SEPTA bus drives through wet concrete outside of Termini Bros. in what locals say is the ‘most South Philly thing ever’
“There’s enough craziness going on in the world out there,” Joey Termini said. “Sometimes, we just have to laugh.”
In what Joey Termini of Termini Brothers Bakery is calling the “most South Philadelphia thing ever,” a Route 47 bus drove through wet concrete after two people reportedly hopped off to move street barricades so the bus could pass Thursday.
The sinking bus, which tilted on a slight edge as it got stuck on South Eighth Street outside Termini Bros., drove through the concrete only two minutes after city crews poured it into the road.
In surveillance footage provided by Termini, the bus, aptly adorned with Top Dog Law advertisements, slows to a halt in front of two A-frame street closure signs on Eighth Street. Two passengers are then seen hopping off the bus, casually moving the signs out of the way and directing the bus driver like air traffic controllers around the patch of concrete in the middle of the road. As the bus gets stuck and tilts to the side, smacking the pavement in the process, hardly any of the passengers on the bus can be seen visibly reacting.
“In South Philly, people are like, “I’ll find a way,” Termini said. “At the time I was a little frustrated because we waited months to get that pothole fixed, but you know looking back at it now, it really is funny. I’m just glad nobody was hurt.”
The brothers Termini have been coordinating with the city to get the pothole-turned-sinkhole resolved since it formed 14 months ago, Termini said. He knew it was getting bad when the sinkhole started swallowing traffic cones placed inside it — a time-honored Philadelphian quick fix.
Their prayers were answered Thursday when city crews came in the afternoon to repair the street. But right after the concrete was poured and the street blocked off at 7:21 p.m., a 47 bus found its way into the concrete pit at 7:23 p.m., according to Termini’s surveillance footage.
The bus was towed within about 45 minutes, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. According to an inspection, the only damage to the bus was from cement on one tire, so it will not be out of service for an extended period of time, Busch said.
The city posted notices about the scheduled maintenance along the street in the days preceding the repair and no-parking signs were posted. “This wasn’t something that they just decided to do on a whim,” Termini said.
SEPTA had a detour in place for this block along Route 47 on Thursday, which is standard operating procedure during planned road maintenance, Busch said. All internal notices of the detour were made, including to operators working on the 47.
“We have an internal review underway to determine exactly why this occurred,” Busch said. “We will also see what we can learn from it and possibly improve on moving forward.”
Termini feels for the driver, who wasn’t the first to have trouble on Eighth Street, as he saw at least three other buses making difficult turns to move around detours — something he felt could have been coordinated better by the city and SEPTA.
“I know the driver was probably really stressed out,” Termini said. “But the guy getting off the bus to move the barriers and then run back on the bus, even after the bus got stuck in concrete, I was like, ‘This is Philly.’”
And to make the ending sweeter, when city crews came out Friday morning to repair the bus-botched repair job, Termini handed out cannolis to those working on the road.
“There’s enough craziness going on in the world out there,” Termini said. “Sometimes, we just have to laugh.”
