PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Transit advocates and Philadelphia school students are pushing to remove the limits on students’ SEPTA passes.
R.J. Campbell is a senior at One Bright Ray Community High School. And he sometimes has trouble getting around. He has an internship at Temple that sometimes doesn’t wrap up until 9 p.m. And at that point, he said, his student fare card does not work.
“I might have other places that I might have to go. And my student pass just stops,” he said.
Student SEPTA cards only work on school days between 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m., said Stephen Bronskill of the advocacy group Transit Forward Philadelphia.
“Right now, student fare cards only get them to and from school. In New York, in Washington, D.C., student fare cards go much further.”
City Councilmember Rue Landau is calling for Council hearings to remove limits from student fare cards.
“We just need to find the money to make sure that it happens,” Landau said.
Superintendent Tony Watlington said making student cards active full-time would cost $79 million for district students, and $139 million if you include charters. That’s money, he said, the district doesn’t have.
“Young people in Philly deserve to access the incredible things in this community. They shouldn’t be cut off at a certain hour or a certain day of the week or a certain time of the year,” Bronskill said.
