There are nearly 3,000 transit systems in the United States. Four years ago, the federal government meted out $30 billion in pandemic transit aid, saving many of them from shutting down completely. At the same time, system operators large and small warned again, and again, and again (for the folks in the back) that the COVID funds would eventually run out before they knew it and send agencies right up to the edge of a fiscal cliff—again—with devastating consequences for riders and communities.
Transit officials’ warnings never changed. More recently, the volume of those warnings have been turned up to earsplitting levels. But the complaints of the riding public deprived of bus, subway, commuter rail, and paratransit rides will soon drown them out.
With federal funding blocked by a right-wing White House and Congress, transit agencies are calling for state funding to prop up public transportation, money that is usually in short supply. In state capitals across the country, that means the conversation is all about either radical austerity or fiscal innovation—or for a limited time possibly, both.
What does that look like? Philadelphia is about to find out.
At the end of June, the board of directors of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), the country’s sixth-largest transit agency, unveiled its radical austerity fix for a $213 billion deficit. This translates into a series of rolling cuts in August, September, and next January—a 45 percent service reduction across all modes.
A total of 50 bus routes would be cut, beginning with 32 lines by the end of August. Subway and regional rail service would end at 9 p.m. every single night. Forget about free parking at SEPTA lots. Managers would see pay freezes, with no new hires and shedding of outside consultants.
In September, city transit riders would be hit with a fare increase to $2.90, a 21 percent hike. Philly would share honors with New York for the highest bus and subway fares in the country. (That’s after a 7 percent fare hike last year.)
Among the serious problems gnawing at SEPTA is its failure to regain its pre-pandemic ridership levels. Among commuters, how, when, and where people work as well as how they view coming in and out of the city affects their transportation decision-making, says Leslie Richards, a former SEPTA general manager who is now a professor of practice in the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design’s Department of City and Regional Planning. There is also some apprehension about personal safety. “People from the suburbs prior to the pandemic would take transit, come in, do a late-night orchestra event, or a show or a restaurant, and now they’re deciding not to do those things,” Richards says.
It would be difficult for SEPTA, one of the oldest transit agencies in the country, to recover from drastic and deep cuts in service.
Fare evasion is another major concern. SEPTA sees revenue losses of between $20 million and $30 million per year from people jumping the turnstiles, and as a result has installed new fare gates at high-volume stations and implemented $300 fines.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit is also staring at a $100 million budget deficit. Without additional state aid, that means cutting service by 35 percent, instituting a 9 percent fare hike, shuttering a light-rail line, and ending 41 bus routes. Service would end at 11 p.m. and the extra service that people rely on after ball games, concerts, and special events downtown like the 2026 NFL Draft would also cease to exist.
SEPTA gets the bulk of its funding, nearly 65 percent, from the state. Twenty-six percent comes from the federal government, another 10 percent originates in localities, and a fraction comes from other miscellaneous sources.
Near the end of 2024, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) had flexed $153 million in highway dollars to transit as a stopgap measure. Deeper service cuts could be averted under a bill that would increase the percentage of the sales tax devoted to public transportation statewide.
The state House, which has a one-seat Democratic majority, has passed the proposal, but the state Senate, which is Republican-controlled, still has to weigh in. Proposals to levy taxes on skill game machines, a gaming fixture in smaller retail establishments, to go to public transit and transportation infrastructure across the state have unclear levels of support.
The Medicaid and SNAP cuts in the Republican mega-bill passed last week, which will dry up state general fund resources, do not bode well for sectors like transportation. So far, Pennsylvania state lawmakers have not come up with any obvious solutions for the state’s poorest residents—they’ve already blown through the end of the fiscal year without a budget. Funding the transit people rely on to get to a job that with new work requirements they may have to do to qualify for free medical care or food assistance has been an even lesser priority.
A solution that transit officials could count on every year would give systems a better sense of the services that they could provide going into new fiscal years. On the capital side of the ledger, a longer-term but so far unrealized goal is enabling legislation that would allow the five SEPTA/metro Philadelphia area counties to devise their own revenue-generating solutions, rather than relying exclusively on property taxes that local officials often fear to hike.
It would be difficult for SEPTA, one of the oldest transit agencies in the country, to recover from drastic and deep cuts in service—even short-lived ones. Ending service on a commuter rail line means a reduction in hiring new workers to replace the people who retire every month. Assets like tracks, switches, lights, and railcars won’t get regular maintenance. Bringing them back online means rounds of tune-ups and inspections—which, in turn, requires a pivot to staffing up new workers.
Riders forced to change their habits due to infrequent or nonexistent service make choices, too. “Maybe they’ll move somewhere else, or maybe they’ll take a remote job, or maybe they’ll just figure that they can get the same type of work done in a different way, so they may never come back,” says Richards.
“The data does show,” she adds, “that once you start running less frequent service, once you start skipping certain stops, once you start ending service at certain times and not having the service that people are used to, the ridership starts to decline, and it never gets back to the point where you started.”
With the surface transportation bill due for reauthorization next year, the federal picture is equally uncertain, as the Trump administration continues to assess next steps. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of federal formula funding cuts doesn’t appeal to Richards. “For your schedulers, for your planners, for your budget office, it’s much easier to plan when you know that there’s a percentage of money that will come to [the transit system] every single year.”
Asked what states should expect under an ultraconservative government that believes states and localities should rely on their own fiscal resources with minimal or preferably no federal assistance, Richards did not hesitate. “Well, you can see what’s happening right now in Pennsylvania,” she says. “I really hope we don’t get into a situation where, where we see what happens when that investment is decreased—and I certainly hope that Philadelphia is not the case model to show what those impacts can be.”