{"id":41033,"date":"2025-04-18T14:50:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T18:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/?p=41033"},"modified":"2025-04-18T15:42:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T19:42:34","slug":"septas-latest-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/blog\/septas-latest-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"SEPTA’s Latest Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One
Pictured here, one of SEPTA’s Regional Rail trains crosses the Schuylkill River near the Girard Avenue Bridge on its way from the far reaches of the city into 30th Street Station and the Center City train stations (photograph by Donald G. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recently, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) announced that it would be forced to dramatically cut service<\/a> and raise fares because of a $213 million deficit in next year\u2019s budget (which begins on July 1, 2025). Proposed changes include the elimination of fifty bus routes, five regional rail lines and one metro line, a 20 percent reduction in service and the elimination of all services after 9PM on the surviving regional rail and metro lines, and a 20 percent reduction in service on surviving bus lines. This announcement had the effect that SEPTA likely sought: outrage and shock over the proposed cutbacks and demands that the state find the needed funds.<\/p>\n

As a scholar who studies the history of public transportation, I was neither shocked nor surprised by the deficit or the proposed service cuts and fare increases. SEPTA has been inadequately funded through most of its history and this issue has only become worse in the twenty-first century. My entry<\/a> on the history of SEPTA for The Encyclopedia <\/em>of Greater Philadelphia<\/em> concluded that \u201cFrom its founding, SEPTA [has] struggled with structural, funding, and management issues [and t]hese issues, along with the growth of reverse commuting and labor strife, continued to challenge SEPTA and its riders in the early twenty-first century.\u201d From the 1980s onward, Pennsylvania has focused on largely short-term solutions to these issues.<\/p>\n

The current funding crisis dates to the summer of 2024. At that time SEPTA warned of dramatic service cuts and fare increases, prompting Governor Josh Shapiro to propose an increase in funding for the transit authority. After the Pennsylvania legislature refused to pass the requested increase, Shapiro, in what he termed a \u201cstopgap measure,\u201d transferred $153 million in state highway funds<\/a> to SEPTA.\u00a0 Nothing has changed over the last year and, due to federal funding cuts, Shapiro likely no longer has a magic pot of cash from which he can recreate last year\u2019s miracle.<\/p>\n

SEPTA\u2019s funding problems are not unique to it or other transit providers in the Commonwealth, as Pennsylvania does not adequately fund any form of transportation. Although the political battle in Harrisburg is often characterized as one between rural Republicans who want highway money and urban Democrats who want transit funding, the state actually doesn\u2019t fund either of these areas at adequate levels. Poorly funded transportation infrastructure is not just a Pennsylvania problem, however, as unsafe roads and bridges are common throughout the United States. A decade ago, Pennsylvania had the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges of any state<\/a>, but Shapiro and the legislature increased highway funding<\/a> in 2023-2024 and this has allowed the state to make progress in that area. What Pennsylvania needs is a similar consensus on mass transit.<\/p>\n

A key part of SEPTA\u2019s problem, however, is the public perception that the general manager and the board are politicians and not transportation experts capable of dealing effectively with the challenges at hand. With recent disasters like the painful implementation of the Key transit card program<\/a> and the delayed introduction of the \u201cbus revolution\u201d<\/a> it\u2019s easy to see how people form this impression. It is worth noting, however, that the desire to save money motivated SEPTA to do both of these projects in-house rather that use an existing (and proven) transit payment system and to hire an established consultant to revise the bus routes.<\/p>\n

Arguably SEPTA needs leadership that has politically savvy people at the top who can work with City Hall, Harrisburg and Washington on acquiring a stable funding base and a mid-level management who know how to run buses, trolleys and trains. It is worth recalling that one of SEPTA\u2019s greatest crises was its truly disastrous takeover of the direct operation of the regional rail network in 1983 when David Gunn was general manager. Gunn was midway into his over forty- year career when he worked in Philadelphia and was acknowledged as one of North America\u2019s greatest transit experts. A shutdown of the commuter rail system, followed by the longest strike in SEPTA\u2019s history, caused such a massive decline in ridership that it took over twenty years for the system to recover. So, perhaps transportation expertise at the most senior levels can be overrated.<\/p>\n

What SEPTA, its riders, and all users of transportation infrastructure really need are politicians in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Washington who are less interested in sound bites and press conferences and are more concerned with sustaining a transportation system essential to the regional economy. This is a truly existential crisis for SEPTA, as, if the proposed cuts go through, it is difficult to see any justification for SEPTA\u2019s continued existence. Eliminating effectively half of the suburban rail network (and all service after 9 PM) and most suburban bus lines, will leave greater Philadelphia with less regional, cross-county service than existed even before SEPTA was created.\u00a0 Such a setback to the region\u2019s evolving integration in such sectors as healthcare and research would be deeply damaging in lost revenue not just locally but to the state budget itself.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Hepp is Professor of History Emeritus at Wilkes University and his focus is urban cultural history in the period 1600 to the present. He is a regular rider of SEPTA\u2019s Cynwyd Line, a six-mile-long regional rail line with a total of seven trips a day.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) announced that it would be forced to dramatically cut service and raise fares because of a $213 million deficit in next year\u2019s budget (which begins on July 1, 2025). Proposed changes include the elimination of fifty bus routes, five regional rail lines and one metro line, a 20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,29,173,72,54],"tags":[],"egp_featured_subjects":[],"class_list":["post-41033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-greater-philadelphia","category-john-hepp","category-regional-history-issues","category-transportation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41033"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41041,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41033\/revisions\/41041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41033"},{"taxonomy":"egp_featured_subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/egp_featured_subjects?post=41033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}