SEPTA is temporarily shutting down the Chestnut Hill East Line for more than two months beginning this weekend, to allow for summertime repairs to a series of bridges along the route.
Trains will stop running Sunday, June 15, and resume a little over 11 weeks later, on Tuesday, Sept. 2. The Regional Rail service primarily provides access to Germantown, Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill.
Crews, during the pause, will be rehabilitating the Wayne Avenue, Logan Street, Chew Avenue, Mt. Pleasant Avenue and Cresheim Valley Drive bridges. Three of the five structures are over 100 years old, and the remaining two were built more than 90 years ago.
SEPTA is planning to allocate a total of just over $36 million to the bridge repairs, “the most significant” project the system is undertaking during this year’s warmer months, said Scott Sauer, the authority’s general manager.
“With the end of school and the start of summer quickly approaching, we will be ramping up our construction and maintenance efforts,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “This is a critical time for us to maintain and improve our infrastructure.”
SEPTA is adding three additional inbound and outbound weekday trains on the Chestnut Hill West Line to account for increased demand. Service will operate every 30 minutes during peak commuter hours, and trains will come every hour other times and on the weekends, officials said. Riders can also use the Route 23 bus to go to Center City, SEPTA advised.
Work is also ongoing at the Chestnut Hill East Station to make the stop accessible for people with disabilities and add other improvements.
Beginning Monday, June 16, several bus routes – 18, 53 and 71 – in the project area will be detoured.
Weekday ridership on the Chestnut Hill East Line averaged out to nearly 3,100 people a day in 2024, above only the little-used Cynwyd Line.
Chestnut Hill East is not one of the five Regional Rail lines that could be scrapped in January as part of SEPTA’s budget crisis. Chestnut Hill West is among those on the chopping block.
