a modern-looking church, and a grocery store. The rows returned after that, though, with many of them featuring businesses on the ground floors.
Many of the buildings or lots were empty, but there were also signs of community investment, such as the second library on the trip, this one super new and modern. As we came alongside a cemetery, an interesting circular school showed up across the street from it. And it was at that point that we turned onto the residential 33rd Street, taking it for a few blocks down to the 33rd-Dauphin Loop.
Route: 54 (Richmond-Cambria to 33rd-Dauphin)
Ridership: The 54 has excellent weekday ridership for a short-for-SEPTA-standards route, with 7,662 average riders (about 51 per trip). It’s also noteworthy that this route has the 4th best farebox recovery on the system, recouping 48% of its expenses with fare revenue. Finally, I have to mention the insane number of people my trip got: 139 over the course of about 50 minutes. The afternoon school rush in Philly is something else!
Pros: Ah, it’s the little things in life – isn’t it lovely how Lehigh Ave is a two-way street, so the route pretty much cuts a straight line across North Philly that’s the same in both directions? Beautiful. You do have the one-way segments on the route’s Port Richmond section, but that’s unavoidable. Adding to the 54’s simplicity, all trips do the exact same thing, barring the first eastbound (which begins at Broad) and a few supplemental school trips. Ridership on this thing is clearly great, representing the importance of Lehigh Ave as a major commercial corridor.
Cons: So given that it’s ridership is so good…what’s up with the schedule? Every 12 minutes at rush hour is fine, but every 16-17 during the day? Every 20 on Saturdays? Every 30 on Sundays??? Don’t get me started on how the route is every 45 minutes by 8:30 PM! Maybe I’m missing something here, but this route seems too important to give it a schedule like that. At least make it every 15 throughout the weekday! And this unfortunately seems like a situation where we can’t even redistribute resources – maybe buses could be taken off the rush to bolster the rest of the day, but it seems like the frequencies they’re running at are necessary at least for the end of school, if my trip is any indication.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Now that I’ve gone by it twice, I really feel like I have to check out Centro Musico. From instruments to CDs, the place just exudes charm and is clearly a neighborhood staple!
Final Verdict: 4/10
That schedule is rough. There are routes far less productive than the 54 that run way more frequently! Getting the weekday schedule to every 15 minutes all day is a start, and then lowering Sunday headways to every 20 is probably step 2. And I get that this is a case where, at least within the route itself, there are no resources to move around. But I can always dream…
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
BRTA: 4 (Pittsfield/Dalton/Hinsdale)
Oh my gosh, what the heck were they thinking with this route and all its inbound-only deviations? “YOU get an inbound-only deviation, and YOU get an inbound-only deviation. EVERYBODY GETS INBOUND-ONLY DEVIATIONS!!!!!!!!” Needless to say, the outbound 4 trip to Hinsdale, a town I had never heard of before this, was much faster than the eventual inbound.
We didn’t have any time to experience Hinsdale because the bus just turned right around when we got out there. There isn’t much to it, though – it’s just a collection of a few buildings with a post office, one restaurant, a bank, and a library that Wikipedia tells me is “a rare early example of French Tudor style imported to North America.” Neat!
We made our way onto Route 8 from downtown, a road which quickly devolved into woods with a few occasional houses as it paralleled the Lake Shore Limited train tracks. The road entered Dalton along this section, and we soon entered civilization: houses showed up along the road, and we passed a middle school and a few scattered, basic businesses. Now, according to the BRTA’s data on Google Maps, the 4 now takes a different inbound deviation from what it did when I rode in summer 2018 (oof, daily reminder of how behind I am), but I’m going to tell you about the one it did on my ride – they’re both meant to serve the same thing.
We stayed on Route 8 up until downtown Dalton, which began with some businesses and an abandoned factory along a river. After that block, we turned up onto North Street, making our first deviation, whose purpose seemed to be to get closer to a small apartment complex. Other than that, it was almost all houses along here, and we used the tiny Franklin and Pleasant Streets to get back to Route 8.
Coming back on the main road, there were a couple of gas stations, a few businesses, and a post office before some municipal buildings showed up further down. Our second deviation involved several more residential streets: it was a loop involving Curtis Ave, High Street, and Park Ave that was meant to serve another small apartment complex. Coming down Park, we passed a school and a cemetery, and the return to Route 8 brought us past houses and forests.
We passed an apartment development, and then it was time to enter the mess of malls in northeastern Pittsfield. First we deviated into Berkshire Crossing, a series of strip malls, then we used Merrill Road to serve some more retail with giant parking lots. This took us into an industrial area, where we turned onto Plastics Ave and went by a few factories.
Unlike the 1, which from here travels straight to the Intermodal Transit Center via Dalton Ave, the 4 has some more deviating to do. We curved our way up to the Rose Manor apartment complex, which we actually went into and looped around this time. This is an inbound-only deviation according to the horrendously outdated route map, but apparently outbound buses do now serve it. We headed toward the ITC on the residential Elberon Ave, a block away from the 1’s routing.
As Elberon turned into Springfield, the houses got closer together. We ran along the huge Springside Park before turning onto North Street outside of the Berkshire Medical Center. There were businesses along here, and as we got closer to downtown Pittsfield, the buildings got taller and denser. Finally, we turned into the ITC.
BRTA Route: 4 (Pittsfield/Dalton/Hinsdale)
Ridership: It’s the fourth busiest on the system, with 184 riders per weekday and 90 per Saturday. Given the steep drop from weekday to Saturday, I wonder how much of this route’s ridership is people commuting on weekdays from Hinsdale and Dalton into Pittsfield, whether it be to retail jobs, industrial jobs on Plastics Ave, or…office jobs? Does Pittsfield have any? Probably not many…
Pros: I guess as far as connecting Dalton and Hinsdale to Pittsfield goes, the 4 does about as well as it can do. The route runs hourly on weekdays, a standard schedule.
Cons: Huh, another reason Saturday ridership is so low could be the fact that it’s every two hours. Hmm. It’s also odd how on weekdays, the departure time randomly shifts from being on the :05 to the :20 in the middle of the day. Why? Even if it’s for a lunch break or something, does the BRTA not have enough employees to have someone swing on and allow for consistent departure times? Also, I have to talk about the inbound deviations: while I think that they’re a necessary evil in order to serve the more transit-oriented locations in Dalton, it’s also incredibly inconvenient that they’re inbound only. It probably has to be that way for scheduling purposes, but it’s still annoying for outbound passengers trying to go to those locations – perhaps a (shudder) AM/PM setup would work better, where the deviations become outbound only after noon. Finally, it feels redundant to have this route run a block away from the 1 on its inner portion; if the BRTA wanted to streamline things, they could extend the 16 to Hinsdale and cut the 4 entirely, but Rose Manor would lose service, and for all I know, maybe the houses a block away generate decent ridership anyway.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Neither Dalton nor Hinsdale had downtowns that felt particularly worth visiting, but Dalton is home to the Crane Museum of Papermaking – sounds neat!
Final Verdict: 4/10
This feels like a route that’s confined to never get above maybe a 6. It has so many necessary evils, from needing to serve the apartments in Dalton somehow, to needing some way to get from the mall area into downtown Pittsfield, even if it requires running a block away from the 1. As you can tell from the long Cons section, I think there is plenty of room for improvement here, but even at its best, the 4 will never be a 10/10 route.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
15 (63rd-Girard to Richmond-Westmoreland)
Yeah, yeah, save the comments. I’m, what, six days late? I mean, technically five days, if you count the fact that a 15 trolley ran at, like, 12:30 AM on Saturday, thus allowing SEPTA to claim that they ran that day and service was “officially” ending Sunday. Thanks for that, guys. I’m just glad I got to ride one Friday night, too.
But shall I first back up and explain the 15’s troubled history? Like almost all SEPTA routes, the 15, which runs across Girard Ave and then up into Port Richmond, started out as a trolley before any of us were born. In 1992, along with two other trolley routes, the 15 was “temporarily” turned into a bus; it took 17 years and a lot of political pressure to get the trolleys back, with their return coming in late 2005 (the other two lines are still bus – temporary indeed).
But now, we’re back at a similar juncture: ostensibly due to bridge construction, but also due to deferred maintenance on the 1947 PCC trolleys that run on the line that has led to just four being able to pass inspection, the 15 has been “temporarily” converted to buses. Even though I’m confident that trolleys will return to the line, who knows how long it’ll take – will SEPTA actually bring its PCCs back up to snuff, or will they wait until their trolley modernization project ten years down the line to bring new trolleys to the route? Regardless, this was the last time we’d be seeing SEPTA’s PCCs on the road for at least a while, so some friends and I went out to do final rides in the last week.
And this ride, the one I took pictures for, was on Thursday night. My friend and I waited at 63rd-Girard for a while for an actual trolley to show up (it was majority buses), and when one finally did come, it turned out it was going out of service. Luckily, another pulled in soon after, and we hopped on to head east. The route starts out in a bit of an industrial area, but rowhouses abound, too.
At Haverford Ave, we joined up with the westbound line (the route ends in a loop) at a crazy intersection with a bunch of tracks going every which way. Rowhouses were everywhere as we continued down Girard, picking someone up at pretty much every block. Some businesses appeared on the corners, while a park and a cemetery broke up the constant stream of two-story buildings.
Outside of a striking Checkers (and some other suburban-feeling businesses), we proceeded through the fun part of the route where it joins the 10 on Lancaster Ave for about 150 feet before turning back onto Girard. We passed a few schools before crossing the Pennsylvania Main Line, after which the tracks moved to the center of the road. While it’s nice that there are proper ADA stations here, even if they’re still just platforms with nothing on them, it’s bizarre to me that they’re still spaced a block apart so you’re still stopping all the time. Also, cars drive in the center lanes even when they’re not supposed to, and the lanes often double as left-turn lanes, slowing trolleys down when cars have to wait in front at green lights to turn.
Also, on my Friday night ride, we got to experience the fun of loading a wheelchair passenger along this section. While it’s great that SEPTA’s PCCs are wheelchair accessible (unlike the system’s other, newer trolleys, ironically enough), the wheelchair lift process takes forever. The driver has to make multiple trips to and from their seat to the back door to rig the thing up properly. We timed it out: it’s about a three-minute process.
Soon after passing the fantastically-titled School of the Future, we went by the parking garage for the Philadelphia Zoo, which was lit up in a vibrant blue color at night. I appreciate that for the 15’s zoo stop, they did actually give it a shelter with a little bit of vibrancy, probably for the three tourists per year who actually take the 15 to get here. As we crossed under the Northeast Corridor, a beautiful zoo-themed mural adorned the bridge.
Immediately after the zoo, we crossed I-76 and the Schuylkill River, offering a fantastic view of Center City. It’s also one of the few places on the 15 trolley that has enough of a nonstop section that it can get to a similar speed to the surrounding cars. We ran through the edge of Fairmount Park before re-entering rowhouse-land, this time amongst the breweries and cafes of gentrifying Brewerytown.
One of my favorite parts of the 15 came next: the bit where the tracks split into two one-way sections to make their way around Girard College. It’s just a blast when the trolley unexpectedly squeals its way around this tight turn onto the tiny one-way 26th Street. Granted, the westbound route uses two-way roads the whole time, so this 26th Street routing is technically unnecessary, but who cares, it’s neat! We took 26th for a block before another screechy turn onto Poplar Street.
We merged onto College Ave as we passed the sprawling and fancy Girard College campus, which I recently discovered isn’t actually a college, but an elementary/high school. College Ave turned back into Girard Ave, running past a few more specialty schools, as well as many more rowhouses and apartments. Pretty much everyone on the trolley got off at Broad Street, presumably to get on the Broad Street Line, but it was far enough past the evening rush that few people got on to continue east.
Some fringe Temple University buildings showed up here, but at this point, the businesses on Girard got rather austere and suburban-feeling (just like the neighborhood of single-family houses directly south of us). 9th Street was home to the elevated Regional Rail viaduct carrying the SEPTA Main Line, then as Girard narrowed a bit, it became lined with rowhouse structures again (often with businesses on the first floor). It didn’t take long for some big modern apartment buildings to start showing up, signifying that we were entering Fishtown.
Front Street was where the Girard El station was, but the trolley was empty enough that it didn’t make much of an impact on ridership. Girard Ave curved northeast, but just after that, we turned onto Frankford Ave to head to the 15’s temporary loop – because of the ongoing I-95 construction in Port Richmond, the 15 has been relegated to a terminus at Frankford-Delaware for years. The road took us past several bars, under I-95, and past The Fillmore before we pulled into the Frankford-Delaware Loop.
Time for an intermission to review the loop! Yeah, I mean, as far as loops go, it’s…okay. There’s a shelter, some wastebaskets, and some bike racks. Its proximity to the casino gives it great ridership at certain times, but it can be dead at other times. And it has two major problems: first of all, no Key machine, which would be nice to have; and second of all, the route 15 map provided here doesn’t even show it as serving this loop, but rather as going all the way to Port Richmond! C’mon, SEPTA. The 25 and the 43 go by here too, but they just have signs. Overall: 5/10.
But we cannot simply end our 15 review at Frankford-Delaware! For now we must transition to the 15B, which runs from the Girard El station to Richmond-Westmoreland in Port Richmond! And no, I don’t think SEPTA is actually calling it that anymore, since now both legs of the 15 are bus. Except it does appear to be called that on System Status. Uhh…I dunno, let’s just go ride it.
It was Saturday afternoon that some different friends and I took the 15B. We had ridden the normal 15 to Frankford-Delaware and walked up to the 15B’s first stop after the El station, a center median stop at Girard and Frankford. Having made its little loop from Front Street to get onto Girard Ave, the bus rounded the corner from Frankford…onto the far right lane, skipping the median. We had to flag it down, cross in front, and board in the middle of the street!
Now, if you thought the bus skipping the center median was bad, just wait until you see how ambiguous the route of the 15B is. You’ve got the routing shown on the paper schedule, the routing in GTFS (which is used by apps like Google Maps and Transit), and then there’s the routing we actually took: AND NONE OF THEM ARE THE SAME. The System Status shows no detours, and I don’t think there was one on Saturday, either! But okay…the three routes at least start the same, by running down Girard past various businesses and apartments.
The discrepancies began as we approached I-95 when, instead of taking the ramp to Aramingo Ave like what the paper schedule and GTFS say we do, we stayed on Girard, running through the complete and utter wasteland of highway construction. BUT: as it turns out, the route we took is currently the only way of getting to Aramingo. Soooo…maybe SEPTA should update its maps? Especially the GTFS one, which isn’t difficult to do? Especially when this this routing does actually skip some stops on Aramingo? This ramp closure seems relatively long-term, so…might be a good idea…
We used Cumberland Street to get onto Aramingo Ave, but by that point, had we been following the GTFS data, we’d be on Thompson Street! Instead we stuck to the paper schedule, going up the wide Aramingo and passing suburban businesses on both sides. A park and some rowhouses showed up before we went under railroad tracks, and it was all rowhouses on the other side (plus corner businesses).
We took a right onto Allegheny Ave eventually, still following the paper schedule map. This road was a lot busier than Aramingo, with some big churches, a ton of businesses, and a park. And hey, once we got to the intersection with Thompson Street, we were back to following the GTFS routing, too! We turned onto Richmond Street, but now we had to stray from all the maps: because of the ongoing construction at the loop, buses make a big circle via Westmoreland Street, Bath Street, and Allegheny Ave that runs through an industrial area. We got off at the intersection of Allegheny and Richmond.
Route: 15 (63rd-Girard to Richmond-Westmoreland)
Ridership: It’s interesting how the 15 and the 15B actually serve very different purposes. The 15, with its 5,450 average weekday riders, acts not only as a crosstown route, but also as a Girard local bus, with a lot of people taking it for short trips. While the 15B does get local riders, its primary purpose is to be a feeder line, bringing people from Port Richmond to the El and getting 3,250 people per day. The 15 does get higher ridership, but the 15B ends up being much more productive given its significantly shorter length: the 15 averages about 28 passengers per trip over its roughly 50-minute runtime, while the 15B gets about 17 people per trip over the course of 18 minutes. The 15’s low-ish ridership actually surprised me – you’d think a frequent trolley route along such a dense street would get more people!
Pros: We’ll be talking bus versus trolley later, so these are just the pros and cons for the route itself. As far as pros go, it’s fantastic that this is just a route straight across Girard, and the 15B works well as a feeder, too. These things are frequent, as well: they both operate at least every 15 minutes seven days a week (!), with service every ten minutes at rush hour. Even at night, they run at least every 20 minutes until 11 PM on weekdays and 10:40 PM on Saturdays (Sundays it’s only until 8:20 PM, alas), plus there’s half-hourly Owl service! For any SEPTA route, that’s a great schedule.
Cons: Hoo boy. I really don’t know where to begin, especially given the new problems that have arisen with this new bus operation. Well, since I’ve complained about it enough, let’s start with the various routings SEPTA claims the 15B does: what the heck??? The fact that there’s even a discrepancy at all between various official SEPTA outputs is alarming, and it’s even worse that none of them are right. But no, it gets even worse than that: I don’t know what’s going on in SEPTA’s GTFS department, but I guess they decided that since both legs of the 15 are bus now, there’s no need to give them separate designations anymore. So…um…
WHAT IS THIS??? NO!!!!!!!!! For some reason, SEPTA’s GTFS feed now shows the 15 as one continuous route that deviates to Frankford-Delaware! This is completely inaccurate and misleading. If it’s any consolation, the times at least match up with the schedule, and the 15B is coordinated enough with the 15 that there aren’t any weird time jumps in here or anything, but still: these are operated as two separate routes. And not only that, the 15B boards on Front Street underneath the El. But if you look up directions involving that transfer, Google Maps is gonna tell you to board on Girard, because that’s what this fake continuous route does! They need to change this right away, and I wonder how many people have already been misled by it.
This also brings us to the other major problem with the 15’s new bus operation: SEPTA didn’t change the schedule at all. The first issue with this is that the buses travel faster than the trolleys (sorry, trolley fans, but it’s true – we’ll discuss this more later), meaning that vehicles are likely going to be early with this new schedule. Not only that, but SEPTA totally missed an opportunity here to streamline the ride for everyone. As much as I rag on about the incorrect GTFS feed, that’s closer to the ideal situation than what we have. Instead of running two separate 15s that are now both buses (because, you know, that’s not at all confusing, especially given the fact that operators will sign the bus for whatever they want; I’ve seen eastbound vehicles signed as Frankford-Delaware, Front-Girard, Richmond-Westmoreland, and even Richmond-Cumberland, which the 15 never even terminates at), they could’ve combined the two routes and given everyone a one-seat ride again. They would save vehicles from not having to have layovers at both Front-Girard and Frankford-Delaware, and combined with the lower running times from running buses, they could’ve created a schedule that provides more frequent service with the same number of vehicles.
Sigh…anything else? Oh, the stops are too close. As usual. And I find that hilarious, because the center median stops actually required infrastructure to build, and SEPTA still put one every block. Classic.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Girard has a ton of businesses along its entire length. From soul food places in West Philly, to cafes and breweries in Brewerytown, to fast food places around Broad, to the many bars and restaurants of Fishtown, to pubs and ethnic eateries in Port Richmond, there’s pretty much stuff anywhere along here! Also, if it was still running trolleys, I’d say the route itself is nearby and noteworthy, but…no, you’re just getting a bus now.
Final Verdict: 4/10
Look, if you had asked me to review this prior to the bus implementation, I probably would’ve given it a 7. It’s a direct route with a much-better-than-average schedule whose only pitfalls are the standard SEPTA problems: too many stops, mediocre Sunday service (although again, it’s much better than other routes), and the bunching problems that come with running a long-ish route down a busy street. But the way they handled this new bus routing drags the route down so much, from missed scheduling opportunities to confusing routings to completely incorrect GTFS, that I had to lower the score by a lot.
But now, it’s time for the part where I get cancelled: should the 15 be a trolley or a bus? Look, the PCCs are beautiful pieces of machinery. The architectural details, the sounds they make, the fact that they look really good in photos…I love these things as much as anyone. But they lose a lot of their luster when SEPTA treats them like buses, when they should be treated like trains. A trolley like this will only work if it’s separated from traffic; as it stands, the trolley lane often doubles as the left turn lane, so trolleys would get stuck at green lights waiting for cars in front of them to turn left. The bus can just go around them. Not to mention other problems like having to go slowly around curves, the stairs people have to climb up to get on board, and the incredibly long wheelchair process. It also doesn’t help that the trolley routing in Port Richmond stays (and will continue to stay, despite the opportunity to change the route) on Richmond Street, which sticks next to I-95 and the no man’s land around it. It’s more direct than the bus, but it’s barely serving anything.
Am I saying that the 15 shouldn’t be a trolley? No, not necessarily. But in order for a trolley to work, SEPTA needs to take major steps to ensure that they can move down the street with decent speed. This includes not only restricting the existing median portions to trolleys only, but also giving the trolleys their own lane along the rest of the route; consolidating stops so the vehicles can gain more speed between them; getting new, modern trolleys with level boarding (sorry, PCCs); and ideally changing the route in Port Richmond, although we’re past the point of no return on that one. And making the route more traversable by trolleys allows the benefits of trolleys to shine – not only do they look and feel great, but they also have higher capacities than buses. But if SEPTA doesn’t want to make the necessary changes…then I’m okay with the 15 staying a bus forever.
So with that totally-not-controversial message in mind, here are more PCC photos!!!
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
BRTA: 3 (Williamstown/North Adams)
Another North Adams-based shuttle, although this one is much straighter. Today we’re heading to the northwesternmost point of Massachusetts on the 3!
From the Main Street bus stop in North Adams, we looped around the block to the Mohawk Trail, deviating into good ol’ Big Y after we rounded the turn. Once back on the Mohawk Trail, we crossed the Hoosic River, effectively leaving downtown North Adams. The houses along the road were pretty close together, but there was very little development anywhere else around us.
Some industry appeared after we crossed the Hoosic River again, and after some houses (and a nice mountain view), we passed the Stop & Shop that can be deviated into by request (no requests today, luckily). More houses led us across the border to Williamstown, where some suburban retail greeted us. There were also a ton of hotels – this place has some tourist demand!
A crossing of the Green River took us onto Williamstown’s leafy main street lined with large houses set back from the road, but things were a little less ornate when we turned onto Cole Ave. We took a left onto Church Street, serving the Proprietors Fields apartment complex, then we used Southworth Street to get back to the main drag. It was now dominated by the various buildings of Williams College, and we took it as far as Field Park, just outside of the “Williams Inn” – the 3’s last stop.
BRTA Route: 3 (Williamstown/North Adams)
Ridership: Okay, I’ve gotta take this ridership data with a grain of salt: it was taken in August 2017, meaning school wasn’t in session at Williams College, where I would imagine a good amount of route 3 ridership comes from. In that month, it got about 111 riders per weekday and 101 per Saturday, although my summer trip seemed to show higher numbers than that – it got 11 riders one way and 5 in the other direction. So I think any way you slice it, this route may get higher ridership than what the numbers suggest.
Pros: This seems like the most sensible way to connect Williamstown up with the rest of the system. A direct route from Pittsfield would just have too long of a middle-of-nowhere segment to make a lot of sense, and this North Adams shuttle solution probably covers most local needs, anyway. The route has a consistent hourly schedule on weekdays and Saturdays, plus there’s one weekday trip to Pittsfield for Williams College students. Also, in Williamstown, you can connect to not only Peter Pan, but also the Green Mountain Express, a $1 local bus to Bennington, VT!
Cons: The route have a weird eastbound-only deviation to an apartment complex that’s right next to the main road anyway, and it also has an excessive amount of request-only stops. Some are schools, which should really just be added to the schedule in the form of school trips if they actually generate ridership, and others are just weird, like to the Clark Art Institute or to a Goodwill store that would be covered if the 1 was extended to North Adams. It’s probably because of these various by-request deviations that the route’s schedule has to be tremendously padded: our driver would purposely leave late from each terminus (up to ten minutes!) so he wouldn’t have to wait at the stops along the way. Also, the route’s GTFS data (used by Google Maps and other transit apps) strangely shows it ending on the eastern end of the Williams College campus.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Williamstown is a real gem of a Berkshires town, with a nice store-lined main street and many cultural activities at Williams College.
Final Verdict: 5/10
Unlike the 34, which was a loopy shuttle that wasn’t trying to be anything else, the 3 tries to be useful but falls a bit flat. At its core, it offers a convenient shuttle between Williamstown and North Adams, but the ridiculous padding needed to accommodate request stops that are likely barely used is annoying. I’m sorry, but how can a route where it’s necessary to leave ten minutes late just to end up on time by the end of the trip get a better score than this? Plus, it makes it look like a really slow option for potential users – what would be a 12-minute trip by car looks like a 25-minute trip by bus, according to the schedule, when it really only takes about 15!
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
VIDEO: The Longest Bus Ride in America
As promised, on the blog’s seventh anniversary, here’s the video for the longest bus ride in America. Enjoy!
Stadium (NHSL)
For our first review on the wild and wacky Norristown High Speed Line (I’m shocked it’s taken this long to do one), let’s take a look at the newly-renovated Stadium Station! Opened on January 13th (four days ago), the station still has some construction going on, but it’s complete enough that I feel I can review it fairly. Let’s see if SEPTA did a good job with the renovation.
Yeah, this is one of the best stations on the NHSL now, especially when compared to the photos I’ve seen of the old stop. We now have beautiful new shelters, benches, wastebaskets, fences, and signage – the old stop seemed very, very barebones compared to this. The platform can handle two cars, which is something that I can’t believe isn’t always the case. And most importantly: it’s accessible! The NHSL only had four (four!) accessible stations out of its 22 in total, so raising that number to five is at least a step in the right direction.
Parts of the station are still under construction, particularly the entrances. The area around the station has been made a lot friendlier to pedestrians since the station’s old incarnation, but they’re still working on paving over the gravel bits around the entrances. Also, the ramp on the inbound side is still under construction at time of writing, so I guess the station isn’t fully accessible yet. Still…not enough of an excuse for not marking Stadium as accessible on the platform map. OR having the southern terminus of the Broad Street Line be labelled as AT&T?!?? Come on, SEPTA, this is a brand new station!
Station: Stadium (NHSL)
Ridership: Checking 2017 data (since the station was under construction from 2018 until now), this one is definitely in the lower echelon of NHSL stations. It got 209 total passengers per day, with 123 alightings and just 86 boardings (perhaps because at the time, Villanova Station was a more pleasant place to wait, even if one lived slightly closer to Stadium; when getting off the train, it didn’t matter, hence the higher number of alightings). Hopefully the renovations will increase ridership!
Pros: The station really is well-done. The shelters are substantial with plenty of seating, and the new platforms are much better than the ones from before. And it’s accessible now (at least once they finish construction)! The NHSL has such a low percentage of accessible stations that any new one feels like a HUGE deal.
Cons: It would be nice to see an LED screen showing scheduled departures like at Gulph Mills, especially when the NHSL is as infrequent as it is. The outdated map is annoying, of course. Stadium’s biggest flaw, though, is how darn close it is to the next stop, Villanova. They’re 0.3 miles apart. 0.3 miles?! That’s, like, bus stop length!
Nearby and Noteworthy: Some of the Villanova buildings that happen to be closer to Stadium than to Villanova are the theatre and, of course, the stadium.
Final Verdict: 7/10
I really do think that this is the one of the best stations on the Norristown High Speed Line. But why, oh why did this have to be the one that got renovated? If they had spruced up Villanova instead, then they could have potentially cut this station entirely! After all…0.3 miles is sooooooo close. But alas: Stadium is still a great station, it just feels like it doesn’t really need to exist.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
In unimportant news: I turned 20 today. Wowiewowowow! In important news: tomorrow is the blog’s seventh anniversary, and with it will come the longest bus ride in America video! It’s gonna be great (hopefully you agree)!
BRTA: 34 (North Adams Loop)
And here’s how you get from the North Adams Walmart end of the 1 to North Adams proper. Is the 34 a direct shuttle route that lessens the pain from having to transfer from the 1 just to get to downtown North Adams? Or is it an all-over-the-place mess? Uh-oh.
We started by turning onto Route 8, the fast-moving road that goes straight into North Adams. Perfect. There wasn’t much along it besides woods and mountains, so we were able to speed straight up to…an Ocean State Job Lot deviation. But oh well, we were still well on our way to downtown…wait…why are we heading back the way we came? We’re driving all the way back to Walmart? WHAT???
Except we didn’t even deviate into Walmart again, we just turned onto Hodges Cross Road, which is right outside of it. This turned into Church Street as it curved its way north, starting take 2 of our trip toward downtown. The street scenery was diverse, including a high school, a cemetery, some houses, and some industrial buildings. We turned onto Ashland Street, which consisted of scattered industry until it went under some train tracks.
It was much more urban beyond the rail bridge, with dense houses as we came within proximity of (but didn’t deviate to) the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. A few apartment buildings appeared as we came closer to downtown, where we had to turn onto American Legion Drive to get around a depressing shopping center before turning onto Main Street. This road was clearly widened at some point, preserving the historical buildings on the north side while requiring horribly ugly buildings to be built on the other – not a good look. In general, North Adams has had the worst “urban renewal” I’ve ever seen for a small town.
A small, rainbow bus shelter downtown was the main stop, but the 34 continues. After waiting for three minutes (we were early), we took a left onto Church Street and a right onto Mohawk Trail, passing old, sometimes repurposed factories. It became residential as we climbed a hill, and at the top, we did a loop through the neighborhood, going via the Mohawk Forest apartments.
Once again we were early, so we had to wait here for a few minutes. The way back was the same until we came back downtown: here, we turned onto Canal Street, then Eagle Street, in order to do a deviation to the Berkshire Medical Center. Coming from there, we headed back to the downtown stop via River Street, Marshall Street, and Main Street, passing MASS MoCA and the horrible Mohawk Trail overpass along the way.
BRTA Route: 34 (North Adams Loop)
Ridership: Given that this is a little deviatory loop, it’s amazing to me that this is the third-busiest route on the BRTA, with 240 riders per weekday and 166 per Saturday. I don’t think it would be unwise to say that a not-insignificant portion of that number is coming from the 1.
Pros: Taken on its own, it’s a competent loop around North Adams. It’s definitely meant to take people to various places around town, even if it’s not necessarily direct. It runs hourly weekdays and Saturdays, plus there are two additional night trips on weekdays that serve as an extension of the 1’s evening trips to North Adams (and actually run direct).
Cons: But the problem is that the 34 is also meant to be the connector from the 1 to North Adams, and it’s horrible at that! Granted, it’s fairly straight between Walmart and downtown North Adams, aside from…the Ocean State Job Lot deviation. UGH. The route always does it on the northbound, while it’s “by request” on the southbound. That diversion adds five minutes or more to what would normally be a pretty quick trip.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Aside from MASS MoCA and the smaller Berkshire Art Museum, North Adams seems pretty sparse. Businesses try to occupy the few remaining buildings with any kind of charm, but it’s tough when a town has been so thoroughly deprived of its former density and replaced with overpasses and parking lots. But hey, this route also goes by the west portal for the Hoosac Tunnel, so that’s pretty cool!
Final Verdict: 6/10
Why the high-ish score? Because taken on its own, the 34 accomplishes what it’s supposed to: it serves a bunch of stuff in North Adams. It’s where the necessity to take it if you’re coming from Pittsfield comes in that makes it so much worse. I think the onus of this is more on the 1, though: if you extend the 1 to North Adams via Route 8, you can not only bring a one-seat ride from Pittsfield to North Adams, but you can also eliminate the horrible Ocean State Job Lot deviation on this thing.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
73 (Richmond-Westmoreland to Frankford Transportation Center)
The rare short SEPTA route! With only a 23-minute running time, the 73 offers a quick connection between Frankford, the neighborhoods of Bridesburg and Port Richmond, and the 15 trolley…er, 15B bus. Hopefully we get trolley service to Port Richmond again…someday…
We headed straight onto Bridge Street from Frankford Transportation Center, running through a local neighborhood full of rowhouses and little corner shops. Some other points of interest included a small elementary school and a cemetery. It was a nice straight local route…until soon after we crossed Torresdale Ave.
The “Shoppes at Wissinoming” is a recently-built shopping plaza with a ShopRite supermarket in it. SEPTA thought it would be a good idea to have this nice, short, local route deviate in there. Nooooooo! This deviation saves people a five-minute walk…by adding three minutes to everyone else’s trip, because that’s how long the deviation takes! I’m sorry, I know the ShopRite is important, but this does not seem worth it to me.
Continuing on the main route, we ran under the Northeast Corridor and Bridesburg Station, then we passed below I-95 two blocks later. It was industrial as we crossed a small creek and entered Bridesburg proper, where we turned onto the dense, residential Thompson Street. Businesses and churches showed up between the rowhouses.
We joined the 25 and J by taking a left onto Orthodox Street, then we turned onto Richmond Street along a cluster of businesses. This street ran past a cemetery, an elementary school, some industrial buildings, and a ton of rowhouses before crossing beneath the Betsy Ross Bridge. The brief “South Florida block” of Philly, with its single-story houses, came between Frankford Creek and I-95, before the 25 turned off onto Castor Ave and we had Richmond Street to ourselves.
Besides a few small blocks of rowhouses, this section of Richmond Street was pretty industrial. Wherever there weren’t factories, warehouses, or auto shops, though, houses were packed in. Once we hit Westmoreland Street and its currently gutted loop, we headed under I-95 to pull up to the temporary stop.
Route: 73 (Richmond-Westmoreland to Frankford Transportation Center)
Ridership: Keeping in mind that this route is short, its average weekday ridership of 2,422 people isn’t bad. It averages to a little under 20 riders per trip, which is great when the trip only takes about 20 minutes to begin with.
Pros: This is the kind of route you don’t often see on SEPTA: a short subway feeder that serves a few neighborhoods and that’s about it. It’s the kind of route that I really like, since you can run better service with fewer buses, and on-time performance is typically better. Indeed, the 73 has an 87% on-time rate – not bad for a mixed-traffic bus – and it operates at a respectable every 20 minutes on weekdays. At rush hour that increases to every 16-17 minutes, and the route even runs overnight, with hourly service seven days a week.
Cons: At every half hour, evening and weekend service could be improved. Maybe that could be done by taking off some service at rush hour: the 73 has one of the biggest productivity losses at rush hour, despite the scheduled trip time barely being longer than midday, so the culprit is likely less busy buses. The load profile seems to confirm this, showing that aside from the route’s school trips (which pack ’em in), buses very rarely get more than twenty riders at once – I would take a bus off from rush hours to keep the headway at every 20 minutes, then put it on Saturdays to increase those frequencies to every 20 as well.
There are a couple of other concerns as well. First of all, I don’t think the Shoppes at Wissinoming deviation is worth it, especially when the route is so short – should 15% of the running time really be dedicated to looping around a parking lot? Also, I don’t understand why it splits into two one-way segments in Bridesburg – the southbound runs on Thompson while the northbound runs on Richmond. Richmond is wide enough to handle buses travelling in both directions. Even though Thompson serves more, is it really worth it when the bus that runs down it only takes you in one direction? The two streets are a three minute walk apart, anyway.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Port Richmond and Bridesburg are both great neighborhoods to find a local corner restaurant or bar, often Polish or Irish.
Final Verdict: 5/10
Argh, I’m torn. The 73’s short length is really appealing, especially when it serves neighborhoods that are dense enough to generate pretty good ridership. The weekday schedule isn’t bad, too, and it’s fantastic that SEPTA gives this route owl service. But man, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with this thing! They’re easy to fix, though: make rush hour service every 20 minutes and use the resources to improve the Saturday schedule; eliminate the Wissinoming deviation; and run two-way service on Richmond Street. Bam, you’ve got a solid 7/10 or maybe even 8/10 route.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
BRTA: 1 (North Adams/Pittsfield)
Okay, that’s kind of a lie, though…the 1 goes as far as the Walmart in North Adams. It’s technically in North Adams, but it’s pretty darn far from anything else in the city. But this is the BRTA’s only link from the northern part of its system to Pittsfield, so we’re stuck on it.
We headed out from the Intermodal Center on North Street, running through downtown Pittsfield before turning onto the lower-density Tyler Street. There were a lot of businesses along here, most with little parking lots; dense houses lined the side streets. We eventually merged onto Dalton Ave, which gained a median as it ran through a leafy residential area.
I’m not quite sure why, but we suddenly turned onto Plastics Ave, a street pretty much exclusively meant to serve some giant factories. Maybe it attracts industrial workers. We then took a left onto Merrill Road, which led us back up toward the street we had been on before; we ended up at a cluster of malls that a ton of BRTA routes serve, each with a different routing through the complex. The 1 is the only one that doesn’t deviate into any of the plazas, running straight through on Cheshire Road (albeit with street stops). We arrived here three minutes early, so we had to wait outside of Stop & Shop.
It was residential as we left the mall complex on Cheshire Road, but a curtain of forest separated those neighborhoods from industrial facilities further up the road. As we entered Lanesborough, it was time to deviate into the Berkshire Mall, which is now entirely closed except for a Target and a Regal Cinemas. We were four minutes early, so we had to sit here and wait.
We were pretty much in the woods north of the mall, with only the occasional auto-oriented business showing up. A few churches and houses marked the village of Berkshire, but we sped straight through, entering Cheshire and going by a farm market. The road ran alongside the Cheshire Reservoir before entering Cheshire Center, where we turned onto Church Street.
This downtown was pretty much all residential, plus a few churches, some municipal buildings, and a post office. We turned onto School Street, crossing the Appalachian Trail, then we used Richardson Street to get back onto State Road, the main road. Continuing north, there were sparse houses and lots and lots of woods.
Soon after we entered Adams, dense houses lined the road. We crossed the Hoosac River, which was running in a canal at this point, and pretty soon we were in Adams Center (a surprisingly big town center, considering that North Adams tends to get all the attention). The bus did a brief jog to serve more of the downtown, which didn’t have the beautiful architecture of a lot of charming Berkshire towns (with a few exceptions), but it was a nice collection of casual restaurants and a few shops.
The built-up part of Adams continued for a while north, with lots of houses along the main drag, Columbia Road, and some businesses too. One interesting stretch of (likely factory-built) rowhouses lasted for a few blocks. The constant stream of houses and retail ended about half a mile down the road from the North Adams Walmart, the last stop on our trip.
BRTA Route: 1 (North Adams/Pittsfield)
Ridership: This is the BRTA’s busiest route by a long shot, getting about 426 average weekday riders and 332 average Saturday riders in August 2017. My trip only got 7 people, but it was probably an outlier.
Pros: This is the northern spine of the BRTA, and it performs that function pretty well. It offers hourly service on weekdays and Saturdays, plus some extra night trips on weekdays. While I wish the route went further into North Adams (see “Cons”), at least there’s a timed transfer to a shuttle route, the 34, at Walmart.
Cons: Cheshire Center is only served by every other bus during midday periods, which means it only gets service every two hours – why not just skip it entirely? There’s not much there, and it’s all within walking distance of the main road. The Adams Center jog has more along it, but skipping that would also save time while still leaving everything within an easy walk from the route. Also, if my trip was any indication, buses seem to run early on the 1 and be forced to wait. So what you do is take the running time saved from skipping the two town center jogs and removing some padding and extend the darn route to North Adams proper! Ending it at Walmart and making people transfer to a slow shuttle is ridiculous.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Of the town centers served directly by the 1, Adams is the better of the two, but it doesn’t seem to offer quite as much as other towns in the Berkshires, like the ones served by the 2 and 21. If you like dead malls, though, the Berkshire Mall might be worth a trip…although I’m not sure if you can actually see the parts of it beyond the Target and Regal Cinemas.
Final Verdict: 6/10
The 1 is a fine route with good bones, but it could stand to be streamlined and expanded. I think it could be accomplished cost-neutral by shaving off the town center deviations (heck, maybe even get rid of the Berkshire Mall one, since I doubt that’s attracting too much ridership anymore) and removing some padding. Some passengers would have to walk a few minutes to get to the bus, but everyone would still be served, and the 1 could add the dense downtown North Adams to its list of places it connects to Pittsfield.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
Bridesburg
Yikes, SEPTA, I’m really sorry for covering some of your worst stations in such a short succession. And despite having just witnessed North Philadelphia‘s “apocalyptic decrepitude”, Bridesburg still managed to give me a shock when I stepped off an outbound train here. I mean…
What bothers me about Bridesburg isn’t the bombed-out shelter. It’s not the near-absence of a platform, or the fact that what is there is only long enough to handle one car of a train. No, it’s not any of those things: it’s that the track next to the outbound platform is not a SEPTA track. To board or disembark a train, YOU HAVE TO GET ON AT AT LEAST THE SECOND TRACK OVER. And I don’t know if the platform-side track is active (please enlighten me in the comments!), but wouldn’t it be funny if a SEPTA train tried to stop here but a freight train was in the way? I’m sure that doesn’t happen, but it doesn’t change the fact that you have to cross a track to board a train here!
Stairs take you down to street level (this station isn’t accessible, obviously). Bridesburg has no parking, but bus connections are available to the 73 and 84, whose stops only have signs, as per usual. You have to go under the grungy Northeast Corridor tracks to cross to the other side and use the inbound stairs.
Alright, credit where credit is due: Bridesburg’s inbound platform is better. It’s a real platform this time, with actual ADA strips and a wooden floor. Plus, you can board without having to cross a track, thank goodness. I don’t want to give it too much praise, though: the shelter is still a complete mess, and the platform is still tiny.
Station: Bridesburg
Ridership: Very low, at just 164 boardings and alightings per day. I suppose that’s at least representative of the awfulness of the station, but it’s also just a side effect of having a Regional Rail station in an urban neighborhood: Regional Rail isn’t “for” these neighborhoods, at least not with its current fare structure. It also doesn’t help that Frankford Transportation Center is only a mile away – that probably siphons away some of Bridesburg’s ridership.
Pros: Uhh…the inbound side has a real platform…that’s good…
Cons: It should be obvious that nearly everything about Bridesburg is terrible. The platforms are tiny, the pedestrian access to the station is weak (despite the stop not having parking), and the outbound platform is just an absolute mess. Why hasn’t it gotten a renovation like the inbound side? Is it something to do with that extra track you have to cross to board the train? Also, wouldn’t it be a good idea to put bike racks here? Most of the actual neighborhood of Bridesburg is pretty far from here, so a few places to put bikes could help attract new riders. Just a suggestion for once the outbound platform stops being a danger to humanity.
Nearby and Noteworthy: A dive bar called “Fibber McGee’s Pub” is right next to the station? Yup, we’re definitely in Bridesburg!
Final Verdict: 1/10
Some would argue that the inbound platform is passable enough that this station should get a 2. I would argue that the outbound platform is horrible enough that this station is lucky to scrape a 1.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
BRTA: 2 (Pittsfield/Lee)
Time to continue our trip into Pittsfield! There was a timed connection between the 21 and the truck minibus running on the 2, so we can begin this shindig right away…
Coming down the hill from the Lee Premium Outlets, our surprisingly-not-the-worst-thing-ever truck minibus turned onto Housatonic Street and crossed I-90. There were some suburban businesses around the exit, but as we turned onto Main Street, we entered another lovely Berkshires downtown, Lee Center. But the experience was made much weirder when we, for some reason, deviated into a gas station next to the road! I get that that’s where Greyhound buses stop, but it’s literally right off the road, and Greyhounds only stop there once a day in each direction.
We turned onto Center Street after the gas station, which turned into Columbia Street as it snaked past some industrial buildings. It became Mill Street before we crossed the Housatonic River, entering Lenox and the residential village of Lenox Dale. We turned onto Crystal Street in the village, which ran along the river past more industrial buildings.
We turned onto Housatonic Street, which ran through the woods before getting houses pretty consistently. This road led us to our second wonderful downtown, Lenox Center. We headed onto Main Street from here, heading past leafy houses and inns. Any kind of charm was lost when we merged onto the wide Route 20, though, which had little pockets of suburban development.
We deviated into a Price Chopper, returned to the main road, deviated to a Stop & Shop, and returned to the main road again. We were in Pittsfield now, but there was actually an extended forest section before we entered the city’s urban area. Denser houses lined the road, eventually leading us into downtown Pittsfield and to the BRTA terminal.
BRTA Route: 2 (Pittsfield/Lee)
Ridership: My ridership data is from summer 2017, when this was the second-busiest route on the BRTA: around 275 average weekday passengers and 175 average Saturday passengers. As a long route connecting up multiple towns, I can definitely see why this one performs so well relative to the rest of the system. It averages out to around 11 people per ride, which is…exactly what mine got!
Pros: Similar to the 21, the 2’s path is a bit windy, but it’s impossible to serve all of the major population centers without being twisty. The timed connections to the 21 at Lee Premium Outlets are great; it would be cool if there was just one route from Pittsfield to Great Barrington, but at least the transfer is easy. With hourly headways on weekdays and Saturdays, this route provides a pretty good baseline for a rural service.
Cons: There’s not a ton that’s inherently wrong with the 2. It would be nice to see ridership by stop on this thing, especially when it comes to the feasibility of straightening the route from Lenox Dale to Lenox, but the twists don’t add that much time to the service.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Again, too much! You’ve got the fantastic downtowns of Lee and Lenox, plus the route goes straight past the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum!
Final Verdict: 8/10
A really solid backbone to the BRTA system. It would be awesome to see this one combined with the 21 to create a north-south spine along the whole southwestern part of the state, along with route modifications to perhaps straighten the thing out. Still, at least there’s a timed transfer at Lee Premium Outlets, and taken on its own, the 2 does its job pretty darn well.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
The Longest Bus Ride in America
My friend Nathan and I have just completed (well, sorta – read more to find out) the longest bus ride in America: Greyhound Schedule 1675 from New York City to Los Angeles. We live-Tweeted the whole thing, and it is truly an experience. From the highest highs (the wonderful landscapes of Utah and Colorado) to the lowest lows (Greyhound stealing our luggage and blaming us for it), this is worth your time to read if you like crazy adventures. Check it out on Twitter or this cool website that condensed the mega-thread into something more readable.
Service Change: Riding the Entire DC Metro in a Day
Alright, let’s start 2020 off with something fun. Back in mid-November, Amtrak had a 50% off deal, making it the perfect opportunity to accomplish two goals: finally complete the Northeast Corridor, and ride the entirety of WMATA Metrorail in a day. I started on Northeast Regional Train 151, which only runs on Mondays and Tuesdays for some reason, and took that down to New Carrollton, where our journey begins…
I had only been on the Metro once before, on a trip to DC as a kid that I don’t remember – thus, this was pretty much a fresh start. And my first interaction with this new system was with its imposing fare machines, which are the worst fare machines I’ve ever dealt with. Why are they so huge? Why are the screens so tiny? Why is the select payment type option hidden away on the screen where you select the ticket type? At least I was able to borrow a friend’s SmarTrip card, so I didn’t have to spend the $2 to get a new one. I bought a $13 unlimited day pass, meaning I wouldn’t have to worry about Metrorail’s ridiculous fare system.
My first trip was on a 7000-series car, the newest kind that Metrorail operates (and which don’t actually announce what kind of car they are anymore). The inside was great, with lots of screens providing information about upcoming stops, including LCD ones showing more detailed information. The robotic announcements were weird, but these cars offered a nice ride overall.
New Carrollton is the terminus of the Orange Line, and it runs above ground all the way until it merges with the Blue and Silver Lines. The first part of the trip is pretty boring, though – it just goes along the Northeast Corridor, and the first three stops are park-and-rides. Even when the Corridor turns away, you’re still running along freight tracks for a bit. There was a nice elevated section along Benning Road, over the Anacostia River, and through a stadium parking lot before heading underground, though.
I got off the train at Stadium-Armory, the first underground stop and the first stop that connects with the Blue and Silver Lines – I would be taking that combo back out of the city. Before doing that, I just had to take some time to admire the station: the cavernous design is just fantastic. My Blue Line train was another 7000-series, and it was the first of many that day that I would have to myself.
The Blue-Silver combo goes underground through some suburban areas for a few stops. It was along this section that I realized two things: 1) It takes forever to stop at each station because of a required wait time that the operator must adhere to before opening the doors; and 2) Every underground Metrorail station looks exactly the same, so the wonder and majesty of Stadium-Armory wore off pretty quickly (it’s still a great design, though). Both of these aspects of the system would prove to get pretty grating as the day went on.
The final three stops on the line are above ground, but there’s a lot of ducking in and out of tunnels along the tracks between them. Largo Town Center was the last stop, referring to a nearby fake suburban downtown, but I didn’t get out to explore it: I stayed on the train to return to Addison Road-Seat Pleasant. Coming into Largo Town Center, I appreciated the automatic announcement saying that the platforms at the terminal were occupied and we would move as soon as they were cleared.
Because it would be kinda boring to exclusively ride trains, I made sure I would get to do at least a few bus rides on my travels. At Addison Road, I could connect to the P12, which would take me down to Suitland Station on the Green Line. Don’t ask why there’s a P in there: Metrobus’s ridiculously confusing numbering system is explained here.
The P12 was a really suburban run, serving a lot of isolated apartment developments and shopping plazas in the middle of what would have otherwise been woods. The bus got pretty busy over the course of my 20-minute ride, though (it’s actually a much longer route), and I was really impressed with the number of shelters, especially given the low density of the surroundings. A lot of them even had real-time information!
Suitland is the second-to-last stop on the Green Line, so I hopped on my next train, another empty 7000-series car, to make the one-stop trip to Branch Avenue. This was a giant park-and-ride with some transit-oriented development nearby. From here, I turned around to do a full trip on the Green Line. The whole above ground section was mostly forest, and all four outdoor stations were park-and-rides with not much else around.
As I mentioned before, though, every subway station in DC has the exact same design. The Green Line is fully underground for twelve stops – and stops are spaced pretty far apart on Metrorail. As you can imagine, this was miserably boring, although we at least got to pay a visit to the most ridiculous station name on the system: U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo.
Fort Totten was the first above ground stop. We got some nice water views around Hyattsville Station, and eventually the line joined up with a MARC corridor (with a neat view of the College Park Aviation Museum). Greenbelt was the final stop, a park-and-ride with its own highway interchange.
I returned to Fort Totten on the same train to transfer to the Red Line. The Red Line is shaped like a giant U; Fort Totten is in the middle of its right leg. I headed north from here, and the line actually passed through some town centers for once, including the heavily built-up Silver Spring. It was underground past Silver Spring, alas, with the line running in tunnel all the way to the last stop, Glenmont.
I wasn’t interested in Glenmont, though – I was interested in the second-to-last stop, Wheaton. Wheaton is home to the longest escalators in the Western Hemisphere, and they are long. It’s also one of two subway stations on the Metro (the other being the next stop, Forest Glen) to feature single-bore platforms instead of the giant vault design seen everywhere else, so even that was a welcome change.
The Red Line is a giant U, as I mentioned before, so there are plenty of bus routes that connect between the two legs. The one from Wheaton is the C4, which is yet another bus that runs through suburbia, this time on giant roads that go by hundreds of single-family homes. We left Wheaton five minutes early (oof!) to travel down some of these giant roads past single-family homes, although they turned to office parks right around Twinbrook Station, the last stop.
Shady Grove is a giant park-and-ride, and the line runs alongside MARC from there until Twinbrook. Rockville comes between the two, and that stop serves a dense downtown, plus it gets MARC service. South of Twinbrook, we headed away from the MARC tracks, going in and out of tunnels before running underground through the denser surroundings of DC.
The line was fully underground until Union Station, shortly after which it rises up to run along the railroad tracks. This is the only part of Metrorail that goes outside through a properly dense part of the city, so there were some nice views of apartment buildings and new ones under construction. We soon ended up back at Fort Totten, where it was time to hop on the Yellow Line.
The Yellow Line runs underground with the Green Line until L’Enfant Plaza, where it splits off to cross the Potomac. It does so on a bridge, offering the absolute best view on the system, including the skyline of Rosslyn and some major DC landmarks. Coming off the bridge, we went back underground to join the Blue Line, stopping a few times before rising up again at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The distance from the airport to the next stop, Braddock Road, was a full five minutes, among the longer distances between two stops on the system. The next four stops on the Yellow Line, though, are among the closest: it takes just 6 minutes to go between them all, from Braddock Road to the last stop, Huntington. The last two are independent to the Yellow Line, with the Blue Line having split off after King Street Station.
Most stations on Metrorail are generic, but Huntington actually has something unique to offer. The station is built into a hill, so half of it is above ground level and half of it is below. Running along the escalator that goes up to ground level is the slow but very cool glass inclined elevator. Of course I had to take that for a ride!
I got another Yellow Line train back up to King Street to tackle the Blue Line’s branch, which is also two stops long. Those stops are much further apart, though: from King Street to the next stop, Van Dorn Street, you’re on the train for six minutes. Franconia-Springfield is another six minutes from there. It was above ground the whole time, but the views were just suburbia.
Once again, I doubled back, but before finishing the rest of the Blue Line after its northern split from the Yellow, I had a little oddity to ride first: the Metroway. This is Metro’s, er, “BRT” line that seems to be more of a real estate booster than anything. The fact that it’s a measly every 20 minutes on weekends should be an indication of the ridership this thing gets, although it does manage every 8-12 on weekdays. However, it ends at 10 PM every day except Friday and Saturday, which is hilariously early.
The route begins at Braddock Road Station and runs in mixed traffic for the first while. You pay on board, which would usually be a detriment to BRT service, but so few people use this thing that it probably doesn’t slow it down that much. My bus had a whole one person on it. After we crossed the Metro on a bridge, though, the road we were on got a center-running busway, complete with transit signals. That was pretty cool…until we just randomly turned off the road into mixed traffic again for the sole purpose of deviating to the back of a shopping mall. You know…BRT!
But then coming back from the deviation onto the main road, we actually got our own exclusive transitway! It even came with overbuilt stations similar to Box District – although I’ll bet even the SL3 gets more ridership than this, and certainly more on a stop-by-stop basis. The surroundings consisted almost entirely of new development.
And almost as quickly as it began, the transitway ended as we entered Crystal City. We looped around through the neighborhood in mixed traffic, which consisted of office towers with businesses on the ground floor, stopping at the Crystal City Metrorail station along the way. From there, it was a nonstop trip to the final stop on the line, the next Metrorail stop, Pentagon City. In total, we got 8 riders. Hopefully Amazon’s arrival in the area will help Metroway’s ridership – at the very least, they plan to add transit lanes and new stops between Crystal City and Pentagon City.
Conveniently, the Metroway begins and ends at Blue Line stations, so I just hopped back on the Blue Line from Pentagon City. We split off from the Yellow Line after the next stop, Pentagon, and briefly came above ground to serve the one independent station along this stretch, Arlington Cemetery. It was back under from there to join up with the Orange and Silver Lines at Rosslyn, where I got off to hop on the former.
This part of Arlington is really dense, so the line was underground for a few stops heading out from Rosslyn. We eventually surfaced in the median of a highway and stayed in it all the way to the last stop, Vienna/Fairfax-GMU. As you would expect for a highway median terminal station, it’s a huge park-and-ride and bus terminal.
I accidentally fell asleep on my ride back (highways are boring, and it was a long day!) and missed my stop, so I had to change to the Silver Line a few stations after it rejoins with the Orange. The Silver Line’s independent section has a lot of highway running too, but it’s got an extended (mostly elevated) “deviation” to better serve Tysons. This is a super dense suburban job center, so a lot of reverse commuters were waiting on the opposite platform to go back to DC, although many regular commuters got off along here too. The last stop, Reston, is really far out, but the line is actually planned to be extended further, to Dulles Airport and beyond.
It was time to do the final part of the system! All I had to do was take the Silver Line back to Stadium-Armory, hitting up the underground stops east of Rosslyn that I hadn’t covered yet. And from Stadium-Armory…well, there was one more transit thing I had to do here…
I had to ride the DC Streetcar! And conveniently, Stadium-Armory is the closest Metrorail station to the first stop on that! I could’ve walked there, but I figured I’d take a bus, since I hadn’t done any urban bus routes yet. The B2 was running every 20 minutes by this time of the evening, but that thing was busy as it made its way past tons of rowhouses. Far busier than Metroway, I’ll tell you that much…
It dropped me off at 15th and Benning Road; the streetcar runs on Benning, but it begins over at 26th. I could’ve taken the X2 if I had wanted to, which is pretty much the direct competitor to the streetcar (running further on both ends and just generally being faster and better). Nonetheless, I walked to the stop, just missing a streetcar and having to wait ten minutes for the next one.
Like most new streetcar constructions in the US, the DC Streetcar was terrible. As far as I can tell, people only use it because it’s free, with many riders going only a few blocks (not that it had many people to begin with). Ones going the other way were admittedly busy, but if the money spent on this mixed traffic streetcar had been used for bus lanes and increased frequencies on the X2, you’d be providing a much better service. Even as it stands, buses constantly pass streetcars.
Once Benning Road turned into H Street, the scenery was your typical “this area is gentrifying so let’s put a streetcar in it!” kind of neighborhood. Still, it seemed like a nice area to walk around in. The streetcar was brutally slow (it’s scheduled to take 20 minutes while the bus is scheduled for 10), but we eventually reached its weird stub of a terminus outside of the Union Station bus terminal. If the proposed extension plans happen, the streetcar could be useful, but it would have to come with dedicated lanes and increased speeds – as it stands, I’ll bet its ridership would be very low if it wasn’t free. And it’s already pretty low.
I got dinner within Union Station and still had two hours until my train, so I grabbed the Metro and headed to the National Mall to become a tourist for a bit. The huge monuments were made even better by the fact that it was a rainy Monday night, so not many people were around. I got a bit of a scare on the way back, though: the Red Line was running at 15-minute headways. Had I missed the train that was coming in two minutes, I would’ve missed my Amtrak from Union Station, which was the last one of the night!
Metrorail’s infrastructure is really impressive: it’s a big system that covers downtown and the surrounding suburbs pretty darn well. The stations are samey, but their designs are mostly fantastic, particularly the underground ones. However, dwell times at each station are long because of the wait to open the doors, and it seemed like there were signal problems or “track conditions” occurring all day – luckily never where I was at any given time. The system seems peaky, too, with a lot of quiet or empty trains outside of rush hour, and pretty bad headways during those times to match. Luckily, the system has good bones, so all it could take is continued maintenance and some operational changes to turn it into a world-class subway for the US capital. And for a ton more insight on the system, check out Metro-Venture, a now-defunct inspiration-of-an-inspiration for this blog!
North Philadelphia and North Broad
Alright, this might just be the most bizarre station I’ve ever reviewed…and I have Hastings under my belt. It’s hard to effectively set up the apocalyptic decrepitude of the North Philadelphia complex without getting specific, so I’m just gonna go into this. Also, SEPTA considers this to be four stations (North Philadelphia (CHW), North Philadelphia (TRE), North Philadelphia (BSL), North Broad), so it’s a quadruple post! Wow!
Yeah, that one line of graffiti really stands out. As does the graffiti on the station signs that SEPTA put up. How about the ragtag chain link fence with the “DANGER KEEP OUT” signs that clearly aren’t stopping people from climbing into the abandoned industrial lot? The “TUNNEL CLOSED” board across what used to be an underpass to get between the platforms? This is just the Chestnut Hill West side. We’re just getting started.
But even putting aside the obvious signs of neglect here, it’s also just not a very good station. There’s just one shelter on each side, and since both have had all their glass kicked out, they’re not particularly useful. Only the inbound side gets the step to help people get up to the train, so people who have trouble with large steps: you’re out of luck if you’re getting off or on an outbound train. Since the station’s underpass is out of commission, you have to use the level crossing at the far end of the platform (or just cross the tracks anywhere – not like anyone cares).
As I was taking pictures on the platform, an older white couple was walking around the station. “They don’t look like they belong here…” I thought. They came up to me as I made my way toward the Trenton Line part of the station. “We were trying to go to Paoli but we got on the wrong train,” they said. “Do you know when the next one back to 30th Street is?” Yup, that sounded about right.
With the couple on their way to the right platform, I proceeded with my review. The outbound side of the Chestnut Hill West station has this giant open area with nothing on it, but it leads to stairs and a ramp that go down to the rest of the station (not that the ramp is particularly useful – the station isn’t accessible). Key readers are stationed at the entrance to the platform.
I guess I can see how the Chestnut Hill West and Trenton stations are considered separate things – the platforms are a bit apart, connected by this bizarre entrance area. When you’re coming from the Chestnut Hill West side, you see a bus shelter (no glass remaining, of course) with nothing in it. Who knows what purpose it served.
Before we get to the elephant in the room that is the abandoned station building, we first must talk about the parking lot. Oh, wait, excuse me…the purposeless asphalt. Because this thing is empty, and I’m pretty sure you’re not actually allowed to park in there. Even if you are allowed, very few people do, making it a perfect place to do some donuts! Note the distant skidmarks above.
People do seem to park on the road that leads to the parking lot – perhaps that’s classified as streetside parking? Also, who knows if they’re getting trains or if they’re just residents who couldn’t find a place to park? The drop-off area is still intact, luckily, and it’s centered around this nice turnaround loop with an old Amtrak logo painted on it. Amtrak, for the record, considers the parking availability here to be “unknown”. SEPTA says there’s a “Non-SEPTA” lot with a hundred spaces, but the big empty lot definitely has more than that. So not even the trains that stop here know if you can park or not.
Okay, this building. As you can see, it looks like something straight out of communist Russia, and it’s definitely degraded a bit since it was originally built. It had a long heyday, though: Amtrak built this in 1991, and it efficiently served happy customers until…2001, when it was closed down and abandoned. Now it just stands there, adding to the station’s weird decrepit, er, “charm”.
The reason the station has these ornate facades is that it used to get much more service. Trains have to reverse in and out of 30th Street when going from New York to points west of Philly; that meant that Pennsylvania Railroad service often used this station as its one Philadelphia stop, since it avoided that reverse move and this area was thriving pre-World War II. North Philadelphia hit a major decline after the war, though, and this station slowly lost importance and degraded to what it is today. On the Amtrak front, it only gets one northbound and three southbound trains per day, designed for commuters to New York. Most SEPTA Trenton Line trains stop here, though.
The hallway that takes you to the platforms and acts as an underpass beneath the station was my first time feeling genuinely unsettled here. It’s a dark, austere path with simple graffiti all over the walls, and it feels very sketchy to walk through. I do love the old signs, though – they direct you toward nonexistent trains to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. There’s pretty much no modern Regional Rail signage in here, though, so these outdated-by-a-long-shot signs are all you get. The remnants of old pay phones are still on the walls, while mysterious locked doors lead to possible storage locations.
Stairs lead up to both of the station’s platforms (complete with the same aesthetic as the hallway), but there are also elevators. So…why is this station considered inaccessible, then? Ah, here we go from Wikipedia: “Vandalism also forced the closure of the elevators.” Waitwaitwait…so people were doing such horrible stuff in the elevators that SEPTA or Amtrak or whatever had to close them down, making the station inaccessible??? In all my years of station reviewing, I’ve never seen anything like this.
North Philadelphia’s platforms are longgggg. The only part of them with stuff, though, is the one bit of each where the stairs come up. The little shelters there have a few benches, some wastebaskets, and a few Key readers. No LED screens. No amenities at any other part of the platform. Just these two little benches and some wastebaskets. The rest of the wide open platforms are bare, making them great places (so I’ve seen, anyway) to ride bikes or just stand around with no intention of getting a train.
Continuing down the dark hallway, we pop up on the other side in a shopping center along Glenwood Ave and Broad Street. Here we can see the old station building, with its beautiful architecture, ornate details, and…loud music being blasted out from a radio. Yes, the building received a $7 million renovation in 1999 to be used as commercial space, and it’s now being occupied by “AZ Budget”, a store selling ridiculously cheap merchandise from clothing to furniture. Well, it sure as heck is a better use of the space than leaving it to be abandoned.
Before tackling the Broad Street Line station, an entrance to which is right outside AZ Budget, I want to hop from the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Reading Railroad to review its station, North Broad. Only a few blocks south from North Philadelphia Station, North Broad was built in 1928 to compete with it, featuring a magnificent building, an underground walkway to Broad Street, and island platforms serving all four tracks on the line. So…let’s see what it’s like today!
Okay, so North Broad isn’t quite the majesty it used to be. SEPTA “rebuilt” the station in 1992, demolishing the island platforms and replacing them with these tiny side platforms so express trains could speed through faster. And speed through they do: seven Regional Rail lines serve this section of track, but only the Norristown and Doylestown Lines actually stop here, providing service about every half hour despite the fact that trains pass through every few minutes. I at least understand the desire to speed express trains up, but why did they think it was a good idea to build the new platforms so tiny?? Being able to open just one or two cars of a six-car train here is just ridiculous!
There isn’t a ton to say about the northbound platform I got dropped off on: a few benches, a graffitied shelter, and a wastebasket are about all that’s on offer here. There is a mini-high platform, though, actually making this station accessible! My company here consisted of someone rummaging through the trash, and a student with bright clothes and a big backpack looking around and calling someone on her phone. Turned out she had gotten on the wrong train, just like the couple at North Philadelphia.
A ramp leads from the platform to the exit. It has high chain link fences on both sides, plus a bit of barbed wire here and there for good measure. The surroundings are very industrial as the rusting path curves its way up to Broad Street; you can look down and see a trash-filled pit, too. The entrance is actually decent, though, with fine signage and even a single bike rack…with a destroyed bike locked up to it. Guess no one will be parking there anytime soon.
I tried to get to the inbound platform from here, so I crossed the tracks along Broad Street. A nice mural with different patterns lines the wall along the bridge before a SEPTA station sign appears at an alley that leads down to the tracks. Perfect. But actually, no…a fence blocks the alley from the station. Don’t mislead me with your sign placement, SEPTA!
So instead, you have to walk past the station building (more on that later) and hope that you find the teeny-tiny train symbol attached to a wall that can only be seen if you’re walking southward. This points down the correct path, along an alley next to an abandoned factory with half its windows knocked out and a barbed wire fence that can’t contain the overgrowth coming out from the property. There are some random picnic tables in there, though – why not climb the fence and have a snack?
The alley opens up into a little parking lot, but it’s “by permit only” – presumably not for the station. Two brave people did lock their bikes up to the fence, though! Who needs proper locks when you have…fences? The entrance is much less ornate than on the outbound side (also, “Trains to Central Philadelphia”? Better than “Central City“, but still not good), but the platform is identical to the other side.
Alright, the North Philadelphia building was nice, but North Broad’s really is glorious. The elaborate facade is ruined a bit by the fact that the clock doesn’t work (but hey, if you happened to be here at 4:30, you’d never know) and the fact that someone decided it would be a good idea to stick a big billboard on the top of it, but it still makes for a great addition to Broad Street. It’s now a homeless shelter, a good use for a neighborhood that has certainly seen better days.
And now we return a few blocks north to the day I was reviewing North Philadelphia (or pretend I did all three of these on the same day and just ignore the lighting changes and lack of snow on the ground). I came out of the AZ Budget entrance to review the Broad Street Line station, which bridges the gap between both of the Regional Rail stops. It was rebuilt as recently as 2010, so I’m expecting greatness!
We begin strong with some new entrances that were built in 2007 to allow for better connections to North Philadelphia Station. They’re your standard Broad Street Line affairs, but they look nice and are easy to spot. The bus stops here are standard, too, with your classic northern Broad Street Line routes: the 4, the 16, and the Broad Street Owl.
There’s a distance of about a thousand feet between these, the northernmost entrances, and the southernmost entrances down at Lehigh Ave, so coming from up here, there’s a long hallway to the mezzanine. It’s drab and austere, but it doesn’t feel too dangerous…at least, not until someone appeared around the corner as I approached the stairs leading into the fare payment area. “Hey, buddy, why you taking pictures?” he asked.
“It’s for a blog where I review SEPTA stations,” I said, thinking about how if he had a weapon, he could easily pull it out. “Oh okay,” he said in a threatening voice. “That’s fine, then.” Suddenly two women came running over and looked angrily at me. “What’s going on??” one of them yelled. “Nothing,” the guy said. He looked at me. “He’s just taking pictures for a blog or something.” The women glared. They all retreated to the corner where a group of people were just sitting. No idea what they were up to…
Admittedly, you can kinda do whatever you want here because this entrance has no cashier. To compensate, the fare turnstiles are floor-to-ceiling in an effort to prevent fare evasion. There is a fare machine here, though, contradicting the pre-Key signage at street level that says that the entrance is “for TransPasses and TrailPasses only”. Suddenly, one of the women in the corner got up and glared at me, still taking photos of the mezzanine (although nothing of their group). Time to go, I guess.
Huh, you know those big floor-to-ceiling turnstiles meant to prevent fare evasion? Well, they were unlocked when I was here. “Just go on through,” a random person stepping out said to me. “Yeah, I guess!” I replied. I don’t know if this is still the case, but, uh…free Broad Street Line rides from North Philly if so! The area beyond the fare gates is big and open, with a wastebasket in the middle, a few signs, and a transit police headquarters.
Meanwhile, Lehigh Ave has four headhouses, all on the north side of the intersection. There’s just one on the west side of Broad Street, and it’s a standard staircase; another staircase is located on the east side of Broad Street. There’s also an elevator (the only one at this station), which was smelly and full of trash when I used it. Finally, an upward escalator gets its own exit. Also, while I understand having just signs for the 4 and 16, it’s annoying that there’s no bench or shelter for the 54, a major route at what is probably its busiest stop.
The Lehigh Ave entrances feed into the station’s primary mezzanine. It’s a bit odd that none of them quite make it down to ground level, requiring some extra stairs and ramps, but it’s better than the “step down to go up” business down at Tasker-Morris. The mezzanine itself is as low-capacity as always, with five faregates but just two fare machines. See that wall of exit-only turnstiles to the right of the cashier? How about replacing it with faregates? See all that empty space in the mezzanine? How about replacing it with fare machines?
Alright, actually, it’s pretty odd that once past the faregates, you have to go up a ramp to get to the elevators. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational engineering reason for it, but there’s also a big part of me that just wants to ignore whatever that reason might be and say “That’s stupid, you gotta go down to go up to go down!” But oh well. The elevators here were surprisingly decent, smell-wise, and if you want to take the stairs, you don’t need to use the ramps at all.
The Broad Street Line platform is longgggg. Make sure you’re waiting close to the Lehigh Ave side of it, because the end of the train ends up being nowhere near the Glenwood side. Of course, it’s even worse when a two-car Broad-Ridge Spur train trundles in. But what about regular express trains? Well…although North Philadelphia was built as an express stop to capitalize on the then-importance of the neighboring railroad stations, it doesn’t get the ridership anymore to justify all express trains stopping here. So because the Broad Street Line’s service patterns weren’t already confusing enough, Broad-Ridge Spur expresses make the stop, but the Walnut-Locust ones just speed on through, blaring the horn and scaring everyone on the platform.
As for the amenities on the platform, they’re…fine. You know, you’ve got a few benches, a few wastebaskets, a few maps, a few LED signs – it’s really nothing to write home about. But certainly after the industrial dump of the Chestnut Hill West platform, the rotting hulk of a once-great Trenton Line/Amtrak platform, and the what-were-they-thinking tiny-platform rebuild of North Broad, this Broad Street Line platform is probably the best thing we’ve seen all day. Congrats, you cleared a very low bar.
Stations: North Philadelphia and North Broad
Ridership: The best performer here is the Broad Street Line station, which gets around 4,150 riders per weekday, more than many of its neighboring stops. The problem is that since it gets express service too, the ridership per train is actually much lower here than at most other Broad Street Line stations.
The Trenton Line station is pretty low for Regional Rail, with 195 boardings per weekday (259 alightings, though). Still, it’s better than the poor Chestnut Hill West platform, which gets an abysmal 45 boardings and 24 alightings per day – the fifth least-used station on the entire network. North Broad is in the bottom 25 as well: 142 boardings and 136 alightings per weekday.
But all of those horrible performances still beat the king of low ridership here: Amtrak. Despite having stops in towns as obscure as Connellsville and Tyrone, North Philadelphia is the railroad’s least-used station in Pennsylvania: 2,076 riders in 2018, or just about 8 people per service day. And 2018’s ridership was double that of 2017! Hey, at least it’s on the rise… (these numbers are lower than reality, though, thanks to quirks in monthly pass purchases: many commuters buy passes from 30th Street to New York instead of North Philly to New York, just to have the freedom to board from there if they miss a train – a lot of people are connecting from the Chestnut Hill West Line)
Pros: The Broad Street Line station has decent enough aesthetics and is pretty much your run-of-the-mill BSL stop. North Broad is accessible. And the North Philadelphia Regional Rail station…well, it’s definitely a cool place to get pictures. No, okay, an actual pro: the North Philadelphia Regional Rail station is in Zone 1, making it just $3.75 from there to Trenton (versus $9.25 from Center City). Even with the BSL fare from Center City, it’s still great for reasonably fast train travel to New York if you’re on a budget!
Cons: While the Broad Street Line station is run-of-the-mill, it still has your classic problems with SEPTA subway stations: not enough fare machines, a few architectural quirks (going down to go up to go down), and lots of trash on the tracks. This one also has the strange express situation – I think that in an ideal situation, either all or none of the express trains would stop here, since this half-and-half is confusing, but it’s not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. I sometimes question if SEPTA really needs a cashier at every entrance, but the Glenwood Ave side of this station seems like an entrance that does need a cashier but doesn’t have one. What could those people possibly have been doing in the corner that would require someone to essentially keep guard and make sure no one could potentially document their activities?
Next we move on to North Broad, whose main issues stem from the fact that it’s a tiny stub of a station that gets hardly any service. Look, I get that its ridership is abysmally low and Regional Rail isn’t an affordable option for most people in the surrounding neighborhoods, but that doesn’t change the sadness of watching five trains go by for every one train that actually stops. Of course, signage for the station is terrible, the shelters and ramps are in horrible condition, and the platform can only handle a portion of the train.
But now we come to where this whole thing started: the North Philadelphia Regional Rail/Amtrak station. This thing is such an absolute mess, and it almost boggles the mind how much it’s deteriorated. Where do you even start? The closed passageways? The empty parking lot? The Amtrak building that was only open for ten years before being left to rot? The dark hallway covered in graffiti? The elevators that SEPTA has literally let break, making the station inaccessible? I have never seen anything like this. You could film an apocalypse movie here without having to change anything.
Nearby and Noteworthy: AZ Budget just has one door, as far as I can tell, but it was just completely blocked off by stuff when I was here! Is it possible to get in? Who knows? I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna see any glorious remnants of the old station building in there, but it would still be an interesting place to walk through.
Final Verdict: 6/10 for BSL station, 2/10 for North Broad, 1/10 for North Philadelphia
So I guess that averages out to a 3/10 for the whole complex. The Broad Street Line station isn’t that bad, but the Regional Rail stops drag the whole place down. Again, they barely get any ridership, and as it stands they face serious vandalism problems, so I can see why SEPTA would be hesitant to fix them up. The Broad Street Line is cheap, frequent, and almost just as fast, so of course almost all of the ridership is gonna end up on that. Fare reform on Regional Rail could help bring more riders to these stations, but existing riders and their political representation would certainly not be okay with that. It’s gotten to a point where this neighborhood has fallen so far that transportation improvements are only one tiny piece of the puzzle. There’s a solution out there. It’s beyond the scope of this blog.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
VIDEO: The $4 Greyhound Trip that Takes 8 Hours to go Half a Mile
A Greyhound itinerary from Atlantic City to Atlantic City…via Philly and New York.