Expect bus, trolley delays due to safety trainings, SEPTA says

Bus and trolley delays are expected beginning Monday, as SEPTA begins daylong safety trainings for employees in the wake of several recent crashes.

Over the next eight weeks, every SEPTA worker will be pulled from their regular jobs to participate in the sessions, which will include information about safety guidelines, transit officials said.

The trainings were developed with input from labor union representatives and will provide an opportunity for employee feedback, according to SEPTA.

“We will start with our frontline employees and move through our entire workforce,” SEPTA CEO and General Manager Leslie Richards said Thursday in a statement. “This commitment to reaching each and every employee means that SEPTA service will be impacted. When we say nothing is more important than safety, we mean it.”

Riders should check www.septa.org, the SEPTA app, @SEPTA on Twitter, or call 215-580-7800 for service impacts to specific routes.

SEPTA deployed safety officers to depots after a July 21 crash involving two buses on Roosevelt Boulevard that left a 72-year-old woman dead. In the week that followed, there were four other collisions – one involving a runaway trolley that is now being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Last week, four people were injured when a driver ran a red light and struck a trolley in Kingsessing, and, on Wednesday, several people were reportedly injured when two SEPTA buses collided in South Philadelphia.