Transit Tangents
The Podcast where we discuss all things transit. Join us as we dive into transit systems across the US, bring you interviews with experts and advocates, and engage in some fun and exciting challenges along the way.
Transit Tangents
Can Philadelphia Save Its Transit System Before August?
Philadelphia's public transit agency, SEPTA, faces devastating 45% budget cuts if Pennsylvania doesn't pass adequate funding, threatening to eliminate 50 bus routes, end rail service at 9 pm, and cancel five suburban rail lines. We are joined by Steve, a Transit advocate from How We Get Around, to discuss the crisis and ongoing fight to save the system.
• SEPTA's funding crisis stems from Act 89's reduction from $450 million to $50 million for public transit statewide
• COVID relief funds temporarily kept service running, but are now depleted
• Proposed cuts would eliminate 50 bus routes and end all rail service at 9 pm
• Five of thirteen suburban rail lines would be canceled entirely, including the busy Paoli-Thorndale line
• Pennsylvania Senate remains the primary obstacle to passing transit funding
• Several Republican senators from transit-served areas have emerged as advocates
• State budget negotiations continue, but without a clear timeline for resolution
• Advocacy groups, including Save the Train, Transit for All PA, and Transit Forward Philadelphia are mobilizing public pressure
• New SEPTA GM Charles Sauer, who started as a trolley operator, brings operational experience to leadership
• Advocates stress the importance of creating permanent funding solutions beyond the current crisis
Contact your Pennsylvania state representatives and senators today to support public transit funding. Visit transitforallpa.org to learn how to get involved.
Doors are closing. Public transit that's my way to roll On the metro. I'm taking control. Bus stops, train tracks it's my daily grind, daily grind.
Speaker 2:Public transit, it's the rhythm of my life, oh yeah, philadelphia's public transit agency, septa, is about to have its budget slashed by 45% if the Pennsylvania state government does not pass a new budget. The impact of these cuts would mean 50 bus routes in the city of Philadelphia being entirely cut, with the remainder having their services reduced. It would also mean all rail service throughout the city ending at 9pm. They currently run till just after midnight. It would also mean no more special service for events and sporting games. Five of the existing 13 suburban rail lines would be entirely canceled, with the remaining lines having their services cut by 20%. And all of this would also come with a fair increase from $2.50 to $2.90. But is all hope lost? Well, I talked to Steve from the YouTube channel how we Get Around and his answer was actually pretty positive. To start off with the hope bit, yes, there is Good.
Speaker 3:We like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, so this week we'll go over what these cuts mean for the city of Philadelphia, how we ended up in this situation in the first place, where talks are currently in trying to make sure a budget that funds public transportation stands, as well as some of the advocacy groups working to save SEPTA. To get us started, though, I asked Steve to explain how we ended up in this situation in the first place.
Speaker 3:I think the big thing that has been missing from SEPTA for a long time is a goal, and it's really just been a case of don't let public transit die for over 40 years at this point. But it's gotten to the point where it's more like SEPTA has continually been saved by a lot of short term bills that are perceived to be long term. That was the case with Act 89. That was getting SEPTA more funding on top of their current subsidies to improve the service, naturally, and that was coming up for renewal in 2022, especially with COVID funds starting to wind down. Obviously, every transit agency was struggling during COVID.
Speaker 2:To add some extra context here. Pre-covid, septa got a big chunk of its revenue from two places fares and the Pennsylvania Turnpike through Act 89. Fares actually covered 40% of the system's operating costs. Act 89 chipped in an amount that would vary each year, but landed generally between $200 to $300 million. Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit. Ridership collapsed and with it, so did the fare revenue. The federal government sent out COVID relief funds to transit agencies across the country to keep them afloat, including SEPTA, who received nearly $2 billion. The system was staying afloat, but an issue was on the horizon, the main issue being that Act 89 was scheduled to drastically reduce its funding to public transit in 2022. Well, 2022 came along and Act 89 funding went through its reduction. Now, only sending $50 million per year to public transit agencies across the entire state, not just SEPTA. Remaining COVID funds and a stopgap measure by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro kept things going a bit longer, but now, in 2025, without money from the state budget to fill this gap, we find ourselves in the predicament that we're in now.
Speaker 3:Without money from the state budget to fill this gap, we find ourselves in the predicament that we're in now. So with the non-renewal, effectively, of Act 89, it's gone from well. Act 89 is still around, but its public transit funding is massively curtailed from $450 million down to $50 million, which obviously will not get you very far in this day and age. So it's now been a scramble in this budget to get a source of revenue for not just for public transit but to balance the state budget in general, because the reason why SEPTA has had to resort to going through with the draconian cuts is because there is no state budget right now in pennsylvania for anything and like, constitutionally was, it was supposed to be done by june 30th.
Speaker 3:But uh, when I was out in harrisburg last month, uh, doing a, an event out there with the group pittsburgh for public transit and transit for all PA, we did a little bit of lobbying and every staffer I talked to said that they were not expecting it to be done by June 30th. And that's still the case now, even like over two months after the two weeks after the fine, I should say right, uh, and even now, from like a lot of the stuff I'm reading. There's still a lot of impasses, and it's not just public transit. Public transit's one of the most vocal ones, but there's a lot of them out there, especially with finding new sources of revenue right, and that's long been the struggle in this case absolutely and okay.
Speaker 2:So so we're in this situation now where I know that Governor Shapiro did include funding for this in his proposed budget, but it still needs to get I believe it passed the House as well Four times. Four times it's passed the House, and the real tricky bit here in Pennsylvania is getting this through the Senate. Yes, can you kind of talk about I mean, I know the makeup of the Senate isn't necessarily like, that's why this is kind of being held up at the moment Can you kind of talk about that dynamic and you know if there is any hope to get this across the finish line in the Senate?
Speaker 3:To start off with the hope it. Yes there is Good.
Speaker 2:We like, we like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's just not not just me being an optimistic person that I like to think I am, even if, like it's really easy, long been maybe like the thing I see with it is maybe a bit less so of a party divide and more of a rural urban divide, because what I've been seeing is some Republican senators really stepping up to the plate about SEPTA, and the most vocal one by far has been Senator Joe Picosi. He's a Republican senator from Northeast Philadelphia and he rides SEPTA on the regular. He rides the Trenton line, which is one of the routes that's directly threatened. So he's really been the most vocal one out there. But there are others too.
Speaker 3:The ones that come to mind to me immediately are Frank Ferry, who is from Bucks County and long been a SEPTA stalwart, and the other would be Tracy Penichuk, who not only represents parts of Montgomery County, which is also served by SEPTA, but also parts of Berks County, which is served by BARDA, but also parts of Berks County, which is served by BARDA, which is the transit agency for Reading, one of the major cities. So you have essentially you would have the votes there for any sort of transit bill. The main thing has been the Senate leadership mainly Senator Joe Pittman. Senate leadership mainly Senator Joe Pittman. Pittman has long said that sure, public transit is important, but he's said that any transit funding bill should also go with more funding for road upkeep, especially in rural areas and on the surface. I don't blame him for that, especially since Pennsylvania, with one of the largest road networks in the northeastern United States, it has long had a reputation for being a pothole mess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna say I grew up in upstate New York and I remember going down to Pennsylvania and like knowing that that was the thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah you know you're in Pennsylvania when the roads get worse. Yes, so on the surface I don't disagree with Pittman on that. There's. But there's a lot of stuff that I may not have the time to go deep into. That makes it a bit problematic to consider. But. But it's basically come down to the point that any transit funding bill would also go with more funding going to PennDOT for road upkeep. And this fourth bill that has passed the House and is on the Senate's docket, this does have that. They're trying to work around some of the hard red lines that the Senate has said red lines that the Senate has said and a lot of the backroom discussions that Pittman has had with House leadership and with Governor Shapiro's administration. I'm hoping that can get Pittman to finally bring this to the table where, with people like Picozzi and Ferry and Pinochuk, this would clear it, this would clear the Senate and end up on the governor's desk and he would inevitably sign it.
Speaker 2:Is there any sort of timeline for when this may happen, because I know that the cuts would be going into effect in August at this point, which is not very far away. I mean, we're recording this on July 16th. Do you think that it's reasonable for this to happen before then?
Speaker 3:I think it is reasonable to happen before then, especially since the cuts would take place in late August and the fare increases would happen on the 1st of September. The main thing, though, is that there is no timeline right now. There's a lot of negotiation that's been going on recently, but not much has been made public, so, especially with how bitter a lot of this fighting has become, on a lot of issues, including public transport, it's hard to really say when it will happen. Maybe it'll happen in a couple of days, maybe it'll happen in a couple of weeks, but it is it's hard to really say when, and that's where a lot of the dread, I think, is coming from that that, how long are you going to let this persist until, like, a lot, of, a lot of the bad stuff has happened? Right?
Speaker 2:Well, and it just makes it. You know, I understand why people are worried about that Because, like I was kind of saying at the beginning, I mean mean for folks who rely on these services every single day, it's hard to plan to know what's gonna if you're, if you're a reliable ride to work or to you know your, whatever it may be, is is gone. It makes makes planning very difficult. Can you just share what this sort of cut would mean for the city of Philadelphia and just kind of get your reaction to them?
Speaker 3:Long and short of it, it would be absolutely devastating. Like you have a city of, like the city itself is 1.6 million, the metro area is about 6 million, so you got one of the biggest cities in the country that would have about half of its transit service gone, and especially at vital times of the day, especially with night service. Already the rapid transit lines end around the midnight hour and that is pretty useful, and there's also some bus routes that are able to compensate for that. But this would completely get rid of them. And that's among a lot of other bus routes that would be completely curtailed. Some of them would be a bit surplus to requirement.
Speaker 3:To begin with, I look at a route like Route 89, which is often cited as one of the most useless bus routes in the city in more ways than one. But it also would hurt the major routes as well. It would be more of a focus on the agency running the routes that already get a lot of ridership, routes like the 47, the 23, a lot of routes like that that are like major corridors. But it would really hurt a lot of the routes that would feed into those routes and supplement that ridership, and you also see this with the one that I feel the most attached to, I guess you could say, which is the regional rail. You already have a route. You have a system that has, uh, 13 different routes in it. This would get rid of five of them, right, and including the busiest one on the entire network, the paley thorndale line, largely because septa doesn't actually own that line. It's owned by amtrak and they have to pay fees to them to run trains on their on their routes, and that's about 60 million dollars a year thereabouts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean you're obviously talking about, you know, night service now being cut. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but on the main rail routes we're talking service ending at 9 pm, which is, you know, right. Obviously we'd love things. You said currently it's midnight. We'd love things to be later than that, but 9 pm makes it so that I mean, if you're someone who works nights, if you work in the, if you're someone who works at a restaurant, if your bus route does survive these cuts again, 50 bus routes are currently slated to be canceled under these over the kind of. The first wave would start in August. It wouldn't be all 50, it would be a portion of them, and then the rest later in the year, all of a sudden commuting for folks who you know thought they had a reliable way in and out, yeah, I mean, it fully can flip people's lives upside down if their way to get to and from work disappears.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and in the case of the rail routes particularly, you look at a lot of the routes that have developed around that rail line, especially around the local service, developed around that rail line, especially around the local service. Paley Thorndale is the best example, but also the Wilmington-Newark line, the Chestnut Hill West line. Those ones have their communities around them, have developed around those rail lines and then that rail line would be gone. In the case of Chestnut Hill West you do at least have Chestnut Hill East that be able to compensate for it somewhat, but it's still absolutely devastating to them because you have like nothing left. You just have a useless rail line just sitting there collecting dust, essentially until the, until whatever funding comes around in the future.
Speaker 2:I'm curious. I'm just inevitably waiting. I'm sure somebody will comment on this video saying, oh, the reason SEPTA doesn't have any money is because they mismanage everything and all this sort of stuff. Can you kind of address that? Because from what I understand and looking at I know recently I've seen this passed around on Reddit and whatnot of how efficient transit agencies are in terms of their kind of cost per rider, and SEPTA to correct me if I'm wrong here tends to be near the top of that list, I guess. Yeah, can you talk about? Um, just more generally speaking, is this is this kind of argument from folks saying that, like SEPTA is just mismanaging this accurate, or is it more so that, like the state government or you know, there needs to be a more permanent funding mechanism?
Speaker 3:I would definitely lean more towards the latter on this one. That's not to say that SEPTA is completely innocent in this case. There's been a lot of transit fans, particularly is the septum Metro project, which is the sort of the rebranding of the rapid transit lines, the market Frankfurt line, the Broad Street line, which we have never referred to by color. Really, it's just been a. I actually noticed that.
Speaker 2:I was, I was waiting. Yeah, I was gonna say we got a lot of calm. I mean, it is, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take. I'm gonna take the excuse that we were. Literally we did the exact same thing in Boston the day before and got into Philly at like 1 in the morning and then woke up and started at like pretty early in the morning again the next day.
Speaker 3:I can't say I blame you too much. It's just that no local has ever really referred to us. They tried but they failed.
Speaker 2:The amount of comments that we did get quite a few comments on that, and I mean, every city we go to we butcher something like that.
Speaker 3:So I'll, it's okay, I'll, I'll take it and hey like I butcher stuff too in my videos so but um, but yeah, the rebrand of the?
Speaker 3:uh, the rapid transit lines and the trolleys as well. It was kind of met with disdain in that, uh, not so much for how it was done, but more the fact that it was done in the first place, and it was kind of met with disdain in that, not so much for how it was done, but more the fact that it was done in the first place and it was that. Why are you putting in all this time and effort and definitely money into a rebrand of your rapid transit services when the main thing that's hurting ridership growth and ridership recovery has been a lackluster service itself, especially with a lot of the things that happened post-COVID it's still not quite to the same service frequencies on a lot of services. That it was, uh, pre-2019 right, so so it's like, why are you putting it towards that when you could put that money towards improving bus services, improving the rapid transit line, improving, like clean up as well? Because, uh, because it went from a point where the uh, the rapid transit lines were reasonably clean to the point where they were seen as an outright travesty. Now, honestly, like a lot of philadelphians like to complain about that sort of thing in the first place, but it really did get bad. They've gotten better now, thankfully, but it's still uh like it's still kind of tarnished in some ways and that might be what argued that sort of money should go towards the basics, essentially Go back to basics on this sort of thing.
Speaker 3:And with new leadership coming along, with Sauer, the new GM, coming along, I think there's a better chance of that than most, because Sauer has been involved with septa for about 40 years. He was a trolley operator, um, when he started out. That's cool, so so he's uh in a better position than most, I think, to really make a turn around that previous gms like, uh, leslie richards, who uh attempted to try, definitely, but she was not particularly well-versed in public transit before coming along. But someone like Sauer, I think, is in a better position than most and I think he's aware of a lot of the issues. He's just been hamstrung by the budget so far, obviously with the proceedings.
Speaker 2:Yeah and this is a side note, but it's fun to hear that that the new gm is uh like started as a trolley operator. I know in in austin. Uh, the the ceo of cap metro, dotty watkins, started it as a bus driver at cap metro and she's now the ceo of it. So it's kind of fun when I I think you do like earn a level of respect when it's like these folks really understand how, like, so many of the nitty gritty pieces work in practice, not just on paper too. So, um, that can definitely be an asset, especially with the right team around you. Um, yeah, definitely I'm curious. Uh, I, so I will. We'll make sure there's links for folks below too.
Speaker 2:Um, I watched your two videos on this topic, um, and you did some great interviews with advocates who are trying to prevent these cuts from happening. Can you talk about some of the advocacy groups who've been kind of working on this and kind of where folks should go, especially if they're in Pennsylvania and want to get out and try to, you know, make some positive change here and make sure that you know this budget is properly allocated and then, even after this, you know, kind of short term battle is complete. How do you make sure that you try to create some sort of more permanent structure, which I know you know is like super important, so that 10 years from now we're not having the exact same conversation?
Speaker 3:Exactly and, like I got my own theories personally on how we could possibly do that and I definitely want to put it around to some people. I'll definitely be making videos about that down the line. But in terms of the advocacy groups, there's a lot to choose from. There's a lot of people that are putting out really good work. It's basically an all hands on deck situation right now and everybody is acutely aware of it.
Speaker 3:In my video I talked to Bob Praviti, who's the policy director of the Save the Train group. They started out as an advocacy group for preserving service on the Chestnut Hill West line when that was threatened and it still is, and it's kind of expanded to the entire SEPTA rail network particularly, but the SEPTA system in general, and they've allied themselves with a whole bunch of other advocacy groups. The biggest ones would be guys like Transit for All PA, who I went to an event out to in Harrisburg. They've been putting out a lot of good work out there, especially for not just for Philly but for agencies that are in more rural places, because they want to get it across to these Republican senators that there's a lot of transit agencies in all 67 counties and this would hurt them and would hurt their constituents as much as it would hurt people in Philly and Pittsburgh. Right, and so you got them.
Speaker 3:You got Pittsburghers for public transit for the Pittsburgh-based folks, and you've got Transit Forward Philadelphia. You've got the city's Chamber of Commerce. You've got a whole bunch of them. Fifth Square obviously. A really big Philly urbanist group has been involved in it too Great. So there's a lot to choose from, and you'll definitely have all the links to it, and I'll have the links on my videos on the matter as well. Perfect. So for those that really want to get involved, pitch in, because your voice can really help. Like, every voice in the chorus makes it louder.
Speaker 2:Totally. It's fantastic and I mean that can be, can be. Obviously, if you're in philadelphia, definitely directly get involved with some of those groups. I'm actually you can't quite see it, but I'm wearing my my data shirt, which is the the folks who are down in in dallas or up. I love that. Yes, I know me too.
Speaker 2:I get so many compliments on this shirt, um, but uh, you know that like they were a group and if there isn't a group in your city and this sort of thing is is happening and you're running into issues, make one data started their group and one year later, uh, basically had successfully like gone and they had like 30 people or so show up at the texas state house, were going around lobbying and meeting with all these different uh representatives and senators and uh, they, at least for now, now prevented cuts that were coming towards their system in Dallas from the state level. So you know, definitely, if you're in Pennsylvania, get involved in some of these groups. We'll make sure there's links there, but also look for it wherever you may be, because you know you don't want this sort of thing to pop up and happen, but it may, and it's better to have a group of like-minded folks who can kind of work together on this sort of stuff before it happens, if you can avoid it.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, especially in the situation we're in now. And obviously we know it's not just Pennsylvania, it's a bunch of other states too. I think Illinois may be the other big example of what's going on with Chicago.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, I don't want to take too much of your time. Steve was like nice enough to do this in the midst of his like summer vacation right now, so I really appreciate it and it also just shows how much he cares about the issue. So thank you so much for taking the time, steve. Is there anything else you want to share and where can folks find out more more about you, your youtube channel and anywhere else you might want to send them?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, uh, thanks for the shout out in your previous video as well, lewis.
Speaker 3:Uh, but the channel is how we get around, and I've been talking about not just transit issues in, uh, pennsylvania and philadelphia, but around the northeast.
Speaker 3:Uh, I've long been a train nerd, particularly, and it's why I love making stuff about Amtrak as well, especially about the Northeast Corridor and all of its wonderful, delightful, chaotic issues, but also its incredible potential too, and I love that and especially you'll be seeing on the channel, especially with where I'm at now. This is not where I normally record from. I'm actually at a friend's house in Copenhagen, denmark, a city that I think has a transit system could serve as a goal to strive for for Philadelphia in so many ways. So prepare to see a lot of stuff from that, and Stockholm, too, as like an interesting point of comparison, because it's definitely opened up a lot of new perspectives for me and I think that it's really going to help with getting a lot of the stuff I think about across. So it's not just about Philadelphia, it's about Pennsylvania, it's about the Northeast, it's about the whole country really, and I love to talk about that sort of thing and just nerd out about it. So how we get around is the channel.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Steve. Thanks again so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much, Lewis.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me on.