Students, commuters, businesses bear brunt of budget-driven SEPTA service cuts

Back-to-school season has started – and SEPTA is racking up unexcused absences. The public transit system’s funding crisis is already threatening the ability of tens of thousands of Philadelphia schoolchildren to get an education just a day into the new school year.  

In the wake of the continued inability of Harrisburg politicians to enact a budget and commit funding to the commonwealth’s public transit agencies, long-promised service reductions have been enacted by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Public Transportation Authority – a crisis addressed by Philadelphia politicians on Monday.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and City Council held separate press conferences Monday to call on Harrisburg lawmakers to pass a state budget – now nearly two months late – that includes dedicated funding for SEPTA. 

Without giving any details, the Parker administration said on Monday that it’s exploring alternative transportation solutions while urging residents to plan their commutes and routes around expected delays in the coming weeks. 

“Over 700,000 people use SEPTA every day to get to work, go to school, go to medical appointments, to attend sporting events … and for many other reasons,” Parker said at Monday’s press conference, adding that if the city alone could solve SEPTA’s financial woes, it already would’ve done so. “We’re not always in a position where we face a crisis where we can stand up and proudly affirm that our homework is done … Our city stepped up to the plate.” 

SEPTA, which faces a $213 million shortfall, began implementing a 20% reduction in service on Aug. 24, a day before the School District of Philadelphia opened its doors for the new school year. Without additional funding, transit officials said, the system would face a 45% overall reduction in service for the fiscal year, on top of fare increases. 

Parker and Councilmembers noted the city’s five-year spending plan, passed in June, includes $792 million in SEPTA funding in the coming years, including $133.3 million in Fiscal Year 2025. 

“(It’s) important to get these numbers on the record so that Philadelphians know that their tax dollars have been significantly invested in the mass transit system that keeps our city and our region going,” Parker continued. “We are collaborating with SEPTA, with the school district, universities, employers, nonprofits and community groups to deploy alternative solutions and to do our best to minimize, to help to mitigate, the disruption for our residents.” She provided no details on what those collaborations involved or would look like.

Speaking on the importance of SEPTA to working parents and families, Councilmembers said more than 50,000 students rely on SEPTA to get to and from school each day. 

Council President Kenyatta Johnson, saying that it’s not the time for “political grandstanding,” called on Harrisburg lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to come together and not “leave the table until a deal is done.”

The GOP-controlled state Senate passed a spending measure that would utilize $1.2 billion over two years from the Public Transportation Trust Fund – which is typically used for ongoing maintenance and capital projects – along with some recurring revenue of about $43 million per year from taxes on internet gaming. However, Democrats voted down the spending plan in the state House, saying the fund is not a viable funding source for SEPTA and that pulling from it would hinder transit agencies’ ability to make critical safety updates in the future.

“You don’t just take your ball and go home after the first proposal,” Johnson said, adding that a special legislative session is needed to get legislators back in the Capitol. “The longer this takes place, with the service cuts and increasing fares, (the more) it’s going to impact vulnerable populations here.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro, who previously opposed the Senate GOP’s plan to utilize Public Transportation Trust Fund dollars, now says he is open to it as part of a broader agreement that includes recurring funding.

“I think utilizing the PTTF as part of a broader package is something we can do,” Shapiro said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But it’s got to be part of a broader package that focuses on recurring funding over a long period of time, which funds mass transit in each of our 67 counties.”

School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington Sr. alluded to the impacts that SEPTA’s cuts would have on school attendance. He noted that one high school principal told him that first-day attendance at his school, which is traditionally above 90%, was only around 70% for the start of the 2025-26 school year. 

“While that’s not a promising trend, we’re hopeful that this can get turned around sooner rather than later,” Watlington said Monday. 

Michael Carroll, Deputy Managing Director for the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, said the administration has been working on contingency plans they were hopeful would not be needed, but the state budget impasse puts SEPTA and the city in a tough spot. 

“We have been working collaboratively for weeks to develop a strategy and action plan that we always hoped would not need to be implemented,” Carroll said Monday, without providing details of any kind about either a strategy or an action plan. “These service reductions have been locked in and until there is movement on funding in the state budget, this is the reality that we manage every day.”

In a statement on Monday, the transit workers union called the ongoing budget situation a “black eye for the Commonwealth.”

“Pennsylvania’s Republican state senators have been derelict in their duty. The conditions facing SEPTA’s passengers and employees brought on by the lack of state funding could and should have been avoided,” Brian Pollitt, president of TWU Local 234, which represents 5,000 members at SEPTA, said in the statement. “Hundreds of my members are now facing layoff. Unless this funding crisis ends now and the Senate majority stops playing politics, we – and by that, I mean my members and all Pennsylvanians – will face real harm.”

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, who was scheduled to host a clay shoot fundraising event Monday, released a statement on Monday that the Senate GOP proposal must be reconsidered. 

“House Democrats, whose leadership hails from the SEPTA region, immediately rejected the plan. They should reconsider,” Pittman stated. “Negotiations continue as we work to reach consensus on a final budget product that puts our Commonwealth on a stable spending path for future years.”