Greyhound moved its pickup and drop-off location again. Here’s where you’ll find it and how to get there.
Greyhound, Peter Pan, Flix, and Megabus will no longer pick up passengers at Sixth and Market Streets.
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City officials announced Wednesday that Greyhound is moving its curbside bus station from Sixth and Market Streets to Spring Garden Street at Christopher Columbus Boulevard.
The move comes five months after Greyhound vacated its full-service location on Filbert Street, where it was a tenant for nearly 40 years. It joined other passenger bus operators that were already using Market Street as a loading and unloading zone.
“The volume and nature of complaints leave the situation at Sixth and Market Streets completely untenable,” Mike Carroll, the city’s deputy managing director for the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability, said in a statement Wednesday.
SEPTA, which had temporarily suspended service to its bus stop at Sixth and Market due to the congestion created by the other bus lines, said it plans to restore the stops that have skipped the location “as soon as possible after the tour buses move.”
Where is Greyhound moving?
Three loading zones will be set up to accommodate Greyhound, Peter Pan, Flix, and CoachUSA/Megabus buses. One, along the south side of Spring Garden, will be available starting Friday, when Peter Pan will begin operations at the new location.
Starting Nov. 16, two additional loading areas will become available:
A 300-foot area along Columbus Boulevard, south of Spring Garden Street
A 100-foot area along the north curb of Spring Garden Street, in the existing bus loading area next to the exit for SEPTA’s Spring Garden Station
An overflow area along Noble Street will become available after Thanksgiving.
The bus companies and the city will coordinate on providing portable restrooms by Thanksgiving.
City officials said the new location was a temporary fix that is expected to last through the first few months of 2024 while a permanent location is secured.
How do I access the bus pickup area?
SEPTA’s Spring Garden station on the Market-Frankford Line sits adjacent to the new bus loading areas.
The area is also accessible by SEPTA bus Routes 25 and 43. The 43 stops on Spring Garden at Columbus Boulevard, Front Street, and the Market-Frankford Line station under the I-95 overpass. The 25 stops at Front and Spring Garden Streets.
The bike lane on the eastbound side of Spring Garden will be detoured.
The new, temporary location “creates a whole host of new concerns around safety for bicycle riders using the Spring Garden bike lane because of the space the bus takes up on the road. We are working with the city to find a better solution to ensure that bicyclists will be kept safe,” said Nicole Brunet, policy director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.
“We hope to see a permanent bus terminal that provides a high-quality service for bus riders, doesn’t utilize the curb for pick-ups, and doesn’t block the already limited bike lane network,” she added.
What happened to the original Greyhound station?
On June 27, Greyhound stopped service to its long-standing terminal site at 1001-23 Filbert St., where the company had a few years left on its lease. It moved operations to the curbside Sixth and Market location, where competitors Peter Pan and CoachUSA/Megabus already served passengers.
“The company is changing its operating model from a terminal bus operation to a curbside bus operation,” Greyhound wrote in letter notifying an employee union and the city Commerce Department at the time, Billy Penn first reported.
In August, the now-vacant Greyhound depot was included in the footprint of the proposed Sixers arena.
“We have that under contract,” developer David Adelman confirmed at the time. Adelman, who is a part owner of the Sixers, is working with the team’s managing partners Josh Harris and David Blitzer on the arena proposal.
How have people reacted?
Since Greyhound moved its operations, passengers have complained about the lack of seating at the curbside pickup on Market Street. The location does not have an indoor area for passengers to escape the elements, with only a small overhang from the adjacent building providing shade or cover from rain.
“There’s nothing here,” bus traveler Charlene Reynolds told The Inquirer in July. “People can’t be standing here for hours like this. It isn’t right. And what are they going to do about winter, when there’s snow?”
Architecture critic Inga Saffron, writing for The Inquirer, called the outdoor station “a humanitarian disaster and a municipal disgrace.”