PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA is moving ahead with the first-ever redesign of its bus routes. After three years of planning and more than 200 public meetings, the SEPTA Board approved the top-to-bottom overhaul Thursday afternoon, called Bus Revolution.
It keeps the same number of buses but reduces the number of routes from 125 to 106, intending to have more frequent and reliable service.
“We know that we need change,” said SEPTA General Manager Leslie Richards. “We know that our bus service, as it exists today, is not serving the number of people and is not providing the frequent service that we need.”
Although some riders at Thursday’s meeting complained of inconvenient changes to their routes, most, like Alexander Milone, supported the redesign.
“This is something SEPTA can do now to fix … a very frustrating amount of delays and unreliable service,” he said.
“To us, the Bus Revolution means more frequent service on the [Route] 43 line that will allow us to regularly get to and from grocery stores,” echoed rider Tyler Combs.
But activist and Route 45 bus rider Lance Haver questioned the plan’s effectiveness.
“SEPTA doesn’t have enough bus operators,” he said. “Buses are being canceled and we’ll have to wait longer. The Bus Revolution does not change that.”
SEPTA will start a public education campaign this fall to inform riders how the bus routes will change. The new routes will be phased in starting in the summer of 2025.
“It’s going to take a while to educate and make sure that everybody understands what’s going on,” Richards added, noting that this is the first time in the transit agency’s history that routes are being reconfigured.
“We kept hearing, and the data is showing, that we need more frequency on weekends. We need more frequency after 5 p.m. And obviously, we won’t know until we actually implement these routes,” she said.
“We learned that waiting 60 years to do a comprehensive bus network redesign is way too long. We should be doing this process every three to five years, and that’s the plan.”