We are happy to report that effective immediately, SEPTA’s Bike Policy will now allow for bikes on all Norristown High Speed Line and Broad Street Line trains.
This announcement comes after advocacy from our Policy Team, Transit Forward Philadelphia and Clean Air Council asking that SEPTA reevaluate their bike policy given that ridership is still around 50% of pre-pandemic rates. In a letter sent in August, our three organizations requested that all Regional Rail, NHSL, and BSL allow bikes on at all times. While they agreed to allow bikes on the NHSL and BSL without any restriction, SEPTA said that because of operator shortage on the regional rail, they weren’t able to accommodate bikes during peak hours of regional rail trains.
“It is the position of the Authority that for safety and schedule reasons during peak hours, on regional rail, the one direction weekday peak hours bike restriction must remain in place” said Jody Holton Chief Planning & Strategy Officer for SEPTA
This policy change is a crucial step toward better integration between SEPTA and micro-mobility users. SEPTA is currently looking for public input on how else they can expand their micro-mobility integration, take the survey today.
We thank SEPTA for partially agreeing to our request and will continue advocating for full access to Regional Rail cars 24-7. This is a major step forward and we applaud SEPTA for this decision.
Photo of Norristown High Speed Line train taken by Sean Turner