SEPTA Plans More Frequent Bus Service to DCCC

Beginning next year, SEPTA plans to expedite Route 112 bus service to and from Delaware County Community College, separating several stops off West Chester Pike into their own route, the agency announced Friday at a public meeting in Philadelphia.

Route 112’s stops in Haverford’s Manoa section and Marple Newtown’s Broomall and Lawrence Park sections would become part of the new Route 126, which would not extend to the college. However, the remaining Route 112 would become much more direct and be able to make more trips during the day.

SEPTA official John Calnan said the agency has received “many requests for better service” to DCCC, whose students and employees make up about 45 percent of Route 112’s ridership, by the college’s estimation.

Creighton Rabs, a DCCC student, told SEPTA officials the proposal makes sense: “Those buses are packed. It’s a long-overdue concept, and I’m glad the college is taking an interest.”

The current Route 112 changes too much from day to day, said Chuck Bode of the Tri-State Citizens Council on Transportation: “This route is quite complicated. Even the bus driver become confused about which stops they should make.”

Other routes are being eliminated or extended, based on current rate of ridership or requests from the public.

Friday’s meeting was an informal session. An official public hearing on the agency’s many route-change proposals for 2012 will follow sometime in April, and the board would vote in June or July, SEPTA official Charles Webb said.

The agency also discussed diverting Route 115 from Philadelphia International Airport toward DCCC, rather than to Ardmore as it currently runs.

“Most of the 115 ridership is in Havertown and south,” said SEPTA official Mark Cassel.

Ardmore resident John Barr objected to the plan.

“I tell people that the 115 is a one-seat ride to the airport. They don’t know it exists (because) there’s no marketing,” Barr said. “I thought we were making Ardmore a transportation center. If you do have to cut the 115, at least restore the 106 and 103, all their trips to Suburban Square, so it truly is a transportation center.”

Bus routes in Ardmore and elsewhere within SEPTA changed schedules this week. Cassel told Barr, “We’ve been working with township officials to get buses closer.”

Douglas Diehl of Tri-State Transit Group said he had mixed feelings about the 115 diversion: “It’s going to be very long to go from Delaware County Community College to Philadelphia International Airport. It’s got to go through one of the most congested areas of Delaware County. But I like that we’re looking for a way to get more ridership on the northern side of that route, which has been starving for it.”