SEPTA postpones Bus Revolution due to budget deficit

SEPTA’s budget crisis continued playing out this week, as officials announced the postponement of its Bus Revolution initiative and a top state Senate Republican applauded the agency for a planned 29% fare hike.

“With no prospect of a statewide solution to help fund the everyday operating expenses of public transportation systems, SEPTA has no choice but to… postpone implementation of [the] New Bus Network — putting aside years of feedback on how to make the system more useful from thousands of riders across the region,” the agency said in an email to SEPTA Key customers Thursday.

SEPTA says the redesign, approved in May after two years of planning and more than 200 public meetings, would simplify the bus system, cut the number of routes from 125 to 106, make them more reliable, and offer 30% more “frequent” routes that come at least every 15 minutes during daytime hours.

The changes were supposed to start rolling out next summer, but the transit authority is putting that plan on hold as its budget shortfall forces it to hike fares sharply and consider extensive service cuts that could see train lines shuttered and fewer trips across different modes of travel, including buses.

With the exhaustion of federal pandemic relief aid, SEPTA faces a $240 million annual deficit. It’s planning a pair of price increases that will raise fares about 29% by Jan. 1, and it could begin cutting services later in 2025.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed putting more sales tax revenue toward transit, including $161 million more per year for SEPTA. However, the Republican-led Senate declined to take up the proposal, with some members saying any spending hike needs to be paid for with new revenues.

At a press conference in Harrisburg on Wednesday, Senate Republican leaders said their refusal to boost funding had been beneficial in that it forced SEPTA to find other ways to balance its budget, according to a transcript of their remarks posted on X by Spotlight PA reporter Stephen Caruso.

“If we would have went just all in and jumped into the pool with 100% of what they asked in the very beginning — would that have led to any of the reforms that many people, even internally within SEPTA, would have told you that they needed to do?” said state Senate Appropriations chair Scott Martin, a Republican representing Lancaster County.

It’s unclear exactly which reforms Martin was referring to, but they apparently include the higher fares or “rates.”

“Whether it’s in terms of rates, whether it’s in terms of looking at routes and maybe these routes are underutilized … I give them credit for actually moving in that direction, and I think that shows a willingness on their part to work with us,” Martin said.

“What SEPTA is doing in terms of bringing more dollars to the table through ridership and making sure they’re running efficiently is something we absolutely need to see continue in the months ahead as well,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman said. 

When Caruso asked about comments from SEPTA officials that they will have to pause “reforms” because of the lack of funding, Pittman ended the line of questioning.

SEPTA chief operating officer Scott Sauer said this week that the fare hikes and possible service cuts are expected to lead to a 23% drop in ridership and a potential “death spiral” of falling revenues and further reductions in service.  

Pittman also focused on the need to bring “law and order” to SEPTA, and said with the election of a new Republican attorney general, Dave Sunday, “we’re quite confident that that law enforcement opportunity is there for SEPTA. Because I don’t care what the rates are, if people don’t feel safe using the system, they’re not going to use it.”

SEPTA and Philadelphia saw a spike in crime during the pandemic, which has since largely abated. The transit agency reports that serious crimes on the system were down 34% in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.

Ridership, meanwhile, has been recovering from a pandemic dropoff and is now at 82% of pre-COVID levels, chief planning and strategy officer Jody Holton said this week.

In the transcribed remarks, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward said any funding boost would also have to cover needs in the many counties across Pennsylvania that have little or no transit.

“There are things that we need throughout the Commonwealth, not just the public transportation and SEPTA. We have roads and bridges that most of us overwhelmingly have in the districts that we serve. So there could be a compromise. Hopefully there is,” she said.

Some Republicans have discussed paying for an increase in transportation funding with a new tax on video gambling machines. Shapiro and Democratic legislators said they would support such a plan, but Senate Republicans are divided over the size of the tax and have not introduced legislation to create one.