PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Gov. Josh Shapiro is throwing SEPTA a lifeline. He announced Friday that more than $153 million allocated to PennDOT will be given to SEPTA instead as stopgap funding.
Speaking inside the Frankford Transportation Center bus terminal, Shapiro said the money was taken from seven PennDOT highway projects across the state.
The effort wipes out SEPTA’s budget deficit this year. And, as a result, SEPTA is postponing its second round of proposed fare hikes that were set for January and putting off the deep service cuts it had proposed for the next fiscal year.
The SEPTA Board on Thursday approved the first of two fare hikes, so that will still take effect Dec. 1. That hike raises the basic fare from $2 to $2.50. However, the larger 21.5% hike proposed in the second round is off the table, for now.
“SEPTA has been in the water for two years now, and we were going under,” SEPTA Board Chair Ken Lawrence said. “Today, Gov. Shapiro has thrown us a lifeline.”
This effort buys Shapiro some time for the Democratic state House, Republican Senate and the governor’s office to craft a stable mass transit funding system — something lawmakers have been unable to do this year.
“I want to step up and create a bridge,” said Shapiro, “some time and space for the House and Senate to be able to work together, to come together on this issue of mass transit.”
In a statement, state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward called Shapiro’s actions a “crisis of his own making.”
“It’s yet another example of how simply ‘showing up’ falls short in addressing complex issues,” the Republican said. “Gov. Shapiro and House Democrats prioritized education over mass transit by approving the largest budget increase ever for a traditional education system that continues to trap Philadelphia’s kids in failing schools. The bottom line is this: Pennsylvanians – especially those in the southeast – are losing out, not because of divided government, but because Pennsylvania Democrats have chosen to focus their priorities and spending on one area alone.”