PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Based on declining COVID-19 cases and rising vaccination rates, SEPTA plans to lift its COVID-19 capacity limits on June 1.
“Removing vehicle capacity limits to meet increased ridership demand is a major step in the region’s recovery,” SEPTA General Manager Leslie Richards said in a statement.
Masks will still be required for riders and staff until further notice. SEPTA will also continue to conduct enhanced cleaning efforts.
According to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch, mask compliance has topped 90% during the pandemic. He said ridership is slowly rebounding — city transit is up to about 40% of pre-pandemic levels.
Regional Rail ridership is only about 20% of what it was 14 months ago.
“We are seeing ridership start to inch back up a little bit,” said Busch, “so we are going to need some more capacity compared to where we were when [COVID-19] case numbers were higher.”
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SEPTA's decision is in line with the rest of the region. Pennsylvania will lift all COVID-19 mitigation orders except masking on Memorial Day, and Philadelphia will follow on June 11.
Currently, the maximum is set at 20 riders on a standard 40-foot-long bus and 30 people on the longer articulated bus (the ones with the accordion-style middle). The current limit on trolleys is 25 people. There was no hard cap on the number of riders on the Market-Frankford or Broad Street lines.
SEPTA also said it upgraded air filters on some of its vehicles. Air ventilates on all of its vehicles every two to three minutes, which exceeds the CDC’s recommendations for indoor public spaces.
If some riders are still wary of full-capacity transit, a new tool shows an estimated number of people on buses at any given time. The dashboard tool will expand to all SEPTA service in the coming months.
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