SEPTA board approves overhaul of bus routes
Among the changes: Route 45 will be extended to the Navy Yard and Route 79 to University City.
It has been a winding road, but the SEPTA board on Thursday approved the first complete redesign of the region’s most extensive bus network.
The new bus network will be implemented in phases over the next 16 months, with the first route changes scheduled to take effect in August.
Formerly called the bus revolution, the redo was shelved in late 2024 as SEPTA was heading into a year marked by financial and safety crises.
The plan includes cutting 18 bus routes, speeding up frequency on some routes, and adding or extending others.
“Under the new bus network, SEPTA will reallocate resources to make the system more efficient and reliable,” general manager Scott A. Sauer said.
The current network has nine high-frequency bus routes, defined as those running every 15 minutes or better during peak travel seven days a week. SEPTA says that will gradually increase to 29 frequent routes by the fall of 2027.
But the reallocation means some riders will be inconvenienced, and public commenters criticized the moves.
Consumer advocate Lance Haver said that after 9 p.m., people will be forced to wait an hour between buses serving Broad Street.
“The Broad Street subway is not an option for many bus riders,“ Haver said. ”Not all stations are accessible, and the subway isn’t as safe as the bus.”
He said SEPTA could keep current levels of service if it “stopped wasting millions of dollars” on the behind-schedule Key Card 2.0 fare system.
Except for some technical adjustments, officials said, the route revisions are the same as those the SEPTA board approved in May 2024, after more than two years of debate and redrafting of the plan in response to public criticism.
Once the plan is fully implemented, the number of bus routes in SEPTA’s system would drop from the current 124 to 106.
