Roosevelt Boulevard Subway

Alignment

The subway would be a branch of SEPTA’s Broad Street Line (the B). Trains from Center City would use the line’s existing express tracks to Erie, then turn northeast into a new tunnel just north of Pike Street and run under Roosevelt Boulevard. PennDOT’s 2024 concept has nine underground stations, Erie included: 9th Street, Rising Sun Avenue, Tower Center (Adams Avenue), Pratt Street, Bustleton Avenue, Cottman Avenue, Rhawn Street, and Welsh–Grant near the Northeast Shopping Center. The line would surface briefly to cross Tacony Creek and Pennypack Creek at grade. North of Grant Avenue it would climb onto an elevated structure in the Boulevard median past Northeast Philadelphia Airport, with elevated stations at Red Lion Road, Southampton Road, Old Lincoln Highway, and Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem Township. The Bustleton Avenue station assumes a possible Market-Frankford Line extension up Bustleton Avenue.

The route is 14.7 miles: 8.4 underground, 0.7 at grade, and 5.6 elevated. It follows the line the Philadelphia City Planning Commission recommended in 2003, extended from Southampton Road to Neshaminy Mall. The site for a maintenance facility, and the exact path and terminus north of Southampton Road, are left for later study.

The subway is one of three transit modes, along with light rail and bus rapid transit, in PennDOT’s planning and environmental linkages study for rebuilding Roosevelt Boulevard by 2040. Each mode is paired with a new road design, such as a partially capped expressway or a “neighborhood boulevard.” PennDOT leads this phase with the City of Philadelphia, which ran the earlier Route for Change planning, and SEPTA, which would operate the line.

Updates

2026-09 — Near-term fixes funded; transit choice pushed into 2027

The City and PennDOT announced $134 million in safety and traffic changes on the Boulevard by 2030, including automated speed cameras, SEPTA’s Direct Bus B, and business-access-and-transit lanes. City planners said public engagement on the long-term transit option would continue into 2027, later than the 2026 target on the city’s website for a preferred recommendation. No subway has been approved, and State Rep. Jared Solomon called cost its main obstacle.

2026-07 — Subway alternatives extended to Neshaminy

PennDOT released a new set of alternatives for the corridor. Those with a subway pair it with a partially capped expressway, a neighborhood boulevard, or a new “blended” roadway design, and run it from Erie Avenue to Neshaminy in Bucks County. PennDOT, the City, and SEPTA plan to narrow the options over the next year and a half.

2026-06 — SEPTA budget still rests on stopgap money

SEPTA’s FY2027 budget kept service and fares unchanged by using the second and final year of a $394 million transfer of capital funds to operations, approved by PennDOT after the 2025 funding crisis. With no long-term state funding, SEPTA said its future “remains uncertain.” Its capital program cannot fully fund replacing the nearly 50-year-old cars on the B, the line the subway would extend.

2025-07 — Researchers propose a $3 billion first phase

NYU’s Transit Costs Project argued that a shorter line ending at Rhawn Street, with the first seven new stations, could cost about $3 billion and capture about 90% of its projected ridership. PennDOT had priced the full 12-station line at $11 billion to more than $16 billion, including a 40% contingency. The report came as SEPTA prepared service cuts of up to 45% for lack of state funding.

2024-12 — PennDOT puts the subway back on the table at $11.6–15.8 billion

PennDOT’s Tier 1 screening of six alternatives estimated the subway at $11.6 billion with a neighborhood boulevard or $15.8 billion with a capped expressway, carrying about 62,000 daily trips. Light rail was estimated at $5.6–9.7 billion and bus rapid transit at $1.9–5.8 billion. SEPTA said it had no preferred alternative, and no funding source was identified. The Tier 1 public meetings ended in January 2025.

2023-01 — SEPTA says “the math just doesn’t work”

SEPTA general manager Leslie Richards said the agency’s limited capital funds left “no way forward” on the subway. In October 2022 PennDOT had said it would screen transit options for the Boulevard, including a subway.

2021 — City’s Route for Change plan leaves out the subway

The City of Philadelphia’s Route for Change study, the first phase of today’s planning, set a 2040 vision for the Boulevard but excluded the subway from further consideration. PennDOT later restored it.

2003 — Planning Commission recommends a subway

The Philadelphia City Planning Commission recommended a Roosevelt Boulevard subway, estimating $2.5–3.4 billion and about 124,500 daily boardings. The project stalled for lack of local funding. A subway along the Boulevard had been proposed as early as 1913.