UNIVERSITY CITY DISTRICT
Q3 2024
Introduction
Welcome to the University City District (UCD) Quarterly Transportation Report, the first in an ongoing series about how people get around our neighborhood. On a national scale, it is well understood that commuting patterns and modes of transportation have changed, with many white-collar employees able to work more remotely, along with shifting trends in public transportation and micro-mobility (bikes, e-scooters, etc.). This inaugural report focuses on University City’s transportation landscape in a thoroughly post-COVID Philadelphia.
UCD plays an advisory role in transportation decisions and infrastructure within our neighborhood. We provide analysis to partners and stakeholders, support the bike share program Indego on station locations and logistics, and work with the Philadelphia Streets Department to build pedestrian plazas and other streetscape interventions to improve safety conditions for pedestrians, bicyclists, and passenger vehicles.
All data unless otherwise noted focuses on University City District, which we define for these purposes as the UCD service boundary. This area encompasses roughly 2.5 square miles, from the Schuylkill River in the east, to 50th Street in the west, north by Spring Garden and Market Streets, and south by Woodland Avenue. You can find an interactive map of the service boundary here, outlined in blue.
Summary
Private car traffic and SEPTA posted similar recovery metrics, with car volume at 71% and SEPTA at 74% of their 2019 figures respectively. Many bus routes in University City have the strongest ridership recovery of the entire SEPTA system, while the Loop Around University City (LUCY), which UCD operates in partnership with SEPTA, has exceeded 1,500 average daily ridership for the first time since 2019. Private car volume is similar to 2023, with a flatter, more prolonged morning and evening peak of traffic compared to 2019.
Pedestrian volume is close to 100% of its 2019 number, likely due to the resiliency of trips contributed by the residential population of University City. Trips are also up compared to 2023, with a 3.5% increase in the last year.
Indego shows massive signs of growth since 2019, with a large increase in trips in UCD corresponding with a large investment in additional stations and electric bikes in the post-COVID environment. Ridership in University City makes up 21.5% of citywide volume, a total of 267,152 trips in the last four quarters (Oct ’23 – Sept ’24).
Public Transit
We view SEPTA’s ridership trajectory as positive, with 74% of pre-COVID same-month ridership in Sept. 2024 and average daily ridership climbing to a total of 791,101 unlinked passenger trips. This figure is up by 16% from Sept. 2023, and ridership recovery is high among key bus routes that serve University City: Routes 21, 40, 42, 49, and 64 have all seen both ridership and service levels recover to near or above 100% of their 2019 marks. Four of these routes (21, 40, 42 & 49) are among the top five routes with the highest recovery rate system-wide. SEPTA had recently announced that the Bus Revolution changes to routes in West Philadelphia (in addition to Center City, South Philadelphia, & Delaware Co.) would occur in Feb. 2026. Due to the operational funding gap caused by the end of one-time federal COVID relief funds, Bus Revolution planning is postponed as of this publication. City-wide, the Bus Revolution would increase the number of frequent routes (routes that come every 15 minutes or less, 6 AM – 9 PM, seven days a week) from the current 23 to 41 routes. It would also increase the number of people within a five-minute walk of a frequent route by 20%. We plan to analyze the potential impact of the Bus Revolution to transit in University City closer to its implementation.
Trolley ridership in Fall 2024 is similar to that of Fall 2023, and up significantly from 2021 and 2022, particularly on Routes 34 and 36. Compared to 2019, ridership on these four trolleys is ~60% with service levels at ~90% of that baseline. Looking toward the future, SEPTA announced the design of new trolleys as a part of their Trolley Modernization, SEPTA’s program to transform the nation’s largest trolley network into an accessible, fast, and easy-to-use system planned to start service in 2027. The new trolleys from Alstom Transportation Inc. will have larger capacity than the current fleet constructed by Kawasaki in the early 1980s, in addition to improved accessibility via low-platform boarding, enhanced audio and visual messaging, and flexible space for wheelchairs, bikes, and strollers. You can read more about them here
The Loop Around University City (LUCY), which UCD operates in partnership with SEPTA, has seen continued ridership increases since 2021, with average daily ridership in Fall 2024 surpassing 1,500 across both the Gold and Green Routes, the first time since 2019. Ridership is at 55.5% of 2019 levels across both routes, with service levels at 75% of their pre-COVID height. To learn more about riding LUCY, click here
While the Market Frankford line does not yet have year-end data available for 2024, average ridership jumped from ~77,000 in 2022 to ~108,000 in 2023. With an eye toward continuing modernization, in July of 2024 SEPTA announced they had awarded the contract for new railcars for the line to Hitachi Rail, with the full fleet to be delivered by the end of 2031. The new vehicles will have greater capacity, open gangways to allow free movement of passengers between railcars, and enhanced digital wayfinding and real-time data. You can read more about the new vehicles here.
Pedestrians
Pedestrian volume in University City is showing a continued upward trend in 2024, with an average increase of 3.5% compared to the same month in 2023. Total visits so far in the year fell just shy of eight million, coming in at 7,907,460 as measured by Placer.ai, an aggregated cell phone GPS service which counts all visits within the UCD service boundary greater than 10 minutes in length. Through the end of September, total visits are at 96.6% of their 2019 figure, with February being the only month so far in 2024 to have higher volume than 2019.
In two key commercial corridors, Walnut Street and Baltimore Avenue, visitor pedestrian traffic is down slightly in Q3 2024 compared to Q3 2023. On Walnut Street, an average of 209,578 people visited each month, down 6.5% from 2023, while on Baltimore Avenue 73,883 people visited, down 4.3% from the same period in 2023. Walnut Street’s figure through September 2024 represents an average of 88% of visitors in 2019, while for Baltimore Avenue that number is 75%.
Cars
Private vehicle traffic in University City remains steady between 2024 and 2023. Streetlight, a service which collects car trip data, reports that the average daily volume of private vehicle traffic in the district is 174,225. This figure includes trips which start or end in the UCD service area and excludes those that only pass through (such as long-distance trips on I-76, or those going from Delaware County to Center City through West Philadelphia). Car volume is down slightly from the 1st half of 2023 (the only available data in that year due to an industry data disruption), where it was an average of 179,546 cars per day. The total volume of car traffic is at 71% of its 2019 average (244,052 vehicles per day), a similar figure to SEPTA’s 74% ridership recovery.
Our data shows that traffic volume rises steadily through the early morning before plateauing from 7 AM to 11 AM. The volume peaks between 2 PM and 4 PM before slowly falling throughout the evening. This aligns with national research done in post-COVID years; Streetlight found that in the downtowns of the ten largest cities in the United States, peak morning traffic had decreased by 40% of its 2019 levels, where midday traffic is only 22% lower.
In UCD specifically, weekday 2019 vehicle volume was highest from 3 PM through 5 PM, while for weekdays in 2024 it has shifted earlier, from 2 PM through 4 PM, with a smaller spike during the peak hour. Morning commuting patterns have also flattened; volume is roughly even per hour from 7 AM through 10 AM, while in 2019 it distinctly rose and then spiked in the 8 AM - 9 AM hour before falling thereafter. Additionally, the share of car volume on Wednesdays and Thursdays rose significantly in 2024 compared to 2019, while traffic has dipped on Saturdays and Sundays.
The most popular areas for vehicle journeys include the medical campuses of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn Medicine, and Penn Presbyterian, as well as Cira Center South and the Internal Revenue Service buildings near the Schuylkill River.
54% of trips in Q1 2024 took 30 minutes or less, while the average trip length is just over 11 miles long. A substantial amount of car trips within University City are short; 16.2% take less than 10 minutes, with 10.6% under 1 mile long and 22.8% under 2 miles long. In 2019 car trips were longer in time and shorter in distance, with only 44% of trips taking less than 30 minutes, while 34% of trips were under 2 miles in length. In combination with the much higher vehicle volume in 2019, this is likely due to increased congestion in the pre-COVID traffic environment.
University City is slightly lower than the national average for short car journeys; the 2022 National Household Travel Survey estimated that 27.7% of trips were 2 miles or less. This gap could be due to the stronger walkable, bikeable, and transit-accessible character of University City compared to the national average. University City is a neighborhood less than 2.5 miles in distance between any two points; therefore, the potential exists to further reduce the amount of short-distance car trips by improving the access and quality of alternative transportation methods.
Indego
Bicycles play a key role in how people get around University City; the latest American Community Survey estimates that 1.8% of Philadelphians commute to work by bike, while that figure is ~3% in the 19104 and 19143 ZIP Codes in University City.
Indego ridership in University City is strong; 21.5% of trips citywide in the last four quarters (Oct ’23 – Sept ’24) began or ended at a station in University City, totaling 267,152 trips. Ridership is up 15% in 2024 compared to 2023, with each quarter seeing an increase in ridership compared to last year. Indego is the only mode of transportation in this report that saw an increase in utilization compared to pre-COVID, with total trips in UCD up by 67% compared to the 159,338 in 2019. The share of rides within UCD in 2019 was almost identical to that of the last four quarters at 21.4%, indicating that increased ridership is a product of the growth of the system citywide and continuing mode switching after COVID.
In the last four quarters, five stations in University City had greater than 20,000 trips begin or end at them: 34th and Spruce, University City Station, Amtrak 30th Street Station, 30th Street Station East, and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). In 2019 only University City Station had total ridership over 20,000 trips, with Amtrak 30 th Street Station falling just under that threshold at 19,855 trips. 36% of trips started outside of UCD and ended in it and 38% of trips started in UCD and left the district for their destination, while the remaining 26% of trips were entirely within UCD. The pre-COVID share of trips by start and end destination are similar to the last four quarters, with 23% entirely within UCD, 40% only starting in UCD, and 36% only ending in UCD.
23rd and South is the most popular destination outside UCD for trips starting within the district, with 5,560 ending at the station. Southwest Center City / Graduate Hospital stations make up the top three origin stations for trips that start outside UCD and ended inside the district, including 19 th and Lombard (3,729 trips), 23rd and South (3,610 trips), and 21st and Catharine (3,468 trips). These three stations also made up the top destinations outside of UCD in 2019.
2,226 trips started or ended at 48th and Baltimore, a new station installed with UCD’s logistical support and guidance by Indego in March 2024, while 9,916 started or ended at 32nd and Baring (Drexel Park), which opened in December 2023. Ridership at stations opened in the first half of 2023 include 11,346 trips at 36th and Filbert, 7,053 at 41st and Chestnut, and 1,137 at 48th and Woodland. These stations represent Indego’s plan to add service to underserved and highly utilized sections of the city, which you can read more about here.
Indego ridership has not only changed in volume since 2019; the widespread introduction of electric bikes to the system resulted in the majority of trips citywide being electric for the first time in 2023. In the last four quarters in UCD, 62.5% of trips were taken with electric bikes, a figure that was only 14.1% in 2019. The share of trips taken by year-long passholders (the “Indego365 pass”) has also increased post-COVID, a 34.5% figure compared to 21.6% in 2019. This increase comes at the decrease of rides taken by those on a monthly pass (“Indego30”), which has decreased by 8%, as well as those on a Day Pass, which has decreased by 4%. In August, Indego announced the return of a single ride purchasing option, which offers a 30-minute ride for $4.50, which could shift the distribution of passholder trips in the coming months.
If you would like to discuss these findings in more depth or suggest future topics, please contact:
Joe Dizenhuz
Manager
of Research & Analysis
jdizenhuz@universitycity.org
267.635.2861
For press inquiries, please contact:
Chris
Richman
Director of Marketing & Communications chris@universitycity.org
