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The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, SEPTA

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, also known as SEPTA, was created in the early 1960s by the State of Pennsylvania to serve the Philadelphia region which includes (along with Philadelphia) the counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery as well as New Castle County in Delaware and Mercer County in New Jersey. While SEPTA is most popularly recognized for its commuter, light rail, and trolley services it also offers bus and tram services. In all SEPTA operates over 450 miles of railroad lines and carries just under one million commuters every day, one of the nation’s largest commuter systems!

Along with Amtrak, state passenger railroading operations are gaining support and receiving increased attention and funding, particularly as highways become increasingly congested. Perhaps the two most noted states that are giving passenger railroading serious attention include North Carolina and California. Both are doing a magnificent job developing passenger rail corridors in their respective states, particularly North Carolina. If you are interested in seeing how a passenger rail network should be properly implemented, planned, and carried out have a look at what the Tarheel State is doing.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority was created in 1963 from two former transit systems and was able to mostly relieve the ailing Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads from their commuter services in and around Philadelphia. The purpose of SEPTA was not to only provide transportation services for the region but to also do so more reliably and effectively than the PRR and Reading, which were losing so much money on commuter operations that they simply wanted out (and as a result service levels suffered). The railroads leased their commuter operations to SEPTA, which continued under successor Conrail until 1983 when everything was sold to the authority relieving the freight railroad entirely of the rail lines.

After SEPTA took over the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company (famously remembered as the Red Arrow Lines) and the Philadelphia & Western Railroad in the early 1970s it operated a system stretching as far south as eastern Delaware (where it connects with Amtrak); as far north as Trenton, New Jersey (where it connects with New Jersey Transit); as far north as Doylestown; and as far west as Thorndale (where it connects with Amtrak).

Aside from these main line routes SEPTA also offers five different local lines of service (which mostly serve the great Philadelphia area only). These lines include:

· Broad Street Line: Connects Pattison with Fern Rock.

· Market-Frankford Line: Connects 69th Street Terminal with Frankford.

· PATCO Line: Connects 15th and 16th Streets with Lindenwold.

· Route 100: Connects 69th Street Terminal with Norristown.

· Route 101 and 102: Trolley services connecting 69th Street Terminal Media and Sharon Hill (via Drexel Hill Junction).

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority also offers trolley service near downtown Philadelphia which stretches from near 13th Street to near 40th Street. Also of note is that Philadelphia is served by New Jersey Transit via RiverLINE that stretches as far south as Camden, New Jersey just across the river from downtown Philly.

Please Click Here To Return To The Main Commuter Rail Section

In all, SEPTA has been providing fast, reliable, and affordable transportation service to the Philadelphia region for over 40 years now, a far cry from the final days of service under the Pennsylvania and Reading, which as private transportation companies they simply did not have the available capital to offer such dependable service. Today, according to SEPTA it serves over 300 million commuters annually and covers a service area of 2,200 square miles. As gas prices continue to rise and folks look for a cheaper way to make it to the workplace it is very likely that SEPTA’s ridership numbers will continue to increase in the future. For more information about Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and riding the system please visit their website by clicking here.

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