Latest on SEPTA Funding

Rep. Chris Pielli June 27, 2025 | 4:51 PM

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Thursday night, the SEPTA board had to approve a budget that includes the catastrophic service cuts that all of us here in the Philadelphia region are dreading: Funding Crisis – Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

Yet, Thursday night, the Republican-led State Senate did not take any action to fund not only SEPTA, but Public Transportation in all 67 counties. Not Thursday night, not the night before, not the week before, not any of the several months before since we started advocating for this.

This issue didn’t come out of nowhere; it wasn’t a surprise or a sudden crisis. We have known that SEPTA was going to hit a massive budget shortfall since federal pandemic relief ended. Back in November of last year, Governor Shapiro approved one-time emergency funding for SEPTA in the face of state Senate inaction and gave us time to correct this lack of funding. My colleagues and I in the state House did that, recently passing House Bill 1364 which funds not just SEPTA, but also transit agencies across the state and paratransit services for seniors and Pennsylvanians with disabilities in rural, urban, and suburban communities alike, and increases funding for our road and bridge repair throughout the Commonwealth. Governor Shapiro has a pen ready to sign it.

We’ve done our job. The Republican-led State Senate, as usual, has done nothing.

In that light, let’s review what these cuts would mean for our community:

The Paoli/Thorndale line would be gone. Not reduced or suspended. Completely cut.
A 21.5% system-wide fare increase, and a 20% service cut followed by another 25% service cut next year on remaining lines, including the Media/Wawa line and the bus to 69th Street.
A complete hiring freeze that would leave SEPTA critically understaffed. More delays on whatever service we would be left with. Fewer sanitation workers to keep stations clean. Fewer transit police to keep stations safe.
Significant job losses as thousands lose their means of commuting to work.
Significant decrease in property values.
Significant increase in traffic, pollution, car accidents, and drunk driving.

People who don’t use public transportation may ask why we should fund it. Here is why:

• Mass Transit is a major economic powerhouse.

• For every dollar invested in transit five dollars in economic activity is generated.

• For every dollar invested in transit three dollars in increased business sales are generated.

• For every million dollars invested 500 direct jobs are created and thousands of downstream jobs are created at suppliers, vendors and support industries.

• Treating mass transit as an economic driver would lead to 50,000 direct and ancillary jobs all across the Commonwealth. (American Public Transit Association 2020 Report).

• Transit creates direct jobs, but it also allows employers to create indirect jobs when they know their workforce can get to the job and back reliably and safely.

• SEPTA takes nearly 800,000 people to work, school, doctors’ appointments, grocery shopping and back every day.

• SEPTA has more than 10,000 direct employees and an economic impact of more than $4 BILLION.

• SEPTA is a bigger business with a larger economic impact in Pennsylvania than CVS Pharmacies – and there’s 457 of those in the Commonwealth.

• SEPTA leads to hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs and spends more than $200 million per year buying materials and supplies from companies in 41 PA counties to support SEPTA’s operation.

• People who will never set foot on a SEPTA vehicle are putting food on their tables thanks to those trains and buses.

Let’s not get in a political traffic jam for performance politics. Republican state Senators - get on the bus and vote yes on HB1364!

The Republican-led state Senate knows this and does nothing. They act as if basic funding is a “hand out” to Philadelphia, even though our funding bill goes out of its way to fund services across the state and increases funding for road and bridge repairs. They act as if SEPTA is a charity project and not a critical service for people in West Chester and across Southeast PA. They act as if SEPTA is wasteful with its money, even though it is in fact the most monetarily efficient major transit organization in America.

I am used to Republican Senate Leadership being a roadblock to any bill the Democratic-led state House passes simply based on petty partisanship. I am used to being frustrated by their dysfunction.

But this is beyond normal dysfunction; this is simply disrespect.

Disrespect for the 1-in-3 Pennsylvanians who live in or near Philadelphia. Disrespect for the workers and businesses that are the drivers of Pennsylvania’s economy. Disrespect for the 7 out of 10 Pennsylvania bus riders and 5 out of 10 train riders who don’t own a car. Disrespect for the hardworking taxpayers whose money quite literally funds the schools, infrastructure, and social services of every rural county whose representatives seem to hold us in such contempt.

The Republican leadership of the state Senate controls which bills get voted on and which get ignored. Since the last election, Republicans have gloated that they are the “new party of the working class.” Since they supposedly support the working class, I want to know: Where do they think the working class lives? How do they think the working class gets to work? What do they think “lowering costs” for the working class means? Are they really going to “Make America Great Again” by making things worse in Pennsylvania?

This is a crisis that Republican politicians have manufactured, and therefore it is a crisis that Republican politicians must be held accountable for. This is where you can help. Below are the names and contact information for the politicians who need to act. I urge everyone to reach out and make your voices heard. Demand that they vote YES on adequate funding for SEPTA, and that they urge their fellow Republicans to join them before it is too late.

State Senator Joe Pittman – Senate Majority Leader