SEPTA Owl Link Service Discontinued

SEPTA of Southeastern Pennsylvania has discontinued OWL Link service today, February 12th, 2022.

The Owl Link service was a service that was meant to connect people from overnight bus routes in Northeast Philadelphia to jobs in Lower Bucks County in the overnight hours. To use the service, riders were to download an app called “SEPTA Owl Link” and request a ride to connect with either route 14 at Horizon Blvd/Neshaminy Mall, Route 56 at Torresdale-Cottman Loop, or Route 66 at Frankford-Knights Loop between 10:30 pm and 6 am.

“SEPTA is launching Owl Link, as a pilot program, to support late night and shift work job opportunities in lower Bucks County. With the completion of the 1-95/PA 276 Interchange, more businesses with warehouse operations are opening in the Bristol, PA area creating and expanding job opportunities for people around the region. Owl Link creates a connection and improves access to businesses when regular SEPTA bus schedules may not match late night/overnight travel needs.” – SEPTA

The service started on May 10th, 2021, and was met with mixed reactions. Between the SEPTA unions and the of course the COVID pandemic hitting harder in Fall 2021. Ridership and reception of the service were constantly hit with complications.

There’s no word yet if SEPTA plans to reinstate the service, or the actual success yet.

About the author: Dash

I have been with Virtual Transit Center since it's conception as the "Dash Forums" back in 2008. Since then, I have been writing and doing YouTube side by side, focusing both on Transportation and Gaming. Most of my knowledge comes from SEPTA as I lived in Philadelphia for most of my life. As of 2021, I am on YouTube as DashTransit, Dash5155, and TheDashOfficial.

As for the name DashTransit itself, it actually stems from my YouTube channel.

DashTransit was originally called "njt5329" and the channel was just clips of buses. Mostly SEPTA and NJT. A Fujifilm Finepix was used in this era.

Starting in July 2011, the Canon SX130IS camera became the camera of the channel, bringing HD documentary-style videos much like my buddy (trainman1971) did for DVD for many years past. This is when the channel became known as "Transit Action Series"

In May 2012, the original Canon SX130IS retired, and then all videos were recorded off a mobile phone until eventually uploaded proved too difficult due to hardships IRL

Starting in 2017, I used a Canon SX200IS from Bastranz to reboot the channel that otherwise was dead for a whole year prior.

Between April 19th, 2019, and January 21st, 2021, all videos were recorded by a Canon SX710 HS camera. The channel was renamed DashTransit 4/19/19.