PA: On Day 1 of SEPTA's public budget hearings, riders were scared by proposed cuts

Nicholas Orlowsky graduated from the University of Texas at Austin last week, and he said that he decided to move to Philadelphia because of its transit system.

"If SEPTA were in the state it will be in after these cuts, I likely would not have made the decision to move here," Orlowsky testified at a budget hearing Monday.

It was the first day of public hearings on SEPTA's proposed doomsday operating budget for fiscal 2026, which would cut 45% of the transit system's service and raise fares 21.5%.

SEPTA faces a structural annual budget deficit of $213 million, caused in part by the loss of federal pandemic aid that had kept many transit systems afloat and by state funding that has not kept pace with soaring costs.

Other transit systems across the state are similarly squeezed. Pittsburgh's RTA, for instance, plans to cut 35% of its service, including the elimination of 41 bus routes.

SEPTA's budget public hearings come amid discussions in Harrisburg among the Shapiro administration and lawmakers over the governor's proposed $292 million increase in annual state funding for public transportation over the next five years.

'Insane' cuts

People signed up to testify and stood in long lines holding numbered paper paddles. Mostly, they sounded frightened, shocked by the severity of SEPTA's day of financial reckoning now that it apparently was at hand.

As it is now, "it gives you like a migraine headache to pay the Uber $30 to go half a mile" when a bus doesn't come, Sharon Pearson said. With the possible cuts, including to the Trenton line she takes to work, it will be "insane," she said.

Orlowsky said Austin's transit system is so skimpy that it is overrun with vehicle traffic. There were other charms to Philadelphia: affordability, his girlfriend, attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and seeing family in Schuylkill County. But SEPTA was big, he said.

Members of Gen Z like him have low rates of car ownership and want to live where there is good transit and walkable neighborhoods, Orlowsky said. With a shrinking and aging population, Pennsylvania needs to attract more young people to grow economically, he said.

At a boisterous rally for better transit funding in front of SEPTA's Market Street headquarters, more than a hundred people gathered to cheer 14 state lawmakers from around the region, city leaders, and transit activists.

Nine of the lawmakers rode in on the Paoli-Thorndale Regional Rail line, one of five targeted for elimination in January without more state funding.

"For years, the General Assembly has starved transit systems across our commonwealth," said State Sen. Nikil Saval (D., Philadelphia). About 16% of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spending is directed to public transit operations, and Saval noted that Pennsylvania provides less state money to transit than other Northeastern states.

SEPTA's precarious funding

For years, a bipartisan package relying on Pennsylvania Turnpike revenues kicked money to transit as well as roads and bridges.

First proposed by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell in 2007, it was enacted by Republican legislative leaders. Then in 2013, what became Act 89 raised the gas tax for the first time in years for the backlog of road and bridge infrastructure needs. The turnpike's obligation was slashed to $450 million a year, with all of it flowing to the Public Transportation Trust Fund — down from $750 million in 2008, split between highways and transit.

A Republican-controlled legislature and GOP Gov. Tom Corbett got Act 89 done, with help from former SEPTA board chairman Pat Deon, a longtime Republican power broker. The turnpike money for public transportation was mostly phased out by 2023 under the legislation, leaving SEPTA with more of a hole in its revenue.

Under SEPTA's latest budget proposal, dozens of bus routes would be eliminated and trips on all rail services would be reduced in late August, when fall schedules are released.

A fare increase averaging 21.5% for all riders would go into effect Sept. 1, and SEPTA would freeze all hiring. Next January, the five Regional Rail lines would be eliminated, along with more bus routes (50 in all). All train service would end at 9 p.m.

The state budget deadline is June 30, leaving state leaders just over a month to make a decision on funding SEPTA.

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