PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA has drawn a line in the sand. The transit agency said if there’s no state transit funding deal by Aug. 14, it will begin slashing service on Aug. 24.
SEPTA has set Aug. 14 as the deadline to avoid massive reductions in service that would begin on Aug. 24, one day before the start of school in Philadelphia. With a schedule change, it usually takes SEPTA three weeks to prepare data feeds and work schedules for drivers, but it’s compressing that process down to 10 days to buy as much time as possible for a state transit deal.
SEPTA also released its gutted schedules on Wednesday that reflect a 20% reduction in service across the board. They can be found below:
🚌 Bus and Metro schedules
🚆 Regional Rail schedules
“Now it’s real. We have real schedules. We have real cuts,” SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said at a Wednesday news conference.
The service cuts include 32 bus routes cut, 3,000 bus stops eliminated, 16 routes shortened, no sports express service, and less frequent service on the buses and trains that will continue to run. Midday Regional Rail trains would run every two hours.
Chief Planning Officer Jody Holton said if a bus route runs every 15 minutes now, look for it to instead run every 20 minutes.
“Crowded conditions are one thing. But eventually that bus, that vehicle will pass people up,” she said.
Should this schedule go into effect, Holton advised commuters to plan ahead.
“People just need to plan for longer times in terms of transfers,” she said. “If you have to transfer from the bus to the Metro or vice versa, you need to look at the schedule and make sure you add a few minutes to your time.”
Base fares would also go up from $2.50 to $2.90 on Sept. 1.
Sauer, in a statement, said he remains optimistic that a funding agreement can be reached by Aug. 14. He urged riders to get involved.
“Let your voice be heard and tell people how important this is to you,” he said. “This is not a new scenario. This is not something we just started talking about recently. This is something we’ve been talking about for two years. And at some point, we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of our riders.”
A few hundred riders, activists and elected officials were doing just that Wednesday morning outside City Hall.
“Folks are picking up materials, they are flyering their bus stops, they’re talking to riders in their neighborhood,” said Stephen Bronskill, coalition manager of Transit Forward Philadelphia. “We’re going to be out working every day, pushing to the deadline.”
For more on SEPTA’s service reduction timeline, visit septa.org.