SEPTA Trolley Tunnel Blitz Running From July 11th – August 11th 2025

Our partners from SEPTA will have their crews tackling critical track and power maintenance, station upgrades, and intensive cleaning as part of the 2025 Trolley Tunnel Closure. This year, in addition to the work by SEPTA, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) will also be performing rehabilitation on the tunnel under the Schuylkill River. Due to the number of events planned for the city of Philadelphia in 2026, there will be no major Trolley Closure next summer.

Here is the information on timing and impact of the tunnel work in 2025:

Impact on Riders

• SEPTA Trolley Routes [T1] 10, [T2] 34, [T3] 13, [T4] 11 and [T5] 36 will not operate in the Center City tunnel from 10 pm on Friday, July 11 2025 to 6 am on Monday, August 11
• Trolley service will begin and end at 40^th and Market Streets. Customers can board SEPTA’s [L] Market-Frankford Line at 40^th Street Station for travel to Center City.
• Bus routes 21 or 42 also provide connections to/from Center City. For travel from Center City to University City and Southwest Philadelphia, riders can board the [L] Market-Frankford Line at 13^th Street and then connect with trolley routes at 40^th Street.

Planned Improvements

• Replace worn track at various locations, which helps maintain safe operations in the tunnel
• Clean out and flush all pipes, drains and vent wells
• Replace and/or re-tension overhead contact wire
• Maintenance of entire tunnel signal system
• Heavy cleaning and maintenance at all stations including graffiti removal, painting, and lighting upgrades

Benefits

This is the 13th consecutive year SEPTA has held the Trolley Tunnel Closure program, which is scheduled during the summer when ridership is traditionally lower to impact the fewest number of regular customers.

This program gives SEPTA crews the opportunity to tackle construction, maintenance and safety improvement work in a concentrated period of time to reduce the number of outages throughout the year. It also enables preparation for Trolley Modernization – SEPTA’s program to transform the nation’s largest trolley network into an accessible, fast and easy-to-use system.

Trolley Modernization is a core component of SEPTA Forward, the Authority’s Strategic Plan, to create a lifestyle transit network – a transit system that can be easily used for any type of trip.

View alerts, advisories and detours across the system. To get the latest service news, call Customer Service at 215-580-7800 or follow SEPTA @SEPTA.