A driver ran a red light and hit a SEPTA trolley – injuring four people – Sunday morning in Southwest Philadelphia, transit officials said.
The Route 13 trolley was struck just before 7:30 a.m. near 52nd Street and Chester Avenue in Kingsessing, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. He told Metro that the car rammed into the trolley’s front end, near the passenger door.
Three riders and the trolley operator suffered nonlife-threatening injuries, Busch said. The driver, he added, was arrested. Philadelphia police did not provide details on the incident Sunday.
“From everything that we know at this point, there was nothing the trolley operator could have done to avoid the collision,” Busch said.
“The trolleys do operate – with the exception of the tunnel in Center City – they’re out in mixed traffic, just like the buses or just like other cars are,” he added. “So unfortunately, they have to kind of deal with the same things on the roads that everybody else does.”
The crash knocked the trolley off its rails, though the vehicle did not flip or fall over, officials said. Crews were able to reconnect the trolley to the rails, and Busch said the crash is not expected to have long-lasting service impacts.
Sunday’s incident follows a spate of serious crashes last month, when five separate collisions left a woman dead and dozens injured within the span of a week. Investigations into the causes of those incidents are ongoing.
SEPTA data shows that overall accidents are trending downward compared to last year, and the authority also reported slightly fewer major crashes through the first four months of 2023.
