123 (King of Prussia to 69th Street Transportation Center)
Getting to the largest mall in the United States from Philly is no small feat, at least until its rail link opens up (in 500 years). Do you brave the Schuylkill Expressway on the 124/125, or do you let the Norristown High Speed Line take you part of the way up? Or, if you’re feeling particularly unorthodox…why not take the 123?
Looping at 69th Street.
Yes, rather than take the Norristown High Speed Line and transfer to the 124/125, why not just get a one-seat express ride from 69th Street to the mall? After all, the highways in the ‘burbs are less likely to experience traffic than the Surekill Distressway, right? I took the route on a Sunday, so there’s not a ton of traffic to begin with, but the route still had a few surprises up its sleeve.
Running through the sprawling SEPTA garage.
We headed up the bus-only road through 69th Street’s huge SEPTA complex, which continued as we turned onto Victory Ave. Turning onto West Chester Pike, I’m sure everyone on the bus was reflecting on how much faster it would’ve been if the 123 boarded from the western side of 69th Street, but alas, it boards on the north side instead. I’m sure it’s a capacity thing, but the bus could save a solid two minutes just from not having to loop through the yard like it does!
Some dense Upper Darby apartments.
West Chester Pike is a huge and important road, so there’s a lot on it (and since there are seven bus routes that use it coming out of 69th Street, I’ll become very familiar with it eventually). It’s four lanes wide with a big median (probably from its old trolley service) and when there’s no traffic, it moves quickly. We passed lots of businesses of various densities and with various parking lot sizes, while the side streets had apartments that started to become houses as we got further west.
A mural in the “Llanerch” neighborhood. Yeah, there are a lot of Welsh names around here.
Generally, the buildings got more suburban as we went along, despite a few promising retail blocks on occasion – West Chester Pike is such a wide and fast-moving road that any attempts at walkability are basically pointless. We dropped someone off at a shopping plaza, then we entered the woods, where it was a ton of trees and a few houses hidden behind them. Suddenly, we merged onto a highway ramp!
Well, this road is trying to be dense and walkable, at least.
Now it was time for the route’s express portion on I-476, more commonly known as the “Blue Route”, even on the SEPTA map for the 123. The name has odd beginnings: it comes from a 1958 report discussing various possible routings for I-476, all represented with different colors. The one that ended up being built was the one colored blue on the map. I have no idea why that stuck, but sure!
Not much to see here.
So, what was the scenery along the Blue Route like? There wasn’t much of it. The highway spends a lot of its time running through parkland, so it was just trees on either side. Even when there weren’t parks, the highway was still lined with trees, while the neighborhoods it was running past had a lot of big houses with huge yards. Not that we could see them.
Wait, what’s going on??
Right near Villanova, we suddenly started to slow down. The driver pulled over into the breakdown lane and stopped the bus. Everything went silent. “This thing’s not working,” the driver said as we sat there, cars whooshing past on the highway. How the heck were we gonna get out of this mess? Would we have to be towed away? Would they have to send another bus out?
Stuck at Mile 13.2.
Oh…a few minutes later, the engine started up again and we were able to pull back into the lane and keep going. I guess it just needed a break. That was less exciting than I was hoping it would be. We continued through the woods at normal speed again.
Going through an interchange.
We navigated through a crazy interchange that was not only between I-476 and I-76, but it also had some weird off-ramps to nearby streets. We used it to get onto I-76, which surely by this point wouldn’t have traffic! Oh wait…this is the Schuylkill Expressway we’re talking about. Of course there was traffic.
Darn it.
We were able to escape at Exit 328, another crazy interchange with a ton of ramps going every which way. Coming onto the very wide Dekalb Pike, we soon turned onto Mall Boulevard, entering the King of Prussia Mall complex. The boulevard went under the mall and around it, then we pulled off into the mall’s bus terminal, arriving 13 minutes late.
What a ride!
Route: 123 (King of Prussia to 69th Street Transportation Center)
Ridership: The 123’s ridership is around the middle of the Suburban Division spectrum, with 902 riders per weekday. I will say that this one probably has an edge over other suburban routes, since I’ll bet weekend ridership is very similar to weekday. Honestly, the 123 is so shopping oriented that I wouldn’t be surprised if Saturday ridership was higher than weekday ridership!
Pros: I gotta say, I like the idea of this route. Its schedule is nice and easy to remember: mostly every half hour, leaving at the same times seven days a week. There are a few variations between days, such as longer trip times on weekdays to accommodate for rush hours, and a very strange occurrence on Saturdays where there are 9:50 PM and 9:52 PM trips from King of Prussia. I’m genuinely curious if the route gets the loads to necessitate that or if it’s just to get a bus back to 69th Street. Probably the latter.
Cons: I think it would make sense if the route was operated pick-up/drop-off only along West Chester Pike; it felt a little unnecessary to drop people off along the local section when other routes combine to make pretty frequent service along there, especially when the 123 is supposed to be an express. Also, don’t be surprised if your bus shows up to its destination later than it’s supposed to – the ride seems to often take longer than it’s scheduled to. I mean, despite our bus breaking down, the biggest source of delay was still the traffic on I-76, and as we know, traffic on that road can show up at any time. Finally, it would save a few minutes if the route boarded from 69th Street’s West Terminal instead of the North Terminal, but I assume capacity constraints won’t let that happen.
Nearby and Noteworthy: The mall. That’s about the only reason this route exists.
Final Verdict: 7/10
The 123 is a creative approach to attempting to solve the King of Prussia access problem. Although its routing isn’t completely free of traffic, it’s a heck of a lot better than taking I-76 all the way into Philly. If SEPTA could change the West Chester Pike service so people couldn’t use this route locally, that would make it even faster!
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: FR 10 (Rodman Street)
Our last SRTA route in Fall River is the other way of getting to Walmart, the 10. I’m pleased to report that it’s not as stupid as the 6, although to be fair, that’s not saying much.
The squat little bus at the terminal.
We looped around onto Rodman Street, which had a few blocks of houses, but there were a ton of suburban businesses at the intersection with Plymouth Ave, including a Stop & Shop. Past there, it went back to being residential, but some retail did come up in between the houses. We were mere blocks from the SRTA’s Fall River garage as we crossed Brayton Ave, and south of there, the houses felt more suburban. Eventually, we turned onto the narrow Kennedy Street, using it to get onto Jefferson Street. This led us back up north to the Walmart.
The picture I took at Walmart was horrible, so here’s a side street just south of it.
SRTA Route: FR 10 (Rodman Street)
Ridership: This route gets around 230 people per day, which is on the low side. I imagine that Walmart is the biggest draw here – it definitely was for my ride.
Pros: Unlike the 6, the 10 does serve actual neighborhoods on its way to Walmart. It’s hourly, weekdays and Saturdays, which makes sense for the ridership. Plus, like I mentioned in my 6 review, service is coordinated between the two routes to be every half hour (not necessarily in practice, but the inconsistency isn’t the 10’s fault).
Cons: This route’s problems are the complete opposite of the 6’s: the 6 is given too much time in the schedule, the 10 is not given enough time; the 6 doesn’t serve much because a lot of the route is industrial, the 10 doesn’t serve much because a lot of the route is suburban housing that, at least on my ride, didn’t generate ridership; the 6 spends too much time duplicating other routes, the 10 spends too much time doing its own thing (i.e. the route is just a long, skinny, and indirect U).
Nearby and Noteworthy: Walmahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht.
Final Verdict: 3/10
Well, serving residential neighborhoods in a U is better than just duplicating other routes and serving industrial wasteland. The 10’s lateness problem is probably better than the 6’s earliness problem overall, although I’d rather the schedule just be accurate. Neither of these routes are particularly good, but of the two, I guess the 10 is slightly better.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
NJT: 507 (Atlantic City – Ocean City)
I don’t know if NJT buses will be part of my jurisdiction yet, but this system fascinates me in how dysfunctional it is – I could talk about how awful NJT is for hours. That’s why whenever I happen to ride one of their routes from beginning to end, I’ll give it a little bonus review here. Today, we’ll be taking a trip to beautiful Ocean City on the 507!
Mm, gotta love these high-floor buses!
Many routes begin at City Center Park at the intersection of Atlantic Ave and South Carolina Ave, and the 507 is one of them. This was the, er, less desirable part of Atlantic City, and Atlantic Ave had a lot of uninteresting businesses and parking lots along it. Once we got to the stop outside the Bus Terminal, though, we had reached the more high-end part of town.
The very wide Christopher Columbus Boulevard.
The glamorous part of Atlantic City is mostly concentrated around the beach, so we were back in a regular neighborhood very soon. The businesses were now in nice brownstone buildings, and they included some cool hole-in-the-wall restaurants among some of the more boring places like convenience stores. Some of the huge hotels of the beach were in view as we went through a park with the Atlantic City Monument in it.
I was sitting on the wrong side to see the monument, so here’s some water.
We turned onto Albany Ave outside the monument, crossing over a little river. On the other side, there were a ton of car dealerships, Surf Stadium, and what appeared to be an abandoned airport. We crossed another body of water onto Great Island, which had two gas stations and a full-on highway interchange just to serve the Atlantic City High School and facilitate u-turns.
Looking across the flat expanse to some wind turbines and casinos in the distance.
Up and over another river, and we were in open marshland, now in the town of Pleasantville. There was a lighthouse that appeared out of nowhere, then the wide road went by an endless sprawl of crappy motels, sketchy businesses, and abandoned buildings. Eventually some side streets started showing up, and we were in a real neighborhood again.
Who knows what this place used to be? It’s a nice building.
We made a one-block jog onto West Jersey Ave to serve the “Pleasantville Bus Terminal”, which was just a rail station converted into a bus shelter. After serving that, we turned onto Main Street, going through “downtown” Pleasantville. Vacant buildings, anyone?
What a great downtown.
And things didn’t get much better past downtown. Main Street just became a sprawl of ugly suburban businesses. It did eventually switch to houses when we entered Northfield (and when the street became Shore Road), but we were driving so quickly that it all flew by. The town of Linwood was also a ton of houses, plus a country club, a park, and a bit of retail.
Wow, this is a nice one!
We entered Somers Point, and there were yet more houses. However, some more stuff started to come up among the homes, including some businesses, apartment complexes, and a hospital. There was suddenly a ton of retail at the intersection with MacArthur Boulevard, including the Circle Liquor Store. Why is this worth mentioning? Because it’s the last one before Ocean City, where liquor stores are illegal. Dry town, baby!
Very important!
Now it was time for the long series of bridges off the mainland and into Ocean City. There was a lot of darting in between little islands on this road, with some spectacular views whenever we crossed the water. Eventually, we reached Ocean City on 9th Street.
Someone’s fishing!
There were dense houses on the immediate side streets, but the wide 9th Street was lined with businesses, from a paint shop to a beach shop to a mini-golf course. As we got closer to the beach, the street got narrower, and there were lots of hotels to be seen. We turned onto Atlantic Ave, and this is where my friends and I left the bus to hit the boardwalk. The bus would spend a few minutes looping back around to the Ocean City Transportation Center, which is in an old train station, similar to Pleasantville.
Going back around to the terminal.
NJT Route: 507 (Atlantic City – Ocean City)
Ridership: NJT doesn’t provide ridership for its individual bus routes, so we’ll use my count from on board. Let’s see here…wait, 50 people? Wow, for a mostly suburban journey, that’s pretty darn good. It also never got too crowded, so everyone always had a seat at any given time.
Pros: This is the most consistent connection between Atlantic City and Ocean City (the 509 does it too, but only on select trips), and it runs all the time. Literally…the 507 runs 24/7 service! It’s consistently every hour no matter what time of day it is, with increased frequency to Atlantic City in the morning and away in the evening. Interestingly, this happens on weekends, too, and I wonder if it’s for people working at the casinos, which certainly are still open during those times. I also like how the 507 has just one variant (two if you count the night trips, which just go directly to the Ocean City Transportation Center, but it’s not that drastic of a change), keeping it simple, which NJT often doesn’t know how to do.
Cons: That increased frequency is a bit strange. Sometimes it’s a clean every half hour, but other times the gaps range from ten minutes to forty minutes. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Also, the 507 has zoned fares, because it’s NJT! I will say that this is a pretty good route for them, since two out of the three zone changes are water crossings, but we do get an arbitrary one on the mainland section. Finally, and this is a very minor nitpick, if the Saturday and Sunday schedules are exactly the same (which they are), couldn’t the route timetable just use a “weekend” schedule instead of printing the same schedule twice? Just a thought.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Ocean City is a much more “family-oriented” beach compared to the madness of Atlantic City’s boardwalk. It costs $3.35 to do the full 507 here, but I would say it’s reasonably worth it. Ocean City even has its own boardwalk that’s a ton of fun.
Final Verdict: 7/10
Huh…I was hoping I could really tear apart my first NJT bus route, but this one is actually not bad. The inconsistent schedule is the worst part of it for me – the route’s only other problem comes from my distaste for zoned fares, but at least water crossings make for logical fare boundaries, and it is a long route. Other than that, the 24-hour service is fantastic, and it’s a pretty direct ride over to Ocean City. Yeah, I actually like a New Jersey Transit route. Put it in the record books!
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: FR 6 (Pleasant Street)
I was very lucky to have taken the FR 6 in the outbound direction. Going outbound, it’s just a nice straight shot to Walmart. Coming inbound, it has to do a strange jog to serve…Battleship Cove. Except Battleship Cove hasn’t been directly served by the SRTA in a while, I think because of construction (not that I can see any now), so the route sorta weakly goes out sorta in the direction of the Cove, and…yeah, it’s just a big mess. Anyway, I’m glad I took it outbound for my sanity.
Let’s go to Walmart!
We headed out onto Pleasant Street, which was mostly industrial, with a few suburban businesses thrown in there. Soon, we turned onto Quarry Street, where the industry, plus some more retail and houses, continued. Crossing over the Quequechan River, the Walmart showed up just after, and everyone was let out at a stop across the street with no crosswalk. On weekdays, the route goes a little further, running down Brayton Ave through a highway interchange before deviating to an elder services building on Father Devalles Boulevard, but on this Saturday, we were at the end. What a fun eight minutes!
The bus again, I guess.
SRTA Route: FR 6 (Pleasant Street)
Ridership: It’s one of the least-used routes in Fall River, getting about 221 people per day. Honestly, based on the industrial nature of the Pleasant Street corridor, I’ll bet most of those passengers are just going to Walmart.
Pros: If you’re going outbound, this is the most direct route to Walmart. The 6 only runs every hour, but it’s coordinated with the 10 to give Walmart half-hourly service.
Cons: There are a lot. Let’s see…the inbound route has its ridiculous jog; the inbound route also runs up the really narrow Quequechan Street instead of Quarry Street, ostensibly to serve some houses, but it’s just a block away, so it’s really just making the route more complicated; the weekday deviation to Father Devalles Boulevard means that outbound headways have to be every 20-40 minutes in conjunction with the 10, rather than a clean every 30 (also, the NB 9 runs closer to Father Devalles Boulevard than the 6 does, but that route is too major to deviate…ideally the 6 wouldn’t deviate either, but maybe it needs to be served for political reasons); the SRTA misspells Father Devalles Boulevard as “Father Devallas Boulevard” on the route schedule; the entire section on Pleasant Street is also covered by the NB 9, which is a much more frequent route, and that means that basically the only purpose of the 6 is to provide slightly more direct Walmart service than the 10; the Walmart stop basically forces people to jaywalk in order to get to their destination; and buses get thirteen minutes to do what is essentially an 8-minute trip, so they’re always early. Phew, that was a lot.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Ehhh…basically just Walmart. The route does cross the Quequechan River Rail Trail, which looks like a nice walk, but at just 1.4 miles, it’s also a short one.
Final Verdict: 2/10
This route is trash. The only thing good about it is that it combines with the 10 to get half-hourly service to Walmart, but that’s it. The 6 isn’t even that much faster – it takes eight minutes, the 10 takes thirteen. Plus, the 6 is scheduled to take thirteen minutes, so to anyone looking at the schedule, they’re exactly the same. And of course, the inbound 6 is just stupid. Yeah, I hate this one.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
Atlantic City Bus Terminal
We’ve looked at the Rail Terminal, now it’s time for the bus terminal! How do they compare? Let’s find out.
I guess flying superheroes ride the bus too, according to the logo!
The Atlantic City bus terminal is mostly reserved for NJT’s longer-distance routes, but all the local routes still stop outside the terminal. It’s a very simple layout: two shelters, one for each direction, on the far side of the intersection. That does mean that if you’re trying to go eastbound on a local route, you have to cross two streets, but it’s not a huge inconvenience. More of an inconvenience is that if you’re trying to go westbound on a local route, tough luck, that shelter has no bench! Oh well! Upcoming departures for these routes are shown on a screen just inside the terminal.
Inside the terminal proper.
Because the buses in Atlantic City run more often than twelve times a day, the main terminal area tends to be busy. There’s a ton of stuff in here, too: benches, wastebaskets, a big clock, departure boards, schedules, vending machines, bathrooms, water fountains, and ticket offices and machines for both NJT and Greyhound. The respective ticket offices are open 24/7, too (or “12:00 AM – 11:59 PM” in Greyhound’s case), which is a huge plus in a 24-hour city like this one. Everything has a slight level of dinginess that you would expect from a bus station, but there was nothing egregiously bad. The terminal even has a cafe!
Some bikes parked outside.
The boarding area is what you would expect. It’s all sheltered, and there are well-labelled berths saying the name of the route and where it goes, but that’s about it for stuff out here. They obviously expect people to wait inside the terminal rather than outside, and the terminal has plenty of seating, so there’s no reason to have benches out here. The station also has a ton of bike parking, and it gets well-used (although based on the photo above, it seems like people don’t know how to park a bike properly!).
Looking down the berths.
NJT Station: Atlantic City Bus Terminal
Ridership: Couldn’t tell ya. But based on the number of buses that run out of here and how busy the terminal was on a Saturday morning, I would say it gets a lot. Certainly enough to justify the amenities this place has.
Pros: Yeah…it has a lot of amenities! I listed them above and I’m not going to do it again, but any basic needs one would have while waiting for the bus are covered here. Plus, I love how the whole thing is open and staffed 24/7 for both NJT and Greyhound, backing up the overnight services on both of those systems.
Cons: Well…it’s a bus station…so kind of on principle, it ends up feeling dingier than the rail station. There are actual problems here, too, though. For example, the shelters out on Atlantic Ave for the local buses aren’t very well-marked or signed, and they don’t seem substantial enough for the amount of ridership these routes get. The westbound one doesn’t even have a bench in it, for heaven’s sake! Also, in the outdoor boarding area, there’s this odd wiring setup that didn’t seem especially well-thought-out:
There has got to be a better way to set that up.
Nearby and Noteworthy: It’s Atlantic City. The terminal is two blocks from the Boardwalk and its casinos. It’s everything you would ever want.
Final Verdict: 6/10
Assuming you’re getting a Greyhound or one of NJT’s longer-distance routes, you’re all set – the terminal has everything you need. If you’re getting one of NJT’s local buses from here…well, have fun waiting in your potentially benchless shelter. Sorry about that.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: FR 2 (North Main)
The 2 turned out to be a dastardly one to ride. Earlier in the day, Sam and I had tried to get it from its Shaw’s terminus to ride it around its long terminus loop, but it had left Shaw’s early. Surprise. I had to grab it later from the Fall River Terminal instead.
A few people waiting to board in Fall River.
We headed out from the terminal and made our way over I-195, eventually coming onto North Main Street. I was surprised – most of Fall River had been underwhelming, but this little strip on North Main was actually kinda charming. There wasn’t even much in the buildings on either side, but there were these nice trees that made it feel a lot more welcoming. I guess that goes to show how far greenery goes in improving the urban landscape.
Well, it wasn’t as leafy on the side streets.
It started to get residential soon, with some dense but nice suburban houses lining the road. There were also a few businesses, particularly around the intersection with President Ave (also the location of a school and a park). On weekdays, there’s an extra deviation here that runs to a place called Commonwealth Landing. It seems like it’s meant to serve Bristol Community College, but there are also some apartments there.
Some houses running up a hill.
The street became a big mix of stuff after that. We went by a cemetery, then there were houses, businesses, and some factories converted to modern uses. Crossing over Route 79, a highway, we got closer to the Taunton River and it was almost all suburban houses for a while. That changed when we pulled into the route’s last stop, Riverview Marketplace – or, as the SRTA calls it in the schedule, “Shaw’s”.
A snaking road.
Except it’s not actually the last stop, it’s just where I got off. When you’re reviewing every bus route on the system in a day, you need to make some cuts, especially if the route screwed you over beforehand! The rest of the 2 consists of a big loop, running clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the time of day. It was the morning in this case, so the bus would have made its way onto Airport Road, running through (and deviating into) an industrial area. It would then turn onto Innovation Way, which is all woods aside from an Amazon facility, which also gets a deviation. Finally, now in Freetown, the bus would have turned back onto Main Street, going past some apartment complexes – one called Four Winds gets a deviation – before returning to Shaw’s.
The back of the bus at Shaw’s.
SRTA Route: FR 2 (North Main)
Ridership: For the SRTA, this route gets great ridership, with about 508 people per day in May 2014. In fact, this is the busiest bus route in Fall River. We’ll see why this fact annoys me once we start talking about the schedule…
Pros: The 2 takes a nice, direct route as far north as Shaw’s. The Commonwealth Landing deviation on weekdays is pretty annoying, but it’s a really pedestrian-unfriendly area, so I understand why they do it. On weekdays, the route runs every half hour from 6 AM to 9 PM – pretty darn good.
Cons: But on Saturdays, it’s every hour! Why? They run half-hourly Saturday service on other routes that get far less ridership than the 2! Also, there’s this twice-daily deviation to “Holmes Apartments” that just complicates the route. I think the residents of Holmes Apartments can stand to walk five minutes to the main route, and then we don’t need this random deviation to just make the route more complicated. Finally, I’m mad that it left Shaw’s early, but at least we had cut it really close so it didn’t feel as cruel as the 9.
Nearby and Noteworthy: This route serves a ton, actually! First, there’s the Children’s Museum of Greater Fall River, which seems like a nice little place for little kids. There’s also the Fall River Fire Museum, which isn’t open to the public “as of yet”, but it’s run by some very dedicated people and they seem to open up for the occasional event. Finally, the loop at the northern end of the route serves part of the Freetown-Fall River State Forest. It looks like it has some beautiful trails with stunning views!
Final Verdict: 6/10
I can’t get over the hourly Saturday service. The busiest route in Fall River only runs every hour on weekends! That’s just crazy to me! Also, this is a prime route for Sunday service if the SRTA ever adds that, which they absolutely should. The Holmes Apartments deviation is also annoying, and in general, this route makes a ton of deviations (particularly on the loop section). That all adds up to a final score of a 6/10 – it’s a good route otherwise!
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
Atlantic City
Considering that it only gets twelve trains per day (or, at the moment, zero trains per day), five-track Atlantic City Station is surprisingly legit. According to ol’ Wikipedia, it was built in 1989, which makes the size of the station all the more surprising. Service was awful then, too, when Amtrak was running the line, so…yeah, that makes this an interesting one!
A bad picture, but it’s also a bad platform. Tit for tat.
I have very little to say about the station platforms. They’re at a level of barebones that’s just tolerable enough to not affect the overall quality of the station, but on the other hand, they sure aren’t winning any beauty contests, especially with the rotting shelters above. Also, it’s a good thing there are so many tracks here, since this station basically doubles as the AC Line’s yard. If NJT needs to do minor repairs on trains, there are actually facilities here that let them do it.
Inside the main waiting area.
“Seating for Ticketed Customers Only. Two-Hour Time Limit.” Oh, NJT, you never change, do you? Well, folks, you heard it here first: NO SITTING ON THE UNCOMFORTABLE GRATED BENCHES UNLESS YOU HAVE A TICKET. Luckily, you can purchase tickets here at either a few vending machines or the staffed ticket offices, which are apparently open 5:30 AM to 9 PM, seven days a week! That’s impressive. Also of note is the flipboard showing arrivals and departures, although never any origin or destination other than “Philadelphia”.
“ESQUIRES II”.
There are a few other attractions in the rather austere waiting area. One is “ESQUIRES II”, a deli that I can find next to no information about online. I will say that it has very nice seating! The station also has a small parking garage with 75 spaces, and they’re apparently free to ticketed passengers. I don’t know if it doubles as convention center parking or not, but still, I can’t complain about free parking (and no, you don’t get a “jackpot” for landing on it. All that does is make the game even longer than it already is! You know it takes place in Atlantic City, right?).
Another view inside.
But wait, there’s more! Atlantic City also has bathrooms (not particularly bad or good, so not much to say there), an information stand with bus schedules, and a “food court” whose fancy neon sign betrays the fact that it’s really just a few vending machines. Maybe “ESQUIRE II” is considered part of the food court as well.
People streaming out of the station.
I alluded to this a little bit before, but Atlantic City Station is part of the same complex as the city’s convention center. As such, there is a direct doorway between the two, while the exit takes you out to the grand (well, maybe not grand, but big) entrance to the facility. There are a few free jitney routes to all the casinos in the city, but if you’re not getting on those, it’s a 13-minute walk down to the boardwalk. Oh, this entrance also has two giant, clunky bike racks that have probably been here since 1989. That’s right: space for four whole bikes!
The jitney shuttles boarding in the busway.
NJT Station: Atlantic City
Ridership: Interestingly, this is the busiest stop on the Atlantic City Line, with 594 boardings per weekday. That beats out Philadelphia, the second-busiest station, which only gets 489 people per day. It does make sense, though (see my AC Line post for why), and I’ll bet ridership is comprable or even higher on the weekend, especially in the summer.
Pros: This is a very functional terminal. It doesn’t have the grandeur of, say, Philadelphia 30th Street on the other end of the line, but it still has great amenities and services: a big waiting room, ticket offices, and a few options for food. The free jitney shuttles are a fantastic bonus, too, although it has to be said that you’re basically guaranteed to lose money once you leave their casino destinations. In that sense, it would just be cruel to charge for the jitneys.
Cons: Not too much, actually. The platforms look old, as I mentioned, but you’re not gonna be spending a lot of time on them. The location could also be better, but the jitney shuttles do make up for that, and a 13 minute walk to the boardwalk isn’t bad.
Nearby and Noteworthy: If you’re visiting Atlantic City, you’re here for the beach, the casinos, or both. The city offers plenty of each.
Final Verdict: 8/10
Yeah, no real complaints here! It’s too bad that rail service isn’t operating to the station right now, but as it sits there gathering dust (or sand – that tends to accumulate on the tracks), we can at least look at it and say, “Hey. You’re a good station, Atlantic City.” Nice.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
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SRTA: FR 8 (BCC/Durfee HS)
Time for a short route that’s not particularly noteworthy. Okay, it’s the FR 8!
I doubt many people will board here on a Saturday.
We left the parking lot of Bristol Community College and turned onto Elsbree Street, which soon passed Durfee High School. There were some suburban businesses as we turned onto President Ave, but it got residential when we swung around onto a roundabout to Eastern Ave, then turned onto New Boston Road. Apart from where we intersected the 4 at Robeson Street, it was mostly dense houses along here.
Yeah, like this!
We made our way around the giant Charlton Memorial Hospital via local roads before settling on Linden Street. This is the unfortunate part of the route where, due to one-ways and narrow roads, the inbound route is three blocks away from the outbound. Once Linden Street ended, we did some quick turns to get onto Bedford Street, and this led us into downtown Fall River. It was only a short time from there before we got to the terminal.
A pretty unremarkable side street.
SRTA Route: FR 8 (BCC/Durfee HS)
Ridership: The 8 tends to get higher ridership during school months and less ridership when school is off. For example, in April 2014, the route got about 420 passengers per day (probably more on weekdays and less on Saturdays), but in June of that year, it only got about 283 people per day.
Pros: The 8 serves two major schools, a huge hospital, and dense residential areas. It’s also pretty direct, and it runs frequently, with service every half hour on weekdays until around 9 PM. Saturday service is only every hour, but I think ridership is a lot lower on Saturdays anyway – my midday inbound trip got just one person.
Cons: Mostly just the inbound-outbound split in the middle of the route. I know there’s no way to fix that, but three blocks is not an insignificant distance. Also, there’s a slight typo on the schedule where a school trip serving Durfee High School shows up after a regular trip, even though the school one comes first. Not a huge deal, but a little annoying.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Nothing much, unless you believe in the importance of a good education. Two schools, people! Two!
Final Verdict: 7/10
Yup, this is just a standard, quick little route. I don’t have too much to say – I think the 8 does what it sets out to do pretty well. Even the lack of Sunday service isn’t as big of a deal for this one, since a lot of its destinations are weekday-oriented anyway.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
Requiem for the Atlantic City Line
“Beginning Wednesday, September 5 and continuing until early 2019, NJ TRANSIT will continue the installation of Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment on our rail fleet throughout the state. To accommodate this critical safety upgrade, all service on the Atlantic City Rail Line (ACRL) will be temporarily suspended beginning Wednesday, September 5.”
These were frightening words to a lot of people. With no definitive start date for service, how do we know NJT isn’t going to just shut down the whole line entirely? Well, I think there’s nothing to worry about – it will open up again eventually. But while it is closed, let’s take a look at the line as a whole and discuss its pros and cons. What was good about it, and what can be improved when it opens up again?
For those who don’t know, the Atlantic City Line is New Jersey Transit’s only commuter rail line in South Jersey, and the only one that doesn’t go to New York. It begins at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station and, by way of many different environments and towns, ends up “down the shore” at Atlantic City Station. A few friends and I rode the line on the last weekend of service, and it was one of the most dynamic and interesting commuter rail lines I’ve ever ridden.
Coming from UPenn, I’m within reasonable walking distance of 30th Street Station, which is a good thing, since that’s the only Philadelphia station that the AC Line leaves from. This is already a turnoff for some people – of the three main stations in Philly, 30th Street is the least central. Of course, it’s also the only place in Philly that Amtrak stops, and that gets a ton of riders, so clearly people are willing to use the hub. The AC Line’s diesel trains couldn’t go down into the Regional Rail tunnel through Philly, anyway.
Speaking of Amtrak, the AC Line actually boards from the beautiful Amtrak section of 30th Street. Once the awesome flip board displayed our train’s track number, we headed down to the lower level of the station. The train arrived, bell ringing, a few minutes later.
Coming on in.
This train was one of twelve that would operate every day. There’s really no rhyme or reason to the schedule, with gaps as short as 50 minutes or as long as 3 and a half hours. The nature of the line is interesting, too – it has very few rush hour trips to and from Philadelphia, and demand runs in both directions. Some people definitely use the line to commute, but a ton of leisure riders use it too.
Inside the single-level coach.
Let’s also talk about the fares, because they’re interesting. A full trip from Philadelphia to Atlantic City costs $10.75 – a lot to ask, but expected for NJT. The thing is, though, if you take PATCO to Lindenwold and hop on the train from there, it will only cost you $8.25, including the $3 PATCO fare. “But Miles, surely that takes longer!” NO. As you’ll soon see, even with the transfer time, that itinerary gets you to Philadelphia faster than the train, plus you end up right in Center City instead of at 30th Street! Incidentally, the cheapest journey you could make on the AC Line is between the last two stops, Absecon and Atlantic City, and it costs just a buck fifty. A monthly pass for that journey is a mere $44!
I bought my ticket through Amtrak. Because why not? That was something you could do.
And now, it was time for the absolute worst part of the AC Line. The section from Philadelphia to Lindenwold was and always will be a total slog, mainly because of the crazy route the train has to take. The most convenient rail connection in the direction of Atlantic City from 30th Street happens to go all the way up to North Philadelphia. Here, just look how frustrating the route is compared to PATCO:
But that’s the route we had to use, so we were going to use it. It takes over 20 minutes just to get to the first stop, and during that time, you’re just chugging along past vacant apartments and huge old industrial buildings. There’s one bit where the track runs under the El and you think “Oh, why can’t there just be a transfer here?” when you see the Market Frankford Line flying above.
It’s so tantalizing!
Finally, the track rises onto the disgusting old Delair Bridge over the Delaware River. There seems to always be something wrong with this bridge when it opens for boats, and whenever something goes wrong, train service is instantly terminated. I had actually planned to ride the AC Line once before, but nope, the bridge was stuck open. No trains! I hope they make some improvements on this rusting piece of junk while the line is closed, but it doesn’t seem like that’s planned.
Granted, that is an awesome view.
The Pennsauken Transit Center station is right after the bridge. This is a newer station, built to facilitate transfers to the River LINE light rail service. After that and a short industrial section, you’re travelling through suburbia for a while. In fact, Cherry Hill Station is located right behind a shopping plaza! Also, we saw the 340 rail replacement bus here for some reason. Uh…NJT, trains were still operating at this point!
A wide road.
Just east of Westmont, the line joins up with PATCO and they run together until Lindenwold. The sad thing is that on the way back, we ended up next to a PATCO train, and even making stops…PATCO was still faster. I guess they don’t call it the “speedline” for nothing. The parking lot hellscape of Lindenwold was our next stop, and from there, it would be just the AC Line again.
One of PATCO’s many parking lots.
The scenery isn’t too different after Lindenwold – just more suburban residential areas and some bits of forest. Soon after crossing a road with some businesses and parking lots, we went by the old Berlin Station, now just sitting unused in the middle of a neighborhood. Instead, we stopped at Atco, a station whose surroundings consist of: a parking lot, woods, a motel, woods, a mobile home manufacturer, woods, and also woods. About a mile east from the station was downtown Atco, which I guess didn’t have enough room for a parking lot to “justify” putting the station there. It was a pretty barren downtown, admittedly.
Carpets, anyone?
There’s not much to report for the section past Atco. For a while, the train just runs through the forest, occasionally going parallel to streets in increasingly rural residential neighborhoods. Interestingly, the streets it parallels are always called Atlantic Ave. Maybe there was a continuous road at some point? We also passed occasional tracts of farmland.
Here is one of them!
Those farms marked the beginning of what I call the “Nebraska” section of the line. Its characteristics include flat land, the aforementioned farms, and the town of Hammonton, which feels like it was pulled straight out of the midwest. About half a mile east of the downtown is Hammonton Station, which was built with a long, skinny parking lot alongside it.
Welcome to Hammonton.
There’s an industrial section after Hammonton, but that doesn’t mean the scenery is boring. Indeed, we went by a bunch of dangerous-looking vehicles stored behind a National Guard office, and that was right after passing a statue factory with a huge lot of its goods on display! From that point, the scenery can best be described by what this infamous map of New Jersey calls it: “ghetto in the woods”. Yeah…that’s pretty accurate.
Statues for everybody!
The track is on a complete and utter straightaway for a while, including for the next stop, which has to be one of my favorite train station names ever: Egg Harbor City. Despite the promising title, though, the town is unremarkable, and it’s gone soon after departing the stop. There was a long stretch of forest from there, broken only by a panoramic view of the Atlantic City International Airport, and later on, the city’s reservoir.
Downtown Egg Harbor City is down this road. There’s not much there.
Civilization was reached in the form of suburban development along White Horse Pike. About when that started to appear, we made our second-to-last stop, Absecon. Again, there wasn’t much to see here. The station did mark the end of the seemingly endless straightaway, and we started to curve south after our stop. Woods continued until suddenly, we broke out into a vast expanse of marshland.
Methinks we’re getting close!
The Atlantic City skyline was constantly in view as we sped over the flat plains. The track came up next to the Atlantic City Expressway, and we started to slow down. We crawled over the swing bridge that crosses over a river, and right after that is a level crossing with essentially a highway. Finally, right after that, we arrived at the Atlantic City train station.
Yeah, let’s just stop an entire highway!
So that’s the train ride. Or, I guess, that was the train ride. You can see why this is a desirable way to get down the shore: the train is comfortable, and there’s a ton to see during the trip. However, now that the train isn’t running, the alternative options of getting to Atlantic City have taken the spotlight. Let’s look at those.
A train sitting at Atlantic City.
There are a number of buses that are redundant to the AC Line, most of which feed into Lindenwold. As far as Atlantic City trips go, the 340 is an express from there to Lindenwold, but that’s only a temporary route for the duration of the closure; the 554, on the other hand, acts as a local alternative to the train, serving every stop and much more. That one has always existed, and it is far slower than riding the rails. In fact, the train is practically unbeatable from Atlantic City to Lindenwold, and it takes about the same amount of time as driving!
I’m more concerned about Lindenwold to Philly, which is over a third of the whole AC Line journey. This is where the train is really problematic – when you get to Lindenwold, you think you’re getting close because it’s the end of the PATCO, but there’s still another 40-odd minutes to go before Philly. Like I said before, PATCO is faster than the train from there to Center City.
But why not just eliminate the transfer? NJT has the bus for you: the 551, which existed before and will exist after the closure, is an express bus from the Philadelphia Greyhound Terminal to the Atlantic City Bus Terminal. Both of those places are closer to their respective towns’ activity centers, and the bus is scheduled to be slightly faster than the train (yes, traffic may change the actual running time)! Where it really beats out the rail line, though, is frequency: the 551 runs every hour or better, plus it runs 24/7 service. Best of all, rail tickets are cross-honored on the 551, so it costs the exact same amount as the train.
I think this commuter quote from this article explains it best: “I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people (stay with the bus in January), because the train always had delays and stuff like that anyway.” That’s the unfortunate truth: in many ways, the bus is simply better than the train. That’s not to say the train is bad, and I really did enjoy my ride, but I see a ton of advantages to using the bus, from frequency and span to not having to use the awful rail bridge over the Delaware River.
Still, summer traffic to resort locations is awful. The train ride is a ton of fun. The line truly is speedy from AC to Lindenwold. It’s ultimately up to you how you want to spend your journey to the shore, and hopefully, the choice will be made available once the train opens up again in early 2019. Assuming it opens on schedule. Which it probably won’t. But maybe it will. I dunno. We’ll see.
SRTA: FR 14 (Swansea Mall)
It’s time to go west! Leave the constraints of Fall River and escape to the idyllic countryside of Swansea! It’s home to such wonderful points of interest as, and this is a direct quote from Wikipedia, “Swansea Motor Inn (featuring water beds)”! Featuring water beds? Sounds like a great place to me! Let’s hop on the 14 and head out there!
Leaving from the terminal.
“Are you Max?” the driver asked. “No, I’m Miles,” I responded. “Then you can’t take pictures of the buses,” the driver said. “Only Max can take pictures.” Welp, looked like I wouldn’t be getting a photo of the 14. Shoulda just said my name was Max, it’s close enough! The bus, with its picture having not been taken, headed up 4th Street, crossing I-195. As soon as we made it to the other side of the highway, we turned onto Pleasant Street and then hopped onto a ramp to get onto it.
Right onto the bridge!
We zoomed through the short tunnel underneath Fall River City Hall, then the highway headed onto the impressively high Braga Bridge over the Taunton River. Taking the first exit on the other side of the bridge in Somerset, we merged onto Wilbur Ave, a street offering a mix of houses, woods, and farmland. It curved north, passing the Clifton Rehab Center, and some suburban businesses dotted the road as we got closer to the river.
Back at the river.
We used a roundabout to get onto Riverside Ave, but we were only on it for a few seconds before turning onto Slades Ferry Road (right across the street from an abandoned bridge). Among the sights to see were suburban businesses and what is apparently a park and ride – I imagine it has to be for this route, since there are no other buses here, but there’s no indication of its existence anywhere on the route schedule or the SRTA website. We used Brayton Ave to get onto Grand Army of the Republic Highway next.
Is this a deviation I smell?
G.A.R. Highway was a very very very wide road that was near-impossible to cross, so I suppose the route’s Stop & Shop deviation was inevitable. After that deviation, though, we went up Brayton Point Road, a pleasant residential street. Read Street, which we turned onto, was similar, but we soon headed down Lees River Ave to return to G.A.R. Highway. It was at least slightly narrower as we took it over the Lees River, entering Swansea.
Within the suburban neighborhood.
The road had a brief stint in the woods before the retail came back, and when it did, we performed an outbound-only deviation to Target. Next, we turned onto Swansea Mall Drive and did another outbound-only deviation, this time to Swansea Crossing. Finally, we looped around into the parking lot for the dying Swansea Mall, making a stop in between the mall and Walmart. Contrary to what Google Maps says, the bus doesn’t actually deviate into the Walmart, which created a lot of confusion when it came to Sam finding me in order to pick me up.
Ha! Got one from the back!
Update: here’s another picture of a 14 that I took later!
SRTA Route: 14 (Swansea Mall)
Ridership: As you might expect from a suburban bus route, overall ridership on the 14 is low (187 people per day in May 2014) and cost per rider is high ($10.77 in the same month). However, this was one of the routes of the day where I saw the highest number of people on board at once: 11 people leaving the terminal. This is probably because, as a suburban route, the 14 is bound to get less local ridership and more people coming from Fall River.
Pros: This is the one connection to Somerset and Swansea, and the route generally serves the biggest locations in each town. It’s only every hour, but because the route is longer than others, it makes sense from an efficiency standpoint to run it less frequently. Also, it makes up for the low frequency with a large span of service, with buses running until 9 PM on weekdays.
Cons: I don’t know if commuting into Fall River is a common thing, but because the route doesn’t start until 9 AM, it’s impossible to commute with the 14. The route is also pretty crazy, and it felt maddening when I was on board. Now that I look at the map, though, the deviations make sense – these are just spread-out places, and it’s hard to serve everything well with just one route. The outbound-only ones are all close enough to the end that it’s basically treated as a loop.
Nearby and Noteworthy: If you get off at Swansea Crossing, it’s just a 15-minute walk to the SWANSEA MOTOR INN! WATER BEDS, BABY!!!!! No, there really isn’t much to see along here. If you like dying or dead malls, though, it might be worth checking out the Swansea Mall, since it’s definitely on its way down.
Final Verdict: 6/10
Y’know, it’s a suburban route, and it does its best. There’s a lot to serve in these towns, and if you can only afford to run one route, you’re gonna end up with something a little crazy. It still gets people, and it’s nice that it runs pretty late into the night.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
40th Street Portal (Trolleys)
Today was the grand opening of the Trolley Portal Gardens, so it’s a perfect time to do our review of the 40th Street Portal trolley station! I attended the opening ceremony on behalf of the SEPTA Youth Advisory Council, and it was a great time. Among the speakers were the Mayor of Philadelphia and the General Manager of SEPTA, and there was a proper ribbon cutting with big novelty scissors! After the ribbon cutting, the Trolley Car Diner offered free food and a SEPTA booth had some fantastic swag.
Some scenes from the event.
Jim Kenney, the Mayor of Philadelphia.
The GM of SEPTA, Jeff Knueppel.
Giant novelty scissors!!
So what’s new here at 40th Street? Basically, over the course of almost eight years, a number of collaborating city groups have taken a space that looked like this and transformed it into a really nice public garden. There are multicolored seats, a bunch of different trees, and even a restaurant – let’s talk about that first.
The first floor of the restaurant…
…and the second floor.
I don’t know if the Trolley Car Station restaurant really counts as part of the review or not, but it played a big role in this event, so why not? First of all, the atmosphere both inside and outside is fantastic: the outside has nice couches and tables where people can sit, the first floor consists of a long high table and a bar, and the upper floor has booth style seating and an awesome mural. The menu is a little weird for my tastes, but I’m sure a ton of people will like this place. Plus, it has great transit access, obviously!
It was dark by the time I got around to reviewing the station…
Okay, but I’m Miles in Transit – I care about the station. The gardens have extended into the station itself, and it’s beautiful. The layout here is slightly wonky, but not too hard to figure out: basically, the outbound 34 stops at the northern shelter, the outbound 11, 13, and 36 stop at the next shelter, and all the inbounds stop at the southernmost platform. I love that all the inbounds stop at the same place, so you don’t have to play the guessing game of which route will come first.
The “illegal” path.
Okay, here’s something annoying: the most direct path to the inbound platform is technically illegal to walk on; a big sign tells you not to do it. Here’s the problem with that: the real path is more roundabout, and though it’s nice walking through the garden on this charming twisty path, I just want to catch the train. Needless to say, I have seen many people just use the illegal way, and honestly, no one seems to care. Just look to make sure a trolley isn’t coming.
The inbound shelter.
As for the places where you actually get the train, they’re quite good! There isn’t much to each shelter, but there doesn’t have to be – each one has a long concrete bench, a wastebasket, an LED sign that doesn’t tell you anything important, and some maps and information. Each one also has the dreaded blue light, signalling that trolleys are doing their Sunday night diversion to 40th and Market.
On the north side of the station.
I’ll briefly talk about the entrances, although there isn’t too much to say. The south side is just a staircase and a level path, but all that’s down there is a cemetery and a bus connection to the 30 (the route is ridiculously infrequent, so it doesn’t really matter that the stop is just a few signs). The north side is only a path, but it also has a bunch of bike racks, a nice touch. I have to say, though, that the crosswalk across Baltimore Ave up here can be treacherous at rush hour. I kinda wish the intersection had “beg lights” that stop all traffic, because otherwise it feels like there’s never a safe time to cross.
Time for the most annoying thing about this station.
Okay. For some reason, this station’s GTFS feed (the data that goes into transit applications like Google Maps) only has an entrance to the south. That means that if you’re trying to get directions from the north (i.e. the only section of station coverage that’s not occupied by a cemetery, i.e. the place where people actually live), Google Maps will not tell you to use this station. It will direct you to the next stop on the respective branches out of here. This is such mindblowingly bad implementation of GTFS, and it means that for most people using Google Maps to figure out how to get somewhere, this station will not be used. Wonderful.
A 34 heading west.
Station: 40th Street Portal (Trolleys)
Ridership: SEPTA doesn’t care about its Subway-Surface Trolley stations, so I’m forced to rely on just my own two eyes for this one. It’s about as busy as you would expect for a trolley station – usually there’s at least one other person who gets off with me here (this being my home station), and there are often people going both outbound and inbound from here.
Pros: They’ve really done a great job with the gardens. The whole station is beautiful, the Trolley Car Station restaurant is a fantastic way to increase visitors here, and the actual waiting areas are pretty darn good. It’s a peaceful place to catch the trolley.
Cons: The pathways through here are an issue, but the GTFS is my biggest problem with this place. What better way to discourage ridership than to actively prevent Google Maps from being able to recommend its usage to people??
Nearby and Noteworthy: Most attractions on 40th Street are slightly closer to the El station a few blocks north, but places closer to the trolley station include Allegro Pizza and the charming House of Our Own bookstore. Also, the cemetery to the south looks like a nice place to walk around. At least Google Maps will actually tell you to use this station if you want to go there.
Final Verdict: 7/10
I really do like this station, and I commend everyone involved with its renovation for sticking out the eight years it took to plan and build everything. But man…that GTFS thing just kills it for me. It’s just so insane that Google Maps just won’t tell you to use this station, even if you’re coming from across the street from it. Sure, most people will see it and know to use it, but this blunder is only hurting ridership. It’s just so freaking stupid, and all it would take to fix is adding another entrance in the code. But SEPTA doesn’t do that for any station in its feed, so I guess that’s a non-starter. Really, though, other than that, I like this station quite a lot.
UPDATE 10/29/18: Does SEPTA read my blog? The GTFS error has been fixed! You can now “get” to the station from the north! Alright, let’s update the score to an 8/10, then!
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: FR 9 (Bedford Street)
What was my first impression of the 9? Well, I couldn’t really form one…because the bus never showed up! Sam and I got to the first stop five minutes early, but I guess that was a little too late – the rascal left before we got there. All was lost. We weren’t going to complete the system in a day. “No,” I declared. “You know what? Screw the 9. If it’s not going to dignify us with a ride, then let’s not do it.” So…we were going to drive the route.
Here we go…
We curved around onto Pleasant Street, which was lined with dense houses. At the awkward intersection between the FR 9 and the NB 9, we turned onto Eastern Ave, a wide road with a grassy median. It was still mostly residential, but we also went by a park. We eventually turned onto Bedford Street, starting an annoying jog – this would be weird to do in a car.
Typical scenery.
We turned onto Stonehaven Road, going by much more suburban houses than before, as well as the Diman Vocational Technical High School – I think that was the main reason for this deviation. We turned onto Locust Street next, then Oak Grove Ave, where the houses started to get denser. Once we got back onto Bedford Street, they were back to being quite dense, and businesses in between were appearing more and more often. That culminated in downtown Fall River, where we made our way around to the terminal…or just outside it, since cars aren’t allowed in the busway.
The “bus”.
This is the NB 9…but you can’t tell the difference, can you? Mwahaha.
SRTA Route: FR 9 (Bedford Street)
Ridership: Wow…400 people per day in May 2014? That’s…way more than I would’ve thought! Then again, I did the route in a private car, so I really had no idea how many people the bus got. It does serve a lot of dense neighborhoods.
Pros: Like I said, the 9 serves a bunch of dense neighborhoods, and it has a good ol’ half-hourly schedule on weekdays.
Cons: First of all, for the ridership this route gets, I would expect half-hourly Saturday service (versus the current hourly schedule) and even Sunday service, as well as night service (right now the route ends at around 6 PM). Also, there has to be a layover point somewhere on this route! I mean, Pleasant Street at Eastern Ave (a little further from where I was trying to board) is technically the “start” of it, so maybe it lays over there? But knowing the SRTA, I’ll bet buses just leave whenever they arrive. That is unacceptable.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Houses, and some businesses that didn’t look too appealing. Yup.
Final Verdict: 4/10
Look, the bus left so early that I couldn’t even catch it. It’s probably more of a 5/10 route, but that fact alone is worth a point off. Probably should be more than one, but the 9 isn’t that bad otherwise. Darn it.
UPDATE: Turns out the ridership numbers for this route were accidentally copied over from the 10. The graph shows the real numbers, which are a lot more mediocre, around 150 people per day. Now the schedule makes more sense. Honestly…this is more like a 2/10, given the ridership, plus the earliness.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
27 (Broad-Carpenter – Plymouth Meeting Mall)
Ready to ride this express route from Plymouth Meeting Mall to Philadelphia? Ready to experience this super fast express ride into the city? Ready to travel down miles of local roads before running “express” on the infamously trafficked I-76? Yeah, that last one describes the 27 pretty well.
No driver, doors open. Alright, then…
We made our way onto Germantown Pike from the Plymouth Meeting Mall, and we went through a complex series of interchanges between I-276 and I-476. We then turned onto Chemical Road, which led us under I-476 again before we performed a deviation into the Metroplex Center. Once we came back onto Chemical Road, it went under I-476 again – this would be our last interaction with that road.
This is bleak.
We turned onto Ridge Pike, and after some SUBURBAN BUSINESS MADNESS, it transitioned to houses and apartment complexes…and a few golf courses. We proceeded along like this, slowly picking up passengers. The route also has a short-turn point along here at Church Lane where some trips begin or end their trips to Philly.
Yup, basically this for a while.
At some point we entered Philly, but it sure didn’t feel like it. We did arrive at Andorra and its shopping center soon after that, where we used Port Royal Ave to get onto Henry Ave. Still, there wasn’t much along here – it was basically houses and apartments on one side of the road and Wissahickon Valley Park on the other side. The houses did eventually become duplexes, continuing as we turned onto Leverington Road.
Some of the housing stock.
We turned onto Ridge Ave, which was actually an urban street lined with apartments and businesses, but it went back to houses once we took a right onto Lyceum Ave soon after. Again, that didn’t last long; it was urban again when we turned onto Manayunk Ave, although it was almost entirely apartments. We were up on a huge hill above Manayunk proper, so every side street was super steep.
The hill was less steep by this point.
We turned onto Ridge Ave once again, crossing over the Manayunk/Norristown Line tracks and passing Wissahickon Station. Once we got down the hill entirely, it was time for the Wissahickon Transportation Center, although we didn’t actually pull in like we’re technically supposed to. Finally, we made our way onto City Ave, crossing the Schuylkill River, and then it was time to merge onto I-76 for our express section.
Wissahickon Creek.
In typical I-76 fashion, we went around a practically 90-degree curve, and soon after that was traffic. Darn it! We were stuck in that for a good while as the highway snaked along with the Schuylkill through Fairmount Park. Eventually, we broke out from the park to get a view of the train yards north of 30th Street Station, then we took Exit 344 onto I-676, the Vine Street Expressway.
Crossing the Schuylkill.
The Vine Street Expressway is so named because it runs in an open cut underneath Vine Street, and it’s awful, and I hate it. Also, it too was jammed. Luckily, we weren’t on this for too long, as we took the exit onto 15th Street and then turned onto Broad. City Hall loomed ahead as the surrounding buildings got taller and taller.
Crossing Arch Street.
We curved around City Hall on the surrounding streets before returning to Broad on its Avenue of the Arts section. Going by all of Philly’s major theaters, we proceeded down the wide road. Now, the 27 is interesting because it doesn’t actually end in Center City – it actually travels down Broad down as far south as Washington Ave. But past Walnut, I was the only one on board.
Getting more local.
By the time we got to around Locust, the theaters and skyscrapers had simmered down to become smaller businesses and apartments. Interestingly, the route is shown as looping a certain way on the map (via Carpenter, 15th, and Washington), but we ended up looping via Christian, 11th, and Washington instead. Oh well, we made it to Broad and Carpenter either way…the driver seemed pretty surprised that I took the bus down this far.
Back to Plymouth Meeting! Wow, we came a long way.
Route: 27 (Broad-Carpenter – Plymouth Meeting Mall)
RIdership: Although the 27 has a pretty terrible farebox recovery ratio (15%) because of its length, 4,390 passengers per weekday is nothing to sneeze at. That ends up being about 32 people per one-way trip! My Saturday ride was even busier, with 49 passengers in total heading into Center City. Not everyone stayed on for the express (a particularly large amount of people got off at Wissahickon), but it was about a full-seated load heading into Philly.
Pros: The 27 takes a pretty logical path from the northwestern suburbs into the city, serving shopping plazas and dense neighborhoods (eventually) along the way. The route’s schedule is…interesting, but one thing I’ll say about it is that there’s a ton of service at rush hour – every 5-10 minutes or so. This is one of the few SEPTA routes that’s more productive in the peak than it is in the off-peak, so yay, the extra frequency is justified!
Cons: Once you leave rush hour, though, the route gets a lot less frequent. It’s every half hour, kinda, during the day, but the departure times are all over the place, and it’s sorta every 35 minutes on Saturdays, and it’s more or less every hour on Sundays. Granted, I get why the times are so crazy – I assume it has to do with the varying conditions on I-76. And that brings us to our next point: on-time performance! It’s terrible! I-76 is really crazy and unreliable! Basically, according to the numbers, the 27 is late 35% of the time. That’s not good.
Nearby and Noteworthy: This is honestly the fastest route from Center City to Manayunk if you don’t mind walking up or down a steep hill, but other than that, there’s not much. Just some malls.
Final Verdict: 5/10
It’s an unreliable express route that’s super long and should probably run more frequently than it does on weekends, based on the ridership I saw. On the other hand, it takes a really direct path to Center City from the places it serves, and the extra service during the peak is actually warranted. Clearly, there are really good things and really bad things about the 27, so let’s just plop its score right in the middle with a 5.
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates
SRTA: FR 7 (Bay Street)
Believe it or not, the SRTA route with the most legit terminus is also one of the least frequent routes on the system. Yes, the 7 ends at a proper turn around, probably a remnant from an old streetcar! Yet it’s one of the few in-town routes that runs every hour on weekdays. Well, let’s see why that might be.
At the Fall River Terminal.
I’m not quite sure why, but the 7 has a jog up past I-195 on its outbound route. We went over the highway on 4th Street, then we used Troy Street to get to Bedford Street, passing some vacant downtown buildings and a post office. Soon after passing Main Street (where downtown is actually pretty nice), we turned onto Milliken Boulevard, crossing south over the highway again. What was the point of this jog when the inbound route doesn’t even do it? I have no idea. It was even worse when the outbound route would have a second deviation to Battleship Cove, but it’s not running right now because of construction.
195 about to go over its Taunton River bridge.
We now turned onto Columbia Street, which was lined with dense houses and apartments, as well as some businesses. Columbia Street ended and we used the parking lot-filled Broadway to get to William Street. It became Bay Street as it curved south, and as the name suggested, we were rather close to Mount Hope Bay.
I can see it!
Bay Street was a bit of an odd one; on the bay side, it kinda switched between big industrial buildings and suburban houses. The inland side was just residential, with the occasional apartment development. We basically just sped past all this with no one on the bus until we hit the Bay Street Turn Around, just before the Rhode Island border. That was that!
It’s not that impressive, but it’s still kind of awesome.
SRTA Route: 7 (Bay Street)
Ridership: I’m impressed by how many people this route seems to get. It got 6,941 passengers in May 2014, which ends up being 257 per day, or around 10 per one-way trip. That’s pretty darn good for SRTA, and the total number is very close to and sometimes even higher than other, more frequent routes.
Pros: My trip only got one person, so I thought this route doesn’t get a lot of people, but it turns out it does! My guess is that some of those big apartment developments along Bay Street generate riders. Anyway, that’s what I like about it: it runs a fairly direct route down an important street in southwest Fall River.
Cons: Okay, we’ve established that the 7 gets similar ridership numbers to other SRTA routes…except the 7 is every hour on both weekdays and Saturdays when most others are at least every half hour on weekdays. It’s even a similar length to the other routes! If anything, raising the frequency to the level of other routes would generate even more ridership! Either run each route every hour or each route every half hour, because clearly, they’re getting similar amounts of people. Oh, also, that outbound-only deviation is stupid. Just had to put that somewhere.
Nearby and Noteworthy: I think the SRTA intends to have this route start serving Battleship Cove again once construction there ends. I’m not a fan of putting an even longer outbound-only deviation on this thing, but Battleship Cove does seem like a cool place.
Final Verdict: 5/10
I don’t get it. The hourly 7 gets higher ridership than at least one other route that gets half hourly weekday service. It’s a short route, so it would only take one more bus to improve service, and the way SRTA interlines, it would also improve service somewhere else. I dunno, I’m not a fan of this route double standard of sorts, especially since each trip on the 7 is going to get twice the passengers of other routes because it runs at half the frequency.
Latest MBTA News: Service Updates
90 (Plymouth Meeting Mall to Norristown Transportation Center)
There are two ways of getting from the Norristown Transportation Center to the Plymouth Meeting Mall. One is the 98, which is as reasonably direct as you would expect a suburban bus route to be. The other is the 90. It is a mess.
Let’s go!
Well, the route starts out normal enough. We made our way onto Main Street, which was lined with dense businesses and apartments. Arriving at the very barebones Main Street Regional Rail station, we turned onto the wide Markley Street, using it to get onto Marshall Street. Now, it’s worth noting that we took this retail-lined road in the opposite direction of the mall, but…maybe there was a good reason for it.
Darn foggy window…
The businesses turned to apartments, and the apartments turned to duplex houses when we turned onto Stanbridge Street. At this point, the route had been relatively normal, but once we turned onto Laurel Street, it was all over. This took us into the Norristown State Hospital campus, which consisted of winding, speed bump-ridden roads. Arghhhhhh.
You know you’re in for a ride if you see this.
I’ll spare you the twisty route we took through this campus, but good lord, it was excruciating. Like I said before, speed bumps were rampant, so it was a constant 15 miles an hour through the whole detour. The roads were also super narrow, so that made making turns a blast. Yeah, the Norristown State Hospital deviation was a great way to spend 8 minutes of my life.
I don’t know what this building is, but it looks intimidating.
We left the campus and turned onto Sterigere Street, which took us back to the original entrance point to the hospital. We continued on Sterigere from there, going over Stony Creek and merging onto Harding Boulevard, a wide road with a leafy median. Next, we turned onto Markley Street, a mere 7 minute walk from the last time we were on it. The bus ride, for the record, had been about 15 minutes.
A side street from Markley.
Markley Street was mostly residential, and its dense apartments slowly turned into regular houses. There was a brief spurt of suburban businesses, and right after that, we entered East Norriton and the street became Swede Road. It was mostly houses until we got to the suburban retail of Germantown Pike. We did a slow deviation to “serve” a few shopping centers, which seemed pretty pointless considering that despite its pedestrian unfriendliness, Germantown Pike does have sidewalks and crosswalks.
Lovely.
Where would we go from the “East Norriton Crossing Shopping Center”? Would it be a left towards the mall? No, apparently not…we took a right instead. Suburban businesses gave way to suburban houses, which gave way to…farmland? Where the heck were we?
We’re suddenly in Nebraska!
Oh, I see. It was a deviation to the Einstein Medical Center. Okay. Yeah. That’s nice. Cool. I’m glad this route goes out of its way to serve every single thing on the planet. What did we do from there? Head straight back, of course! Another ten minutes gone!
I get why we’re serving this, but it’s still really annoying…
Finally, it was time to go to the mall. The rest of the route was on Germantown Pike, and it was smooth sailing. The road itself was a suburban smorgasboard of houses, retail, parking lots, random apartment buildings, and office parks. Suddenly, there was the mall, and we pulled in. That was that…thank goodness.
A 90 going the other way, seen near the mall. This is a good route for that ad…
Route: 90 (Plymouth Meeting Mall to Norristown Transportation Center)
Ridership: The route gets 572 people per weekday, which divides out to around 17 people per trip. I guess that’s okay, but it is worth noting that this is the 11th lowest-ridership route in SEPTA’s Suburban Division.
Pros: If you want a tour of every hospital and mall in the Norristown area, this is the route for you! No, I’m kidding, but the 90 definitely does serve important places with its deviations that no other routes go to. It runs every hour six days a week, from about 6 AM to…11 PM? Wow, that’s late for a route like this!
Cons: If you’re trying to use this bus to get anywhere, tough luck! Even if you’re trying to get to one of its deviations, like the Einstein Medical Center, it will still take forever because you almost always have to suffer through another one, like the Norristown State Hospital deviation! Plus there’s the random deviation to the shopping plazas that doesn’t seem to have much of a purpose to me. Heck, why not just terminate the route at the Einstein Medical Center and let people bound for the mall take the 98? Seems like that would save some route miles. The routes are only about a 6 minute walk apart in Norristown, and they run right with each other on Germantown Pike.
Nearby and Noteworthy: Norristown Farm Park actually looks like an awesome place to walk around, so I guess that’s a bonus to the Einstein Medical Center deviation. This is also the closest route to the Elmwood Park Zoo, a quieter and slightly cheaper alternative to the Philadelphia Zoo. Taking the 90 is a whole six minutes faster than flat-out walking from the Norristown Transportation Center! Wow!
Final Verdict: 3/10
This is the kind of route I would expect to see in some tiny nowhere town, not a major Philadelphia suburb. I understand that the places the 90 serves are important, but because it has so many deviations serving different markets, the route ends up being more inefficient for everybody. Taking it from beginning to end, which no sane person should ever do, was a nightmare. Just use the 98 if you’re going to Plymouth Meeting!
Latest SEPTA News: Service Updates