SEPTA Bus Route 201

Introduction

SEPTA’s Route 201 is a bus to rail route that operates from Fort Washington Station to Fort Washington Office Center. Operations of route 201 is provided by Frontier Depot (Division 6).

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Table Of Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Route 201 Routing
  3. Route 201 and Fort Washington Transit History
  4. Other Routes using the same numbers
  5. New Bus Network Changes
  6. Timetables

Route 201 Routing

Route 201 starts at Fort Washington Station on the Lansdale/Doylestown Line. From there, it operates via Commerce Drive to Temple University Fort Washington Campus, then via Virginia Drive to Fort Washington Office Center.

Connections to route 201 is only possible at the Fort Washington Regional Rail station with the Lansdale/Doylestown Line and bus routes 94 and 95.

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Route 201 and Fort Washington Transit History

Fort Washington transit service started with the Fort Washington Express bus, which was created on June 18th 1982. This was an express only route that operated between Olney Terminal (now Olney Transit Center) and Fort Washington via PA-309. Once coming off PA-309, this route would operate via Commerce Drive, Delaware Drive, and Virginia Drive to Honeywell, then to Prudential via Virginia Drive. This route would be re-designated as route 4 starting September 4th 1984. This was not in any way related to the route 4 that exists today.

Starting April 11th, 1988, this service would be supplimented with a new route 201, which was the very first route created as part of the bus-to-rail 200 series. This new route 201 would start at Fort Washington Station on the R5 Doylestown Line (now Lansdale/Doylestown Line), and operate the same route as route 4. Route 4 would also have a diversion over to Fort Washington Station on the R5 Train Line staring on this same date.

Route 4 would ultimately be discontinued on September 6th 1996, and only route 201 would serve Fort Washington from then onwards.

Service on Route 201 would be exteneded to Horsham starting May 12th 1997, when Prudential moved to Horsham. Eventually, Route 201 would be reduced back to Fort Washington service, and temportarily be peak directions only until more midday service returned in 2002.

As part of the New Bus Network, Fort Washington bus service would be eliminated, as route 201 is to be discontinued in February 2027 with no replacement. However rail service to Fort Washington Station on the Lansdale/Doylestown Line will remain.

Extra Service to Horsham, 1997-2000

On May 12th 1997, service on route 201 was extended to Horsham via Dreshertown Road and did a similar loop to route 310. This particular extension restored the bus-to-rail connection in Horsham which was originally provided by route 210. This version of route 201 also would operate more frequently, and operate later hours into the day and night. This service would ultimately be replaced by peak hour extensions of routes 310 and 311 to Willow Grove Station in February 2001, and route 201 would go back to only operating in Fort Washington.

Other Routes using the same numbers

This version of route 201 was the only route 201 to ever exist. However, historically, there were two previous routes numbered 4, and a modern route with the same number. These routes are not in any way related.

  • Route 4 North to South Philadelphia
    • Operated from North Philadelphia to South Philadelphia via Front and 2nd Streets north of Master Street, and 6th and 7th Street south of Master Street.
    • Discontinued in the 1930s, replaced with routes 57 and 65
  • Route 4 North to South Philadelphia
    • Operated a circulator route between Snyder Terminal (now Snyder Station) and the Food Distribution Center
    • Discontinued April 8th 1973, and merged into route 17 and 63 (former route G).
  • Route 4 Fern Rock to Broad-Pattison
    • Re-named from route C on February 12th 2012
    • Currently active

There was no other routes numbered 201 besides this version.

New Bus Network Changes

SEPTA Route 201 will be discontinued in February 2027 as part of the New Bus Network Phase 2.

Timetables

Below are some historic timetables for SEPTA’s route 201 and Fort Washington Express route 4. These are older (out of date) timetable scans with their effective dates listed. If you want to see historic timetables of current route 4, check the Route 4 Spotlight page.