‘Lifeline for thousands’: Delaware officials plead with SEPTA, Pennsylvania lawmakers to preserve rail service to Philadelphia

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Delaware’s political leaders are pleading with Pennsylvania lawmakers to preserve the rail line that runs from Newark to Philadelphia and is slated for elimination.

“It is a lifeline for thousands,” Wilmington City Councilman Coby Owens said this week of the daily route that has stops in Stanton, Wilmington and Claymont.

Owens spoke out as Pennsylvania legislators are exploring and squabbling over possible solutions to bail out funding for the financially troubled Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, known as SEPTA.

SEPTA’s board has proposed eliminating several bus and rail routes, including the Delaware train line, unless it gets more money to operate. Under the current plan, SEPTA would begin phasing out the Delaware line this month and shut it down by January.

Gov. Matt Meyer wrote to SEPTA’s board in May, saying such a move would be disruptive to commuters, students and other travelers between the two states.

“Cutting service that stops in Delaware would undercut the economies and values of both of our states,” Meyer wrote. “Whether it is for work, school or some other purpose, Pennsylvanians and Delawareans depend on this line for quick and efficient travel, to get by and build a better life for themselves and their families.”

Delaware’s two leading Republican senators, Minority Leader Gerald Hocker and Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn, sent the same letter to their counterparts in Pennsylvania’s Senate in late June.

“We recognize that SEPTA is facing challenging financial circumstances,” the letter said, but “cutting essential services will only perpetuate a downward decline.”

Delaware spent $120 million over the last decade to support rail service. The state recently completed a new $90 million project at the Claymont station near the Pennsylvania border that serves SEPTA trains.

Delaware also pays SEPTA for rail service. In 2024, the cost was $6.8 million, which was offset by $2.7 million in fare revenue, said C.R. McLeod of the Delaware Department of Transportation.

Delaware also pays Amtrak about $5 million a year so SEPTA can use its tracks, McLeod said.

Owens and other officials also said ridership has been recovering, although it’s still below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels of five years ago.

“This would be devastating for the people who work in Philly, work in South Jersey, go to school at the universities in that region, that live here in the city of Wilmington, in the surrounding areas,’’ Owens said.

“This would have a huge impact on creating even more barriers for people. The only other option you would probably have is either get an Amtrak ticket or have to find other transportation up there, whether it’s buying a car or renting other transportation.”

McLeod said an average of 1,300 people board SEPTA trains daily in Delaware.

The ridership total in fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30, was 651,000, McLeod said. That’s far fewer riders than the 1.2 million in 2019 but has risen steadily since the COVID-era low of 214,500 in 2021, when the coronavirus was raging across the region, he said.

“Obviously COVID had a large impact on all public transit riderships, but we’ve been encouraged with the increases that we’ve seen,’’ McLeod said. “We’ve seen ridership coming back, especially as more businesses are bringing people back to the office. We think there is a demand for it. We’ve made those investments. We certainly don’t want to see the service go away.”

For now, all Delaware officials can do is monitor what’s happening in Harrisburg.

“We’re really in wait-and-see mode,’’ McLeod said. “SEPTA leadership isn’t doing this because they don’t see the value in serving Delaware. They’re dollars and cents decisions here about how they can sustain service.”