by Lisa Fagan

Created on: September 01, 2008

If you're planning on visiting, or even moving, to another city, and you don't have a car, make sure that you check out the city's public transportation, especially in both the cities and the suburbs.

For example: if you're visiting my home city of Philadelphia, check out the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (or SEPTA as we native Philadelphians call it) at www.septa.org. It'll provide you with information on bus, train, and trolley routes in both the city of Philadelphia and in the suburbs; as well as fare information. If you're going to be staying here for a week or even longer, you might want to buy yourself a weekly Tranpass or a Trailpass, that's good on all the SEPTA routes in the city and the suburbs; depending upon the zone you're in. Be sure to check out the schedules out very thoroughly. Although the buses run pretty frequently here in the city of Philadelphia, a lot of the suburban routes have limited service at night, and some don't even run on Sundays. Be sure to plan accordingly.

If you're staying in downtown Philadelphia, SEPTA routes will take you down to Independence Hall, the National Constitution Center, the shopping areas of Walnut, Chestnut, and Market Streets; to Penn's Landing, to the Sports Complex (Citizens Bank Park, the Wachovia Center, Lincoln Financial Field), to Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences; Jefferson, Hahnemann, Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, Presbyterian, Temple University, Methodist, and St. Agnes Hospitals; just to name a few. If you want to go out to the King of Prussia area, specifically the malls or to the office complexes, you can board SEPTA's bus route # 124 and 125 at 13th and Market Streets, right by St. John the Evangelist Church, and it goes down the Schuykill Expressway. Like I said earlier, please make sure that you check the schedules out very carefully so you don't get stranded out in God's country somehwere (an unfamiliar area).

Along Market Street in downtown Philadelphia, you can even catch New Jersey Transit buses that'll take you over to the various malls in South Jersey (Cherry Hill, Moorestown, etc.), the Camden Aquarium, and so forth. If you want to take a day trip down to Atlantic City, go to the Greyhound bus terminal in the back of the Gallery Shopping Center at 10th and Filbert Streets; (SEPTA's Market East train station is also there for train connections to

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