Philadelphia City Council heard arguments for and against SEPTA’s so-called Bus Revolution plan at a hearing Monday. The effort to overhaul bus routes has drawn objections from riders where stops would be eliminated.
SEPTA’s Leslie Richards said the route redesign is something that hasn’t been done in 60 years and if not done now, it could lead to service cuts when federal pandemic funding runs out. “That is in 2025, which is not so far away,” Richards said. “What tends to happen when transit agencies cut service is that ridership drops, and that reduces revenue and then we have to cut again.”
Richards added some SEPTA buses are traveling at less than half the speed of buses in other major cities, so the transit agency needs to come up with ways to make the routes more efficient.
Opponents of the changes said more dedicated bus routes and better enforcement of the existing routes would make a trip via mass transit trip better and more attractive to car-loving commuters.
Councilmember Curtis Jones said redesigning the routes could negatively impact the people who need the service the most. “A simple change in a route to us might be catastrophic to a kid who didn’t want to go to school in the first place, to a person that might skip a doctor’s appointment because it’s too complicated to get there,” Jones said.
About 60 members of the public signed up to speak, many claiming the transit agency wasn’t giving proper notice of the hearings, although SEPTA officials said they have had participation via both live and virtual meetings with commuters.
“We’re doing that according to the feedback that we’re hearing,” Richards said, “to ensure we’re developing better route alternatives to take our existing 3.8 million hours of service. That is the number of hours on an annual basis that we provide.”