SEPTA Awards Design Contract for Three Stations

David C. Lester

PHILADELPHIA – SEPTA announces it has awarded a design contract for the ADA improvements to three of its stations.

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority announced in a news release it has awarded a design contract to CDM Smith, Inc. for improvements to accessibility. The contract is for three trolley stations: the 22^nd, 33^rd, and 36^th Street Stations and is part of Trolley Modernization, “SEPTA’s program to transform the nation’s largest trolley network into an accessible, fast, and easy-to-use system.”

Through the contract, CDM Smith, Inc. will focus on the three stations’ designs, and the awarded contract itself is $4,987,421. The reasons for the upgrades to the stations is due to the fact that each of the stations was constructed before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted. With the design contract and construction, the three stations will be brought up to ADA standards. These standards include “elevator installation; platform renovation; new signage, lighting, and security cameras; and waterproofing.”

The program and its accessibility projects along the Market-Frankford and Broad Street Lines “means that 99% of subway and trolley trips will be through an accessible station by 2035.” 

Regarding the previous year, SEPTA Board Chairman Pasquale T. Deon Sr. stated that SEPTA “awarded a contract for new trolleys, broke ground on station accessibility projects, and received additional funding to accelerate projects. Even with this critical progress, without new options for matching funds, SEPTA will miss out on additional federal infrastructure investments over the next decade – putting our region’s future at risk.”

After accessibility improvements have been made to the 22^nd, 33^rd, and 36^th Street Stations, SEPTA says that it will be “nearly finished with an ADA improvement project at Susquehanna-Dauphin Station, and construction is underway at Tasker-Morris Station – both along the Broad Street Line.”