The city’s wandering bus terminal for Greyhound, Megabus and other intercity carriers may soon be moving to a Philadelphia Parking Authority garage on 2nd Street near Walnut Street in Old City.
City officials want to use the AutoPark at Olde City as a “pilot” terminal while they hire a firm to study options for a permanent location, according to City Councilmember Mark Squilla, who said he was briefed on the proposal Monday.
Old City District executive director Job Itzkowitz said he also met with city officials Friday to discuss the idea. Greyhound and other carriers have already been running buses in and out of the garage to test its feasibility, according to Concerned Old City Neighbors, a newly formed neighborhood group.
Carriers currently pick up and drop off customers on a stretch of a curb along Spring Garden Street at the southeastern corner of Northern Liberties. The site has drawn complaints for its out-of-the-way location, minimal shelter options for passengers, and disruptions to nearby businesses.
The city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, or OTIS, declined to confirm the Old City proposal, saying in a statement only that it “has closely engaged with a variety of stakeholders including the bus carriers and neighborhood organizations for feedback and recommendations.”
“Currently, ideas are still being developed, options are being weighed, and no plans for relocation have been finalized,” the statement said.
OTIS said intercity bus operations “will not be moving from the [current] Spring Garden location at this time.” However, the agency recently said it intends for buses to stop using the current site by Labor Day, which is four months away.
The AutoPark proposal is already drawing criticism from nearby residents who say they have yet to be officially informed or given an opportunity to weigh in.
“We don’t understand if or how the city intends to engage in a serious site selection process that includes all but the most perfunctory community engagement,” the Concerned Old City Neighbors group wrote in a Change.org petition opposing the proposal.
The fourth terminal in less than a year
The city has been wrestling with how to handle intercity buses since last July, when Greyhound shut down its more than 35-year-old station on Filbert Street, near Reading Terminal Market and Chinatown.
For a few months the bus companies operated from the Market Street curb near Sixth Street in Old City, but the site was heavily criticized for lacking a bathroom or shelter, crowding the sidewalk, and displacing a SEPTA bus top.
In November, the city moved the terminal to Spring Garden Street, which initially lacked a bathroom and offered just a small ticket office as shelter, among other issues.
In March, OTIS and the Philadelphia Parking Authority floated the idea of building a long-term temporary terminal with a modular ticketing building on a parking lot on Spring Garden, across from the current curb pickup spot. But OTIS subsequently withdrew that plan and said the terminal would be relocated away from Northern Liberties entirely by Labor Day.
The parking authority runs garages, on-street meters, and parking permits. It has not previously been involved in bus operations, but its executive director Rich Lazer has lately been trying to broaden the agency’s portfolio and increasing its focus on quality of life issues like illegal parking.
A PPA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Blindsided” by the proposal
OTIS did not provide any information about how the terminal would operate, but according to information posted by the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, AutoPark has a dozen parking spaces for tourist buses, which are currently available on a first come, first served basis.
The management of Society Hill Towers, a large condo complex about two blocks from the garage, said in an email to tenants that the AutoPark has space for 16 buses, a waiting room, and restrooms, and is within walking distance of the Market-Frankford subway line.
“Up to 70 buses serving as many as 2,600 passengers will operate 19 hours per day, with one additional beat patrol officer potentially assigned to the area,” according to copies of the message obtained by Billy Penn.
“The city will not commit to a date when the temporary bus terminal will cease to operate, which could be years,” it said. The Society Hill Tower board could not immediately be reached for comment.
The email noted that the Old City District has not decided whether to support or oppose the proposal, and was negotiating with city officials to set up an information session for residents.
Intercity buses would apparently come down 2nd Street, enter the garage’s first floor, drop off and pick up passengers, and exit through the back of the building onto Front Street. They could then turn left on Dock Street to reach Delaware Boulevard and head north to an on-ramp to I-95.
A separate entrance leads to a ramp for cars to park on the structure’s upper floors.
The Old City Concerned Neighbors group said it had retained an attorney to represent nearby residents’ concerns about the relocation. Rumors of the proposal had “blindsided everyone, including homeowners, condominium associations, retailers, corporate offices, and a preschool located just 25 feet from the proposed bus station waiting room,” the group wrote its online petition.
The garage is next to Welcome Park, an open plaza run by the National Park Service, and across the street from the entrance to the parking lot for the U.S. Custom House, a federal building that contains a passport office, Homeland Security offices, and other agencies.
Old City Concerned Neighbors is “asking that the city of Philadelphia refrains from moving forward with this project without significant research and community engagement,” the group said, in a press release provided by Change.org.
“This location is a terrible choice,” resident Erin Paulson said in the release. “It will impede tourism in the surrounding historic area, and for obvious safety reasons, a busy bus terminal should not be directly next to a daycare for young children.”
