SEPTA adopted a budget on June 26 that will slash nearly half its transit service as it wrestles with a $213 million annual deficit and little hope for new funding from Harrisburg. The doomsday moment, if that is what it turns out to be, arrived with little drama — in a quick voice vote by the transit agency’s board — after six months of public protests and political fury. “To our riders, we see you, we hear you, and we are not done fighting for you,” Marian Moskowitz, vice chair of the SEPTA board, said. SEPTA will start a first round of service cuts in August under the plan and implement a 21.5% fare increase on Sept. 1. Deeper cuts to services will be triggered on Jan. 1, including elimination of five Regional Rail lines: Paoli/Thorndale, Wilmington/Newark, Trenton, Chestnut Hill West, and Cynwyd. “We have to budget not on hope but on reality,” SEPTA general manager Scott A. Sauer has said. In all, service will be cut 45% in addition to the fare increase, which will bring SEPTA’s base price to $2.90 per ride.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer; 6/26/2025