Philadelphia leaders connect with transit advocates after long-awaited budget didn’t include funding for SEPTA

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State and city public officials hosted a town hall Thursday to address transit funding, or the lack thereof, included in Pennsylvania’s budget, which was approved last week after a stalemate that lasted more than four months.

State Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, Philadelphia City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke and Transit Forward Philadelphia invited transit riders to the Friends Center in Center City to learn about the challenges they’re facing and to discuss what can be done to support additional legislation.

Transportation fell off the state’s priority list for the budget after SEPTA and Pittsburgh Regional Transit opted to cover operating costs with money from a reserve fund usually meant for capital projects. Saval said the region could see “some of the ramifications of this” going forward, including service cuts and more projects being postponed. However, he said there still are some positive takeaways.

“We did not win everything this round, but our fight for fully funded transit was known across the state, and frankly, known nationally,” Saval said. “And our demands for long-term funding reverberated in every corner of the commonwealth, to thousands of riders, to hundreds of elected officials and to the nearly 100 people in this room tonight.”

Last week, SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer called the move to not include transit funding in the state budget “disappointing,” saying it could disrupt “critical short- and long-term infrastructure investments” as the transit agency deals with a $213 million budget deficit. Saval told those in attendance to “be prepared for the long haul.”

At the local level, O’Rourke discussed transit not just as a way to move people, but also the greater impacts within the city’s communities, specifically the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions and air quality associated with cars on the road.

“For a city struggling with air pollution and a pediatric asthma rate three times the national average, every step forward is vital progress towards environmental justice,” O’Rourke said. “When I talk about transit access, I am also talking about our kids breathing easier and our city doing its part to fight climate change in an era when everybody else is doing everything they can to not fight it. This is our chance.”

Earlier this month, the contract with SEPTA’s largest workers’ union expired. Transport Workers Union Local 234 voted to authorize a strike Sunday, though union leaders say a walkout is not imminent.

Last Friday, SEPTA announced that it had completed its audit of the entire fleet of 223 Silverliner IV Regional Rail cars, meeting a Nov. 14 federal deadline for safety compliance. Delays can be expected to last into December as shortages in SEPTA’s fleet remain because so many rail cars were pulled for maintenance.