PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA riders say its proposed service cuts will at best inconvenience riders and at worst endanger public health.
Without more state transit funding to fill a $213 million deficit, SEPTA says it will have to raise fares and slash service by 45%, eliminating 50 bus routes and cutting service on five Regional Rail lines. Judy Shockey of the Main Line testified at Monday’s hearing that people who have the option will choose their cars.
“Bus access into Center City is basically going to be cut, too, which will leave an inordinate number of people with no way to get into Center City except to drive.”
And traffic is already bad enough, said Bonita Tize of West Chester.
“If there’s more people driving cars, where are they gonna put ‘em?”
Lauren Montgomery testified that many hospital workers won’t be able to get to their jobs.
“We’re going to lose full departments of our hospitals if we do not fund SEPTA,” she said.
“I can tell you that our patients are scared. They talk to us, they ask us what they’re going to do. Will their families be able to come to them? Will they miss appointments?”
Connor Descheemaker with the group Transit For All PA said a one-time fix like the one Gov. Josh Shapiro provided last fall won’t work again. At the time, the governor flexed federal highway funds to throw SEPTA a $153 million lifeline.
“No budget without transit. I think that’s the message that we need to hear. We’ve been sounding the alarm for two years, and now, we are really past the endgame,” Descheemaker said. “We’re out of options.”
Descheemaker said the government needs to treat SEPTA’s funding crisis like it did when a part of I-95 collapsed in Philadelphia two years ago.
“This is the kind of system failure that we all fear when we think about public goods,” he said. “SEPTA serves four times as many riders as I-95 through Philadelphia every single day, and we think about how that was treated as a national news item with a million people invested in it. We need to think the same way about public transportation.”
The governor’s budget proposes more for mass transit. While he’s optimistic a funding solution can be reached, Interim SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said the legislature is dealing with a statewide shortfall.
“I think that they’re looking for a way to solve a problem that’s even bigger than transit.”