Philadelphia Essentials
- Philly now has tap to pay for local bus and rail services.
- Thereâs a whole lot of different ways to get around. Can be a bit overwhelming.
- Trust the apps, and tap to pay.
- Service is pretty good, as is coverage!
Pros
- Tap to pay (mostly)
- Lots of options
- Mostly fast and efficient
Cons
- Complex system can be tricky to understand
- Sometimes youâre waiting a while
Traveled multiple times since 2014; most recent February 2026
A Transformation in Usability
When I first went to Philly, riding transit was⌠complicated. It felt like a system for locals only and took a lot of local knowledge to navigate successfully.
Recently, theyâve completely revamped it with new names for the lines and new signs.
I really gotta give props to the team at SEPTA. As a visitor, it is night and day, so much easier and more pleasant to ride now.
Transit Options in Philly
Philly has a lot of transit. It kinda feels like someone dumped a bunch of train tracks and buses on the city and let them kinda fall where they may.
- There are buses. đ
- There are subways. đ
- There are trolleys that look like they came out of a Miyazaki film. đ
- There are other trolleys that look like they came out of a 1950s movie. đ
- Thereâs regional rail (SEPTA). đ
- Thereâs more different regional rail (PATCO). đ
- Just across the Delaware river, theres even more different regional rail, but technically itâs New Jersey Transit. đ¤ď¸
- Thereâs a ferry that takes you to an aquarium. â´ď¸
- Thereâs bike share. đ˛
- Thereâs Amtrak. đ
- Thereâs probably other things I havenât found yet. Express buses maybe?
The routes can be⌠odd.
- The trolleys do a little loop around City Hall and turn back where they came, splitting in all directions like squid tentacles.
- Thereâs one other trolley line that makes its own kind of music.
- The PATCO train into New Jersey starts at a random block and just heads out of the city (it does connect well with two subway lines).
- There are two kinda âextraâ subway lines that start where another one ends.
There are just so many options. Iâve never had trouble getting around Philly, but Iâve had a lot of trouble trying to figure out which way is best. Typically, âwhatever happens to be right hereâ works pretty well.
Subways
Philly has two (three, really) subway lines that go through Center City (what Philly calls their downtown), and a couple more on the outskirts.
The subways are pretty good! Iâd love a bit more frequency, but itâs fine. Also, the tracking tends to be really optimistic⌠it usually came 3-5 minutes later than expected.
Do pay attention to the stations. On at least some of my journeys (maybe all of them, but I donât recall), there were no announcements nor displays telling you where you are.
Trolleys
The trolleys are really weird and really cute. Single car, high floor trains with steep narrow stairs. They go fast. Too fast for me to get a clear shot of them, apparently.
Trolleys run underground in center city, and above ground further to the west.
Sometimes you pay at a turnstile in the station. Other times you pay as you get on the trolley. If you went through a turnstile, you can board the trolley using any door. If youâre paying as you board, get on at the front.
G Line Trolley
The G trolley north of center city runs really cool vintage trolleys, similar to the ones in San Francisco on the MUNI J line.
Unfortunately, this trolley only came every 30 minutes. I was going to ride, but lost track of time while enjoying a cheesesteak. Oops!
Improved Payment
My first visit to Philly in 2014, tap-to-pay was a concept barely in peopleâs imaginations. You had to buy a ticket or card. There were a lot of options. It wasnât clear which was best for me.
I went underground at 30th Street. Standing near the machines were SEPTA employees wearing vests that said something like âLet me help you!â
I asked a nice lady for help, but she was asking questions I didnât have an answer to. Where would I be going, how many trips per day, and so on.
âI donât know,â I said. âIâm not from here. I just want to be able to get around.â
âYouâre not from here?!â she said.
âNo, Iâm not from here.â
âHmmm⌠youâre not from hereâŚâ
I felt like the first person ever to try to take transit in Philly who wasnât from here. She thought about it for a good minute or two, then made a suggestion.
I donât remember what the suggestion was, but I bought it, and it carried me throughout my trip.
Now you just tap to pay. No tickets, no guessing whether a 3-day pass will be better than a 1-day or adding value to a card. I just tapped my phone and got on.
Improved Train Naming
When I first visited, the subways had names. Like, names made of words. There was the Broad Street line and the Market-Frankford. It was confusing to say the least.
In the past couple years, Philly added letter naming to its lines. Itâs so much easier for me as a visitor.
Improved Stations
On my first few visits, the stations were confusing and creepy. But now, the stations are rather good actually!
30th Street Station
30th Street used to be kinda a cave. A big pipe organ played by an operatic phantom wouldnât be out of place.
Now itâs remodeled, nice escalators, bright mezzanine, good navigation. As many visitorsâ first impression of the cityâs transit, it is actually welcoming now. This is new.
City Hall Station
Nothing at City Hall station is where you expect it.
There are two subways that seem like they cross perpendicular, but one of them does a kind of swerve so they cross at an angle.
City Hall is the end station for several trolley lines, which do a really wide U-Turn before heading back where they came.
There are multiple stops for some of the lines, I think. Itâs unclear and I didnât explore all the depths of the station.
There are weird staircases and corridors and catwalks and funky shortcuts.
This is all stacked on top of each other at funky angles like someone just lost at Jenga.
For a long time, wayfinding was terrible.
There were missing signs. Inaccurate signs. Random closed corridors.
To transfer subways, one time I went through a metal gate that was held slightly ajar by a makeshift⌠something.
It was intimidating, creepy even. I ended up on the wrong end of the platform, or the wrong level, several times. Random locked gates. Hastily printed temporary signs.
All of that, and the lines just had names. Market Street. Broad Street.
Mostly I just had to ask locals, who were helpful. Philly people are amazing.
Someone Fixed It.
Itâs taken a complete 180. There are signs everywhere and they are all accurate. The lines all have letter names.
The long creepy corridor to nowhere? Now itâs a long corridor to the L, with reassuring signs along the way as if to say âyouâre doing great, sweetie!â That alone makes it feel less creepy.
Broad Street Stations
Some of the stations under Broad Street are long. I think a couple of them might be connected.
Which Way Out?
The first time I exited one of these stations (Lombard maybe?), I got off the train and there were just long underground corridors in every directions. Maybe some stairs.
I picked a random corridor, and started to walk down it. A voice from the very end (I think someone had set up camp there) shouted âThereâs no exit this way!â Appreciated!
New Signs
Now, there are signs everywhere at that station. And not just exit signs. Each sign also tells you which bus lines you can connect to at that exit.
Regional Rail
There are three regional rail services in the area:
- SEPTA, within Pennsylvania
- New Jersey Transit
- PATCO, which runs from center city to some kinda random locations in New Jersey.
PATCO
I rode PATCO a couple stops, just to see how it is.
It was fine! Typical regional rail. It runs on a schedule, every 30-60 minutes.
PATCO isnât integrated with SEPTAâs fare system, so I couldnât tap my phone to enter like I did with the subway and trolley.
I bought a paper ticket from a machine. You feed the ticket into a turnstile when you get on, then feed it into another one on the way out, and it calculates how much you owe.
I paid the exact amount for my trip (just $1.40). Since my ticket didnât have any leftover value, the machine gobbled up my ticket when I exited. Om nom nom!
It was an easy underground transfer to the L subway at Market St.
Bus
I didnât ride the bus on my most recent visit, but Iâve taken them before. Iâve ridden the bus within the city, and Iâve done a couple of round trips to King of Prussia, about an hour away, for conferences. Theyâre perfectly good buses, fairly reliable, nothing too remarkable.
My first trip, right after I got on, a car cut off the bus. The driver yelled âWatch where youâre going, jackass!â out the window.
I thought, âPhilly is all right!â
Ferry
I took the ferry to the aquarium on my first visit. It was fine. This was about 10 years ago, so I donât remember details other than some cute fish.
Walking
Philadelphia, at least center city, is unusual for walking. In the older core, there are no pedestrian signals. Just traffic lights. Itâs a bit disorienting at first, until you realize that you just walk the same direction as cars. The streets are rather narrow, so it only takes a couple seconds to cross.
Itâs very pedestrian friendly, for the most part, and the scale of everything just feels⌠friendly.