PHILADELPHIA (April 28, 2026) – Today SEPTA’s Office of Sustainability announced the winner of its annual Earth Day Sustainability Awards with the honor going to the recently-opened new Wissahickon Transit Center in northwest Philadelphia.
“Sustainability is crucial to SEPTA’s mission — connecting people with opportunity, catalyzing the economy and sustaining our environment,” said SEPTA General Manager Scott A. Sauer. “Wissahickon Transit Center and its green roof is a perfect example of SEPTA team members advancing goals and integrating sustainability into the SEPTA system as a whole.”
Officially opened last year, the new Wissahickon Transit Center located at 5000 Ridge Avenue in Philadelphia was recognized for transforming the 3.3-acre site into a green, climate-resilient hub that diverts 1.8 million gallons of stormwater annually, reduces heat, supports habitat and connects SEPTA riders to green spaces like Wissahickon Valley Park and the Wissahickon Trail.
WTC’s state-of-the-art green roof and raingardens cover over an acre of surface, and will act as a sponge, while improving air quality, heat island effect, noise reduction and extending the roof’s lifespan.
With an average of over 5,000 weekday riders, Wissahickon Transit Center has higher ridership than almost all of SEPTA’s outlying Regional Rail stations. The new Wissahickon Transit Center is more than six times the size of the former facility, fully ADA-accessible and boasts significant safety upgrades with improved lighting, signage and security cameras. Construction on the approximately $50 million project began in the spring of 2023.
The other nominees for the Sustainability Award where projects have advanced goals within SEPTA’s Sustainability Playbook include:
- Ballast Car Solar Retrofit Enables efficient, safer rock delivery to the railbed through solar-powered automation. The project eliminates diesel truck trips, avoids 4,700 gallons of fuel annually and repurposes 80 tons of scrap metal while saving the authority money on new cars.
- Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Bus Pilot Advances SEPTA’s zero-emission transition by deploying buses that emit only water vapor. This pilot approach to evaluating Zero Emission Bus technologies ensures we are making data-informed decisions when it comes to our future bus fleet, while simultaneously making critical upgrades to facilities to support this transition.
- Midvale Green Shield & Fencing Project Installs over 70 trees, native plants and bushes that help absorb stormwater, improve air quality, reduce runoff and enhance the depot’s environmental footprint through site design and waste reduction.
- Wyoming Complex Stormwater Retrofit Project Incorporates 10 rain gardens, 3 subsurface detention basins and 5 oil and grit separators to treat and manage stormwater from nearly 15 acres of the site, improving water quality and infiltration across the site.
For more information about SEPTA’s Sustainability initiatives, visit SEPTA.org.
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