“Imagine the entire city of Pittsburgh suddenly driving in and out of the Philadelphia region every day,” says Alexander Milone, transit committee co-chair for 5th Square, a Philadelphia urban political action committee.
Sound terrible? That’s what I-95, I-76 and Philly’s other highways could be facing if the state government fails to fund SEPTA. The proposed cuts, according to data from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, could result in another 275,000 cars on our thoroughfares. (In case you think Milone is exaggerating: Pittsburgh’s population is just over 303,000).
This past Thursday, SEPTA’s board voted to begin service cuts in August and raise fares 21.5 percent in September, with general manager Scott A. Sauer saying they need “to budget not on hope but on reality,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Meanwhile, PA state legislators are set to pass by the July 1 deadline for setting the state budget, so it’s still unclear how much support the transit agency could get from our government.
The transit agency saw a massive decline in ridership due to Covid, which resulted in budget shortfalls due to lost revenue from fares. SEPTA’s proposed cuts would eliminate 50 bus routes, shut down five Regional Rail lines and impose a 9 p.m. curfew on subways and trains. Ridership has been steadily increasing, but SEPTA is still facing a $213 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year.
Depressed ridership resulting from the pandemic, and the financial challenges that come with it, is a problem for transit systems across the U.S. First people stopped riding due to social distancing. Now, transit agency leaders from across the U.S. cite remote and hybrid work patterns as the reason ridership hasn’t returned to its pre-pandemic levels.
But in a few other U.S cities and in many other countries transit systems have been able to rebound, both in terms of ridership levels and revenue. Here’s a look at some strategies they’ve adopted that we could bring to Philly.
Embrace the weekend riders
More frequent and reliable service has helped transit agencies around the world rebound in both revenue and ridership after Covid. Many have found that while remote and hybrid workers aren’t using trains and buses to commute, they are riding on the weekends.
We don’t need to go too far for an example. WMATA in Washington DC increased its weekend metro rail from every 30 minutes on the weekends in 2019, to between every six to twelve minutes in 2025.
D.C. weekend ridership has surpassed its pre-Covid levels. Now, the city is further expanding service, extending hours until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturdays this summer. Increased ridership has resulted in an additional $20 million for the transit agency..
We could take a lesson here, especially with Regional Rail. During Covid, SEPTA reduced service frequency, running some Regional Rail lines every two hours and operating buses, subways and trolleys on their weekend schedules. As of last year, the agency restored service to 84 percent of its pre-Covid Regional Rail capacity on the weekends and 80 percent on the weekdays.
People might not be commuting on Regional Rail, but they are taking it into the city on evenings and weekends to go out to dinner, or catch a ball game, or see a show. Philadelphians might even take it out of the city to meet up with suburban friends.
“It’s not just a commuter service anymore. If you want to go into the city to go down to South Philly to see the Phils in a late evening game that runs overtime, you don’t have to worry about getting back,” Milone says. “If you want to go into Center City for a night out on the town, you don’t have to plan around railroads stopping like Cinderella’s pumpkin. They’ll keep operating way later into the evening and that would drive more ridership.”
Cut, Not Raise, Fares
It might seem counterintuitive to cut transit fares when an agency is facing a fiscal crisis, but that’s exactly what Madrid did in the aftermath of the pandemic. Their agency, the Board of the Regional Transport Consortium of Madrid (CRTM) halved the cost of monthly passes for adults older than 26, reduced the cost of monthly passes to €8 for adults under 26 and allows children and seniors to ride free.
The result? In 2023, one year after the fare reduction, the transit agency saw €3.42 million in revenue. Ridership grew 7.1 percent between 2023 and 2024 and is up 7.6 percent from 2019.
Fare reductions can help boost ridership and revenue in a few ways. If monthly passes are cheaper, more people might opt to buy them. Parents, who need to pay fares, might be more likely to hop on a train or a bus if they know their children ride for free. More people on the train can help people feel safer. Lower fares can have a ripple effect on all this.
SEPTA has already seen ridership start to rebound since the pandemic. As of April, bus ridership was at 79 percent of its 2019 levels, subway was at 69 percent and Regional Rail was at 68 percent. Decreasing fares for select groups, like college students, could help get more people on the trains or buses.
There are other ways SEPTA can reduce the costs of using the system for riders, without necessarily cutting fares itself. The Key Advantage program offers discounted fares for institutions like Penn, Wawa and the City, that buy passes for their entire workforce. The program has already led to more individual ridership. When people in Key Advantage take SEPTA, they may also invite friends and family whose employers aren’t enrolled in the program to ride with them. Those people will pay full price on fares. Getting more employers in the program could help boost ridership and bring more money to SEPTA.
Which brings us to our next point…
Embrace Public-Private Partnerships
As Nicolas Esposito, founder of Circa Systems, pointed out in The Citizen earlier this month, public-private transit partnerships helped Hong Kong’s transit system turn a $2 billion profit last year. Other cities and countries have seen success with this approach as well.
Japan’s rail system, which has been privatized since 1987 and takes little from the federal government, has some lessons for how public-private partnerships could work for SEPTA, especially when it comes to Regional Rail.
Private rail companies in Japan are profitable because they don’t just rely on fares for income. Much of their revenue comes from commercial and residential real estate developments that the rail companies build near train stations. Real estate generates between 20 percent to 60 percent of revenue for private Japanese rail companies.
“They build it up into these very dense, commercially active, residential areas that aren’t necessarily catering towards cars,” Milone says. “The revenue it generates is what’s actually paying for the transit system.”
SEPTA obviously can’t start buying up a ton of land for building, but they already have one asset near their Regional Rail stations: their parking lots. Some of the larger ones could house mixed-use commercial real estate developments with apartments on upper levels and retail, restaurants or office space on the first floor. Residents in the apartments would have easy access to trains, which means more people spending money on fares. SEPTA could earn additional revenue by leasing their land to developers.
That’s what’s happening in Conshohocken, where the development company Alterra Property Group is building a 300 unit apartment complex on SEPTA land. The developer has a 99-year lease and will pay SEPTA $330 million over that time period.
Jody Holton, SEPTA’s chief planning and strategy officer, told The Inquirer that they’re looking for more opportunities to turn their larger parking lots into mixed use developments, particularly in Ambler, Swarthmore and Germantown, where local developer Ken Weinstein is renovating five regional rail stations that have fallen into disrepair. He’s planning mixed-use retail and residential developments. The deal will save SEPTA $150,000 per year in maintenance costs, plus the nearly $4 million it would take to renovate the stations.
“It’s a win-win. SEPTA generates revenue through land leases. The development creates built in ridership growth potential,” says Laura Manion, president and CEO of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry.
Fund Transit Sustainably
Many of these ideas will take time to increase ridership and revenues. They also likely won’t be possible if SEPTA doesn’t secure the funding it needs to stave off the current fiscal crisis. Governor Josh Shapiro has proposed an additional $292 million in funding for mass transit in his budget, and a bill has already passed the House with bipartisan support.
“It provides SEPTA with five years of funding to sustain their operations and continue to explore other additional efficiencies and new revenues,” Manion says. “[SEPTA is] getting senior citizens to their appointments. It’s getting the children to school. We need to stop thinking of this as a Philadelphia problem. It is very regional. It is the economic driver of the Southeast.”
We might be able to dodge the current worst-case scenarios, but we could be having the same conversation in a few years if we don’t make changes. The ideas on this list offer great options for SEPTA, but the state could also step in to close some of the gaps by providing more reliable funding. Cities like New York and Chicago have long taxed rideshares to fund transit. State Senators Nikil Saval and Lindsey Williams have proposed similar legislation for PA.
Milone also sees tax reform as a means for supporting SEPTA. A number of PA cities, including Allentown, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton have currently or previously taxed undeveloped land for its potential. The program has lowered property taxes for residents and spurred development. If more municipalities in the Southeastern part of the state adopted this, it could spur development around train stations, creating revenue for SEPTA by increasing ridership.
“The denser you build up the area around the transit, the more people will use the system,” Milone says. “In addition to that, you’re generating a lot more economic activity, and the tax from that could go towards funding transit.”
We also need to reframe the conversation around funding SEPTA, so that it is less contentious statewide. Republican legislators, especially those from rural districts, have tended to oppose SEPTA funding because it doesn’t benefit rural residents in the Western part of the state.
But SEPTA is benefiting Western PA. They have spent over $1.14 billion in contracts with PA companies in 39 counties, Manion pointed out in an op-ed for the Pennsylvania Capital Star. Outside of contracts, SEPTA helps move people around the region, generating economic activity via jobs, but also tourism. That will be crucial next year as Philly hosts America’s 250th birthday.
“We need a dedicated, recurring funding source that’s not going to always be subject to political shifts or economic fluctuations,” Manion says.
“Without a robust, comprehensive and efficient transit system to move people around this densely populated region, we can’t generate that economic activity. We will be on the world stage next year. This is an unprecedented opportunity to market ourselves to future residents, to future businesses. … SEPTA is crucial to 2026 being a success and leveraging that access to drive additional growth for Pennsylvania.”
MORE OF OUR SEPTA COVERAGE
