Philly Transit
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On February 18, 1964, the Pennsylvania General Assembly established the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) to provide public transit services for Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties.
SEPTA acquired the following companies over the years: Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC) in 1968, Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company
(also known as Red Arrow) in 1969, Schuylkill Valley Lines (Frontier) in 1976 and the Commuter Rail aka Conrail in 1983.
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional quasi-public state agency that serves 3.8 million people in five counties in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region. SEPTA follows an all-four approach to public transportation, operating bus, subway and elevated rail, commuter rail, trolley , and trackless trolley service (temporarily suspended as of 2006), and manages construction projects that repair, replace, and expand the existing system.
SEPTA has the fifth largest transit system in the US, with 280 active stations, over 450 miles of track, 2,295 revenue vehicles, 196 routes, and about 306.9 million annual unlinked trips. Average weekday rider-ship across the system is about 1,000,000 passengers. SEPTA also operate Shared-Ride services in Philadelphia and ADA services across the region. SEPTA have a workforce of over 9,000. The five Pennsylvania counties that SEPTA serves are: the combined city and county of Philadelphia, Delaware County, Montgomery County, Bucks County, and Chester County. SEPTA also serve New Castle County in Delaware, and Mercer County in New Jersey.
There are four parts of the Philadelphia Transit system which is rapid transit, trolleys and light rails, buses and commuter rails. Rapid transit involves several lines throughout the metropolitan area. Market-Frankford Line (Blue Line): subway and elevated line from the Frankford Transportation Center in the Frankford section of Philadelphia to 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby, via Center City Philadelphia. This was fully renovated in 2003. Broad Street Line and Broad-Ridge Spur (Orange Line): subway line along Broad Street in Philadelphia from Fern Rock Transportation Center to Pattison Avenue/Sports Complex, via Center City Philadelphia. SEPTA list 121 bus routes, with most routes in the City of Philadelphia. SEPTA generally employs lettered, one and two-digit route numbering for its City Division routes, 90-series and 100-series numbers routes for its Victory or Red Arrow Division (Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties) and its Frontier Division (Montgomery and Bucks Counties). There also exists 200-series routes for its Regional Rail connector routes (Routes 201, 204 and 206 in Montgomery & Chester Counties), 300-series routes for other routes (Routes 304 and 305), and 400-series routes for limited service buses to schools. Philadelphia also has commuter rail which is called Regional Rail. This division operates 13 lines serving more than 150 stations covering most of the five county southeastern Pennsylvania regions. It also runs trains to Newark, Delaware and Trenton, New Jersey.
There is also the light rail and trolley system in SEPTA. SEPTA Subway-Surface Trolley Lines (Green Line) have five trolley routes that run in a subway in the Center City and run out along on street-level trolley tracks in West and Southwest Philadelphia. The Norristown High Speed Line (Route 100) which was formerly known as the Philadelphia & Western (P&W) is an interurban rapid transit that is considered a light rail line. SEPTA Surface Media and Sharon Hill Trolley Lines (Routes 101 and 102) has two trolley routes in Delaware County which run mostly on private rights of way .Routes 15, 23, and 56 were three surface trolley routes that were “temporarily” suspended in 1992. Routes 23 and 56 are currently operated with buses. Trolley service on SEPTA route 15 resumed as of September 2005 Trackless trolley (Trolleybus): All five of SEPTAs trackless trolley routes are currently operated with buses. Routes 29, 59, 66, 75, and 79 were run with trackless trolleys until diesel buses replaced them in 2002