Bus passengers waiting on the sun-baked sidewalks of Spring Garden Street got a momentary bit of relief Wednesday afternoon, thanks to transit advocates trying to draw attention to poor conditions at Philly’s main intercity bus terminal.
Several activists with Transit Forward Philadelphia, 5th Square, and Liberty Resources passed out cold bottled water to passengers waiting for Greyhound, Peter Pan, FlixBus, and Megabus buses or rideshare pickups on the curb along Spring Garden near Front Street.
“They are exposed to all sorts of elements — heat, cold, wind, smog. The very least that any bus company or government can do to provide for them is to provide water,” 5th Square organizer Micah Fiedler said. “In lieu of that, we’re out here today to help alleviate some of these issues.”
They also asked the passengers to sign an online petition demanding the city create a proper terminal with indoor shelter, bathrooms, and other basic amenities.
The bottled water was welcomed by travelers like Lenore Digsby, a city resident who sat on a pair of “hard” telephone poles that were lying on a sidewalk as she and a friend waited for a van to pick them up.
“There should be another station erected somewhere. To stand out and endure the weather, that’s kind of unfair,” said Digsby, who recently moved to Philadelphia from Wilmington. “Now that I live here I want to be able to have some shelter while I’m waiting on my bus to come, to go to the Atlantic City beach or wherever.”
A year spent in limbo
Passengers and advocates have been protesting bus terminal conditions since Greyhound shut down its longtime bus station near Chinatown a year ago and carriers started picking up people curbside, first from Market Street in Old City and more recently from Spring Garden.
In addition to heat in the summer and cold in the winter, they point to noise and pollution from the street and from I-95, which passes over Spring Garden in the bus pickup area, and the site’s relatively remote location on the city’s eastern edge.
The area is also difficult to navigate for disabled passengers and the adjoining SEPTA train station is not accessible, advocates say. To reach a portable restroom facility the city installed on a nearby property, wheelchair users have to cross a patch of rough cobblestones.
“People that utilize mobility aids like wheelchairs, especially manual wheelchairs, are not safe to go over gravel, because their chairs can tip over and their tires can get messed up,” said Dominique Howell, an independent living specialist at Liberty Resources and wheelchair user who was handing out water bottles Wednesday.
“Also, we need to be inside of a building because we have more issues than just going to the bathroom. We have equipment that we need to use, a lot of times we have attendants. And so it would make more sense to have somewhere where it’s sheltered,” she said.
Bus passengers seemed largely unaware of both the portable restroom, which is on a driveway off Noble Street, a half-block from Spring Garden, and of a ticket office near Columbus Boulevard that offers 16 indoor seats.
“I had no idea,” said Connor Maisano, who said he frequently takes buses to New York. and has been at the Spring Garden terminal a few times in the past week.
Maisano was waiting for a delayed FlixBus in a small pocket park at 2nd Street. Some passengers milled around the park, while Maison and others sat on a low wall made of rocks and fencing. “Something metal and a little painful, if you move too much,” he said.
The terminal could use “seating, a waiting area, snacks, coffee, clean bathrooms — the usual,” he said.
‘Not a binary issue’
City officials have floated the idea of moving the bus terminal to a parking garage on 2nd Street in Old City on a long-term temporary basis, until they can build a permanent station elsewhere.
That proposal has drawn strong opposition from neighbors, including a preschool located close to the garage. It’s supported by a group of transit advocates that includes 5th Square, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, and several other organizations.
Fiedler said he and other advocates sympathize with the daycare owners’ concern about a potential disruption of their operations.
“At the same time, riders across the city and across the Northeast Corridor have experienced a disruption, to the point of thousands of riders a day and nearly a million bus customers coming into Philly every single year,” he said. “It’s not a binary issue, and we acknowledge that, but we also think that this is the best solution to help the most people for this moment.”
Officials with the city’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, & Sustainability have said they would like to move the bus terminal by September, but that date is “not set in stone.” They did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment.
The garage is operated by the Philadelphia Parking Authority and owned by the National Park Service, which operates nearby Independence National Historic Park.
Park service will evaluate the plan
Park Superintendent Steve Sims noted during an interview Monday that the garage is used by visitors to the Museum of the American Revolution and other attractions, and said the NPS is waiting to receive more information on the proposal so it can evaluate its impact on the park’s historic resources.
“Once we have all of the information that we need from the city and the Parking Authority to understand the impacts, the mitigations that they plan on doing [for] its operation, how that’s going to operate, the next thing would be to have public engagement and having a conversation with the neighbors, the businesses, the Old City District to get their thoughts on it as well,” Sims said during a pre-Independence Day interview with WHYY’s Jennifer Lynn.
“Once we have all that information, I can make a decision on whether or not this is going to be a good thing for the National Park Service, or won’t be,” Sims said.
Many advocates and residents have urged the city to create a permanent bus station near Amtrak’s 30th Street train station and to require Greyhound and other carriers to pick up passengers there. The city recently received a grant to study three locations near 30th Street for potential use as a bus terminal.