Step-free access on the Philadelphia metro
Which of the 70 stations have step-free boarding and which do not, station by station — plus the inside of the six complexes the data describes
23 of the 70 stations are not step-free
That is the headline, and it is not softened anywhere on this page: of the 70 stations, 42 are declared step-free, 23 are declared not step-free — 33% of the network, a third of it — and 5 are declared differently depending on the platform. Put the last two together and 40% of the stations cannot be relied on for step-free boarding.
It is an old network with elevated sections built long before anyone designed for level boarding, so the number is not a surprise — but it is usually left vague, and a vague number is no use when you are deciding whether a trip is possible. The full list is below, every station linked to its own page.
What the three values mean
Three values come out of the data, and the third one is the interesting one.
All 70 stations
In route order, with the value the data declares for each one.
| Station | Lines | Step-free access |
|---|---|---|
| Fern Rock Transit Center | B | Step-free access |
| Olney Transit Center | B | Step-free access |
| Logan | B | No step-free access |
| Wyoming | B | No step-free access |
| Hunting Park | B | No step-free access |
| Erie | B | No step-free access |
| Broad-Allegheny | B | Step-free access |
| North Philadelphia | B | Step-free access |
| Susquehanna-Dauphin | B | Step-free access |
| Cecil B. Moore | B | Step-free access |
| Broad-Girard | B | Step-free access |
| Fairmount | B | No step-free access |
| Broad-Spring Garden | B | Step-free access |
| Race-Vine | B | Step-free access |
| 15th St/City Hall | B L | Step-free on some platforms only |
| Walnut-Locust | B | Step-free access |
| Lombard-South | B | No step-free access |
| Ellsworth-Federal | B | No step-free access |
| Tasker-Morris | B | Step-free access |
| Snyder | B | No step-free access |
| Oregon | B | Step-free access |
| NRG Station | B | Step-free access |
| Chinatown | B | No step-free access |
| 69th Street Transit Center | L M | Step-free access |
| Millbourne | L | Step-free access |
| 63rd Street | L | Step-free access |
| 60th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 56th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 52nd Street | L | Step-free access |
| 46th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 40th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 34th Street | L | No step-free access |
| Drexel Station at 30th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 13th Street | L | Step-free access |
| 8th-Market | B L | Step-free access |
| 5th Street/Independence Hall | L | Step-free access |
| 2nd Street | L | Step-free access |
| Spring Garden | L | No step-free access |
| Front-Girard | L | Step-free access |
| Berks | L | Step-free access |
| York-Dauphin | L | Step-free access |
| Huntingdon | L | Step-free access |
| Somerset | L | Step-free access |
| Kensington-Allegheny | L | Step-free access |
| Tioga | L | Step-free access |
| Erie-Torresdale | L | Step-free access |
| Church | L | Step-free access |
| Arrott Transit Center | L | Step-free access |
| Frankford Transit Center | L | Step-free access |
| Parkview | M | No step-free access |
| Township Line Road | M | No step-free access |
| Penfield | M | No step-free access |
| Beechwood-Brookline | M | Step-free on some platforms only |
| Wynnewood Road | M | Step-free access |
| Ardmore Junction | M | No step-free access |
| Ardmore Avenue | M | Step-free access |
| Haverford South | M | No step-free access |
| Bryn Mawr South | M | No step-free access |
| Roberts Road | M | No step-free access |
| Garrett Hill | M | No step-free access |
| Stadium | M | Step-free access |
| Villanova South | M | Step-free on some platforms only |
| Radnor South | M | Step-free on some platforms only |
| County Line | M | No step-free access |
| Matsonford | M | No step-free access |
| Gulph Mills | M | Step-free access |
| Hughes Park | M | No step-free access |
| DeKalb Street | M | No step-free access |
| Bridgeport | M | Step-free on some platforms only |
| Norristown Transit Center | M | Step-free access |
Grouped by line and in route order. The three stations where two lines meet appear once, under the line that runs most of the service there. Every row links to the station’s own page, which carries the same value plus first and last train, what connects there and what is within walking distance.
Six complexes, described inside
Elevators, escalators, stairs with their step counts, gates, street entrances and metres of walkway — read out of the data, not walked by us.
This is the part that almost no transit dataset gives, and this one does: for 6 of the 70 stations the data describes the inside of the station as a network of links — every walkway, stairway, escalator, elevator and gate, with lengths, step counts and the levels they connect. 676 separate links in all, and 15th St/City Hall alone accounts for 311 of them.
What follows is that description, reorganised into something readable. It is inventory, not live status: it tells you that 15th St/City Hall declares 11 elevators, not whether they are working this morning.
Getting between levels
| Station complex | Levels | Elevators | Escalators | Stair flights | Steps counted | Longest flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15th St/City Hall | 4 | 11 | 2 | 65 | 1,046 | 33 steps |
| Frankford Transit Center | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 237 | 60 steps |
| Drexel Station at 30th Street | 3 | 6 | 2 | 11 | 292 | 34 steps |
| Olney Transit Center | 3 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 352 | 31 steps |
| 69th Street Transit Center | 2 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 146 | 26 steps |
| NRG Station | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 65 | 33 steps |
Getting in, out and across
| Station complex | Street entrances | Entry gates | Exit-only gates | Walkway segments | Walkway total | Longest single walkway | Segments with a signposted name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15th St/City Hall | 10 | 14 | 10 | 209 | 2,471 m | 62 m | 50 |
| Frankford Transit Center | 11 | 2 | 7 | 91 | 1,245 m | 45 m | 32 |
| Drexel Station at 30th Street | 5 | 7 | 0 | 62 | 773 m | 56 m | 24 |
| 69th Street Transit Center | 5 | 1 | 1 | 43 | 604 m | 72 m | 22 |
| Olney Transit Center | 8 | 1 | 4 | 48 | 602 m | 30 m | 19 |
| NRG Station | 4 | 3 | 4 | 21 | 124 m | 9 m | 7 |
Four of the six name their levels in plain words, and the names are worth reading because they tell you the shape of the building: Frankford Transit Center is Street → Mezzanine → Platform, Olney Transit Center is Platform → Mezzanine → Busway, Drexel Station at 30th Street is Platform → Mezzanine → Street, and NRG Station is Platform → Street.
The other two label their levels with internal identifiers rather than names. We publish the count and not an invented name: 69th Street Transit Center with 2 levels and 15th St/City Hall with 4 levels. The largest of them declares two platform levels at the same depth, which is what you would expect of a complex where two lines cross under a city hall — but the data does not say which platform is which, and neither does this page.
What the data does not tell you about access
Four things that would be genuinely useful and that are not in the source. On a page like this one, a plausible guess is worse than a blank: somebody plans a trip around it.
| What the data does not give | Why it is blank here |
|---|---|
| How many street entrances the other 64 stations have | The interior description covers six complexes. For the other 64 the number of entrances is not published and cannot be derived from anything else in the data — not from the coordinates, not from the platform count. |
| Whether an elevator is working today | That is a service notice, not inventory, and the inventory is what this page is built on. A station declared step-free with its elevator out of service is still declared step-free in the data. Check before you set off if it is the difference between possible and not. |
| Door widths and ramp gradients | Declared only where the interior description happens to give them, which is inside those same six complexes. Elsewhere there is nothing, so nothing is published. |
| Accessible toilets, lowered counters and induction loops | Not in the source at all. This is the clearest case on the whole site of a question we cannot answer: there is no field for it, no partial coverage, nothing to reason from. |
Frequently asked questions about access
That the station’s platforms are declared differently from each other: at least one step-free, at least one not. It is a real value in the data rather than a missing one. The catch is that the data does not say which platform is which, so it cannot be resolved by direction here.
For 6 of the 70 stations the data lists elevators explicitly, with counts — they are in the tables above. For the rest, the data declares whether boarding is step-free but does not itemise the equipment. Either way, it never says whether a lift is working.
15th St/City Hall, with 11, across 4 declared levels. It is also the largest complex in the data by a wide margin: 311 separate internal links against 116 for the next one.
Not something this site can tell you. Lift status is a service notice rather than inventory, and the data behind these pages is inventory. When the operator posts a notice, it appears in the status panel on the home page.
Because it is in the footer on every page instead, which is where it belongs: a link that is there when you need it rather than one competing with the map and the schedule for the five slots at the top.
From the published schedule data: a per-stop accessibility flag for all 70 stations, and a station-interior description that covers six complexes. Both are read again on every rebuild rather than kept by hand, so a correction in the source reaches every page here at once.