SEPTA says a few years ago, the outdoor platform for the Market Frankfort Line's Spring Garden stop was inundated with orb-weaver spiders and their webs. Since that time, SEPTA has been cleaning things up and an exterminator was called in.
The spiders have been making their presence known to riders from time to time but not causing too much of a panic this summer.
"I'm not afraid of spiders but like, I don't want to see any," said Rene Waites, who was waiting for the El at the Spring Garden stop.
"It's not a species that will cause harm to us," explained Isa Betancourt, who works in the entomology department at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. "I understand that some people might be especially afraid of them, but they really don't care about you at all. They're are just biding their own time and just trying to catch bugs up there by the lights."
Betancourt says mosquitoes are among the bugs spiders like to eat.