SEPTA trolley tunnel closing on the weekends for the rest of September. Here’s how your commute could be affected

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SEPTA’s trolley tunnel will be closed the remaining weekends of September to address necessary repairs to prevent power outages.

Work will repair an electrical substation at 33rd Street, which powers both the tunnel and the diversion route. SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said water was getting into the area around the substation, followed by what he called a  “very wet summer.”

“We want to do some work to make sure that infrastructure is hardened and that we’re not going to have a situation where that substation may fail, which would cause a bigger unplanned outage,” Busch said.

The trolley tunnel will close at 2 a.m. Saturdays and transition to overnight bus service. All five trolley lines will be replaced by buses from 5 a.m. Saturday through 5 a.m. Monday on the weekends of Sept. 12–14, Sept. 19–21 and Sept. 26–28.

Instead of trolleys running to 40th and Market streets, the routes will be fully bused aboveground, serving the same stops as the trolley routes and standard diversion service.

“Folks can just refer to their usual trolley schedules. The buses are going to follow that, and it should be fairly seamless,” he said.

Some T4 and T5 trips will continue to be bused to 40th Street Portal on Monday mornings through the afternoon.

Riders can transfer at 40th and Market streets to the Market/Frankford Line for trips to and from Center City.

This week, SEPTA began bypassing 11th Street Station on the MFL for a major renovation project. The station is expected to be closed through August 2027.