Meet halfway in Philadelphia
For a group meeting in Philadelphia, the fairest points are usually City Hall/15th Street, 30th Street Station, 8th and Market or Fern Rock - SEPTA stations where the Market-Frankford (L), Broad Street (B), trolley, Regional Rail or PATCO lines meet. togather times each person door to door and finds the spots where nobody is stuck with a much longer trip.
- SEPTA Metro
- Regional Rail
- PATCO
- SEPTA buses
- Cycling
- Walking
Where groups actually meet in Philadelphia
Interchanges that work as a fair midpoint for most groups. togather will not always land on one of these - it answers for your actual starting points - but they are the ones that come up again and again.
City Hall / 15th Street
Market-Frankford Line (L), Broad Street Line (B) and the subway-surface trolleys
The one place where the two subway lines and the trolleys all meet, under City Hall, with Suburban Station's Regional Rail a short underground walk away.
30th Street Station
Market-Frankford Line (L), trolleys, Regional Rail and Amtrak
Just across the Schuylkill, and fairer than Center City for a group weighted towards University City, West Philly or the suburbs on Regional Rail.
8th and Market
Market-Frankford Line (L) and PATCO
Where the PATCO line from South Jersey meets the L, so it is the fair answer whenever someone in the group is coming over the river from Camden County.
69th Street Transportation Center
Market-Frankford Line (L), Norristown line (M) and the Media trolleys
The western end of the L in Upper Darby, and a good middle for a group living in Delaware County and along the Main Line rather than in the city.
Fern Rock Transportation Center
Broad Street Line (B) and Regional Rail
The northern end of the Broad Street Line, where it meets several Regional Rail lines, so it suits a group split between North Philly and the northern suburbs.
Frankford Transportation Center
Market-Frankford Line (L) and a large SEPTA bus terminal
The north-east end of the L, and the fair pick for a group in the Northeast, where most trips start on a bus before they ever reach a train.
How to pick a fair meeting point in Philadelphia
Philadelphia looks like an easy city to split down the middle. William Penn’s grid makes City Hall the obvious centre, and for a lot of groups it is. But the rail network is a cross rather than a mesh: the Market-Frankford Line runs east to west, the Broad Street Line runs north to south, and they meet in only one place. Two friends in Fishtown and South Philly are close on the map yet both need to ride into Center City to reach each other.
So the stations that matter are the ones that join networks. City Hall/15th Street joins both subway lines and the trolleys. 30th Street links the L to Regional Rail and Amtrak, and 8th and Market is where PATCO comes in from New Jersey.
West Philly groups do better at 30th Street
Center City is fair only when the group is spread evenly around it. A group in University City and West Philly is better served by 30th Street, and one spread through Delaware County by 69th Street. North of the city, Fern Rock catches both the Broad Street Line and several Regional Rail lines, and the Northeast is usually best met at Frankford.
Rivers are the local factor. The Schuylkill and the Delaware decide how anyone in a car gets in, and the bridges into New Jersey can add more time than the mileage suggests. togather accounts for that by timing every person’s own route, by car, train or on foot, and listing places where the journeys come out at a similar length. The PATCO rider from New Jersey and the cyclist from Fishtown are handled in the same search.
Meeting halfway in Philadelphia - questions
- Where is a fair place to meet halfway in Philadelphia?
- Usually a SEPTA interchange rather than the middle of the map - City Hall/15th Street joins both subway lines, and 30th Street, 8th and Market or Fern Rock can be fairer depending on where the group lives. togather works out which.
- What if one of us lives in New Jersey?
- Set their mode and add their address. On transit that usually means PATCO into Center City, and by car one of the Delaware River bridges, so togather times that trip as it really runs rather than as a straight line on the map.
- Are the Market-Frankford and Broad Street lines the L and the B?
- Yes. SEPTA is rebranding its rail network as SEPTA Metro, with the Market-Frankford Line as the L and the Broad Street Line as the B. Older signs and maps still use the original names during the changeover.
Other cities
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