BARTA Cuts Route 2, Adds Deka and Mount Penn Stops

BARTA will stop running Route 2/Fairgrounds Square Market on Monday, Jan. 4, 2027, and on the same day will start sending Route 1 and Route 3 buses to the new Deka location at 8697 Allentown Pike in Blandon, according to the approved rider alert BARTA posted after its parent board signed off on the changes Oct. 21. Eight other regular routes pick up new stops or extra running time the same day, and school trips for Reading students and Route 8 add stops as well.

The alert gives one reason for dropping Route 2: "low ridership." It does not say how many people ride it. BARTA, the Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority, runs the county's public buses under the South Central Transit Authority, or SCTA, the municipal authority that Berks and Lancaster counties formed to manage BARTA and Lancaster's Red Rose Transit; it began operating in 2014 under a volunteer board. Our guide to riding BARTA in Berks County covers fares and routes.

What riders lose

Route 2 is a small route. Its current schedule runs Fridays and Saturdays only, four round trips a day: buses leave the BARTA Transportation Center at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., and leave the Fairgrounds Square Market for downtown at 10:55 and 11:55 a.m. and 12:55 and 1:55 p.m. The printed schedule, in effect since Jan. 5, 2026, lists the market, the Fairgrounds Square Mall, CareerLink and the BARTA administrative offices as its stops.

The market trips do not disappear entirely, though the stop goes by two names: Route 2 calls it the Fairgrounds Square Market and the Route 1 schedules call it the Fairgrounds Farmer's Market. Route 2's other stops, CareerLink and the BARTA administrative offices on the Kutztown Road side, are not on the Route 1 replacement trips, which run via 5th Street. Because Route 2 is going away, Route 1/Temple via 5th Street will make five trips to the Fairgrounds Farmer's Market on Fridays and Saturdays, the alert says. The approved Route 1 Saturday schedule marks those trips "FS": outbound buses reach the market at 10:41 and 11:41 a.m. and 12:41, 1:41 and 2:41 p.m., and inbound buses leave it at 11:03 a.m. and 12:03, 1:03, 2:03 and 3:03 p.m. The weekday schedule carries the same FS times with a note that they apply on Fridays and Saturdays only.

Where the new service goes

The biggest addition is Blandon. The alert says Route 1 will be extended to "the new Deka location, 8697 Allentown Pike, Blandon," with two weekday trips serving it at 10:02 p.m. and 11:35 p.m. The approved Route 1 weekday schedule shows the 9:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. buses out of the Transportation Center continuing past the North Reading Plaza Walmart to Deka, arriving at 10:02 and 11:35 p.m., then starting their trips back downtown from there, ending at the center at 10:35 p.m. and midnight. The route maps on the Route 1 and Route 3 schedules label the stop "East Penn - Deka Distribution Center" in Maiden Creek. BARTA's documents say nothing more about the site.

Route 3/Temple via Kutztown Road gets two weekday trips to the same address. Its approved schedule shows the 5:45 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. buses from the Transportation Center reaching Deka at 6:22 a.m. and 1:52 p.m., and the inbound trips starting there at those same times. Route 22/Lyon Station/East Penn-Deka, which already serves the East Penn Manufacturing plant in Lyon Station, adds three weekday departures from the Transportation Center at 6:30 a.m., 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.; the approved Route 22 schedule lists seven outbound weekday trips in all.

Three employers get bus stops for the first time or on more trips:

• Route 9/Grill via Kenhorst adds Brentwood Industries, 621 Brentwood Drive, Reading, with extra running time to reach it. The approved schedule shows the stop on the 5:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m. weekday trips out of the Transportation Center (at Brentwood at 5:58 a.m. and 1:58 p.m.) and on the 7:12 a.m. and 3:12 p.m. inbound trips from Kenhorst Plaza (7:22 a.m. and 3:22 p.m.).
• Route 17/Glenside/Airport/Berks Heim adds the Berks Industrial Park along Aviation Drive and Wagner Lane to serve US Anodize, with two morning outbound trips and two afternoon inbound trips timed to shift changes, the alert says. The approved schedule now describes the route as running between the Transportation Center and the Airport Industrial Park, but its timetable has no column for US Anodize or the industrial park; four weekday cells carry an "A" prefix (the 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. outbound trips and the 3:15 and 4:15 p.m. inbound trips) with no legend explaining it, so a worker cannot get a shift-change time from the published schedule. Ask BARTA.
• Route 11/Mohnton via Shillington will serve Ollie's in the outbound direction only, and its inbound path changes along Lancaster Avenue in Shillington. The approved schedule lists an Ollie's time on every outbound weekday and Saturday trip and inbound stops at Lancaster Avenue and South Wyomissing Avenue, Summit Avenue and Brookline Plaza.

Two routes change only their clocks. Route 4/10th & 11th Streets adds 10 minutes to each Sunday trip, and Route 18/Schuylkill Avenue adds time to weekday trips, the first "to help with on-time performance" and the second "to improve on-time performance," according to the alert. The Route 4 and Route 18 schedules carry the new times.

Reading students

The school trips that leave the Transportation Center for Reading School District buildings will add a stop at Reading High Innovation Academy at 9th and Douglass streets, the alert says. Route 8/Reiffton will designate three stops on Perkiomen Avenue, at 19th, 17th and 15th streets, "to serve students in the Mount Penn area." The school board took up a five-year TransPar transportation-management contract last month, which we covered in October.

What changed between proposal and approval

BARTA posted a proposed version of the alert in September, took comments for 30 days and held a public hearing Oct. 19 at its 1700 N. 11th St. offices. Most items came through unchanged. Two grew:

• Route 1 was proposed to reach Deka only on "the last outbound trip at 11 PM on weekdays." The approved version has two Deka trips, and it adds the five Friday and Saturday Farmer's Market trips, which were not in the proposal.
• Route 17 was proposed to serve the industrial park "on the 6:45 Am and 3:45 PM trips." The approved version describes two morning outbound and two afternoon inbound trips instead.

The SCTA board's Oct. 21 agenda listed the item under old business as "Approval of Proposed BARTA Route and Schedule Changes, Summary of Public Hearing." The rider alert says the board approved the changes at that meeting. SCTA has not posted minutes for Oct. 21; its board meetings page shows September's as the newest, so the vote and the hearing summary are not on the public record yet. Its 2026 board, chaired by Jim Schlegel, lists nine members (its overview page describes a ten-member board).

Dates, fares and how to get help

• The changes take effect Monday, Jan. 4, 2027. The nine approved schedules are linked from BARTA's detail page.
• New printed Ride Guide booklets will be available by Dec. 21, 2026, according to BARTA's Oct. 22 news post. A Spanish rider alert is posted too.
• Fares are not part of the package. The adult cash fare is $1.80, in effect since Jan. 4, 2021, according to BARTA's fares page.
• Questions go to BARTA bus information at 610-921-0601 or barta@bartabus.com, the contacts the proposed alert gave for comments. The formal comment period has closed. SCTA's next board meeting is Nov. 18 at 6 p.m. at the Red Rose Transit offices in Lancaster, with a virtual option; the October agenda set aside two public-comment periods.

Riders who cannot use a fixed route because of age or disability have a separate door-to-door option; see our guide to BARTA shared ride and paratransit.