Washington, D.C. – Today, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) announced a proposed plan to achieve a required balance budget if the state does not pass a permanent funding solution. This plan would cut service by 45% by January 2026, decimating service for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) released the following statement on X:
“Increased fares, bus routes eliminated, rail services reduced – this isn’t good for anybody.
“Pennsylvania’s leaders must come together to fix this funding issue soon and prevent these devastating impacts from rolling out.”
This morning, SEPTA announced they will vote on June 26 on a package of service cuts and fare increases aimed at balancing the SEPTA operating budget. If approved, 20% service cuts will go into effect in August 2025, followed by a 21.5% fare increase in September. In October, the board will hold a hearing to evaluate additional cuts, with the potential for service cuts reaching 45% in January 2026.
These cuts would devastate public transit throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania. If enacted, the August service cuts would result in 1 million fewer service hours per year. The potential January 2026 cuts would be even more drastic, dismantling the public transit system hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians rely on. SEPTA is not the only transit agency in the Commonwealth that faces a “death spiral” if a state funding solution is not advanced. Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) has warned of 35% service cuts, fare increases, and layoffs.
While legislators in Harrisburg must pass a transit funding increase to prevent these service cuts, Senator Fetterman has warned about potential cuts throughout his time in office and has worked to find commonsense solutions to prevent them. Last Congress, he introduced the Moving Transit Forward Act, which would provide federal operating funding to address some of the funding gaps. He has advocated for additional transit funding and led a bicameral group of his colleagues in a letter asking the federal government for increased investment into SEPTA last year. In addition to the nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding the Senator has secured for SEPTA throughout his time in office, he has also supported successful grant applications for other public transit system across the commonwealth, including a $25 million grant for a new bus facility in Harrisburg and a $15 million grant for the construction of a bus storage facility and bus maintenance in Washington County.
