SEPTA route extension aids Hunting Park Ave. revitalization
In less than a decade, Hunting Park Avenue's industrial warehouses have been revived by bustling businesses and social service centers.
In less than a decade, Hunting Park Avenue's industrial warehouses have been revived by bustling businesses and social service centers.
A gym, a center for crime victims, schools, and doctors' offices now hug the four-lane artery east of Broad Street.
Developers say the area is one of the few in the city that still offers lots of big parcels with parking. Without a car, though, getting to the growing commercial hub has been a hassle.
That will change Sunday.
SEPTA is adding 21/2 miles and 22 stops to the Route 53 bus, mostly along Hunting Park from Ninth to G Streets.
"It was about time," said Annette Crochado, 56, speaking in Smith's Pharmacy in the La Fortaleza complex. "This was a miracle for a lot of people."
Crochado's back problems make it painful for her to reach appointments at Temple University Hospital offices in the complex.
"It's going to be useful for me and a lot of people in the neighborhood," she said.
The Route 53 bus will be the first at least since the 1970s to travel along Hunting Park. SEPTA estimated the more direct route will attract 90,000 new riders to a bus that now has 700,000 patrons.
At Hunting Park and Front Street, Ameana Harper, 18, waited for her bus in the cold and described her hour-long commute from classes at Phase 4 Learning Center to her job at a Stenton Avenue hair salon. She starts on the Route 57 bus, one of four that cross Hunting Park but don't travel on it. She has to take two other buses to get to work.
"If I was in the car, it would take 15 minutes," she said. The new route will help.
Luis Hincapie was one of the first people who saw the corridor's potential. Six years ago, he bought an old warehouse and moved his physical therapy business into it.
Since then he has expanded La Fortaleza to include a gym, doctors' offices, and the pharmacy.
"This is an area of the city where you're going to see a lot of development," he said.
The complex has foot traffic of about 1,000 people a day, he estimated. Some people can't drive because of medical conditions or poverty. Some skipped important medical care because getting to Hunting Park Avenue was too complicated.
Hincapie worked with City Council member Maria Quiñones Sánchez to persuade SEPTA to give the area more bus service. It took seven years.
"It was a combination of things they needed to see," she said.
It helped that Hunting Park Plaza, the new end of Route 53, had 12 stores and more than 155,000 square feet of retail space in use.
The five schools in the area collectively have 5,500 students.
The effort to expand transit here mirrors what is typical in East Coast cities, where service often lags development, said Erick Guerra, an assistant professor of urban planning at the University of Pennsylvania. The impact of more direct transit service can be profound, he said.
"I think people catch on pretty quickly," he said, "kind of word of mouth."
Sánchez hopes this is the first phase of better transit for the growing corridor. She said she expects more of the old warehouses along the route will draw new tenants.
The bus service "provides a gateway and simple access," she said. "Our goal is to expand it."
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