UPDATED: 4:25 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA has received a big boost from the federal government to pay for hundreds of new rail cars on the Market-Frankford Line.
Nuria Fernandez, head of the Federal Transit Administration, issued SEPTA a check for $317 million at a press conference Wednesday, at 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby. “It is the largest single grant that SEPTA has ever received,” said SEPTA General Manager and CEO Leslie Richards.
“About 175,000 riders a day are now going to get better and more reliable service,” said Fernandez.
The grant will fund 200 new cars for the El. The cities of Baltimore and Chicago also received funding.
SEPTA has been looking to modernize the Market-Frankford Line, which the agency calls the “workhorse” of its system. The M-4 cars that are running now have been around for at least 25 years, which Fernandez acknowledged brings them to the end of their useful lives. “It has become challenging to keep those rail cars in service,” said the FTA administrator.
“Constant maintenance and downtime are limiting the number of trains that we can put out on the line everyday. It’s preventing SEPTA from providing the frequency and reliability to support the needs of our customers and this region,” explained Richards.
“Replacing these rail cars is our highest priority and this grant could not have come at a more critical time for SEPTA.”
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Richards said the transit agency plans to award the contract for a company to build the new M-5 rail cars this summer, and hopes to start using them within the next few years.
This round of federal money comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rail Vehicle Replacement Program, which stems from the bipartisan infrastructure bill that was signed in 2021.
Any bit of money helps, and SEPTA has a huge backlog of projects. Issues have been popping up — last week, a wheel on a work train came off the tracks near Huntingdon Station. That led to a service disruption, and shuttle buses were needed.
Financially, SEPTA faces a fiscal cliff when pandemic relief cash runs out later this year. SEPTA and transit advocates are pushing for Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal, which would increase state public transportation funding. The agency is warning, though, that there could be service cuts and fare hikes if the budget hole is not filled.