With SEPTA cuts getting worse next week, union says operators bear the brunt of rider frustration

The transit agency is set to hike fares by 21.5% on Monday
Riders get on a SEPTA bus.
Photo credit Holli Stephens/KYW Newsradio.

PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The pain SEPTA riders are feeling over service cuts is likely to get worse next week as the transit agency is set to hike fares by 21.5% on Monday. Meanwhile, trolley, bus and train operators are bearing the brunt of riders’ frustrations.

Angry bus riders have endured longer waits and full buses passing stops. Brian Pollitt, president of Transport Workers Union Local 234, said his members are the first ones those riders see, so that’s who they take it out on.

“The buses are overcrowded. The people are getting irate. And my operators are getting a little worried,” he said. “We get the name-calling, the expletive, expletive, expletive. And it’s all aimed at SEPTA.”

Under their contract, operators with more than a year on the job can't be laid off. But SEPTA is instituting a hiring freeze next month, and Pollitt said that as the budget crisis drags on, about 700 members with less than a year's service are concerned for their jobs.

SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said the agency loses about 100 workers a month to attrition — roughly 30 of them bus drivers.

“We are hoping to attrit our way to a reduced headcount. We’ll start that in September,” he said. “The longer we go into this process, if we lose too many people, it becomes very difficult to reverse back to the service levels we were providing last week.”

If SEPTA needs to begin layoffs, Sauer said they wouldn’t start until 2026.

On the rider side, a group of them is suing SEPTA in a new legal effort to overturn the deep service cuts. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Common Pleas Court claims the cuts unfairly affect minority and low-income riders.

Talks continue in Harrisburg

With word that state Democrats are open to a Republican proposal to dip into the Public Transportation Trust Fund to provide increases in mass transit funding, Sauer is encouraged.

“As long as they’re still finding those commonalities, then I think we’re inching closer to something,” he said.

But without a deal, SEPTA is moving ahead with raising fares by 21.5% on Monday, Sept. 1, and reducing Regional Rail service by 20% on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

“Unfortunately, our customers are going to have to deal with more inconvenience,” he said.

Featured Image Photo Credit: Holli Stephens/KYW Newsradio.