Uncertainty and anxiety as SEPTA slashes bus routes and hikes fares

Donna Allie’s 700-plus employees work throughout Philadelphia, at all hours of the day and night. They clean City Hall and the Municipal Services Building, public schools and charter schools, and all kinds of office buildings. 

They earn low wages to vacuum and empty wastebaskets after dark, when they won’t disturb their clients. They live modestly, tend not to own cars or take pricey Uber rides, and overwhelmingly depend on SEPTA — with perhaps 95% taking buses and trains to their job sites, said Allie, the owner of Team Clean, a maintenance company based at the Navy Yard.

Now, as the transit authority deals with a financial crisis and a state budget impasse, it’s getting ready to eliminate more than 30 bus routes on Monday, reduce frequency on many others, and impose steep fare hikes a week later. 

Allie said she and her employees are “nervous.”

“They’re people that don’t make a lot of money, and are on a tight budget, and the increase is going to hurt,” she said. The service cuts are “going to disrupt their lives totally. You have husbands and wives who work on a schedule, they have to be at the daycare center at a certain time. The husband picks them up and, you know, now they can’t rely on the transportation.” 

“Not to mention the single parents — can you imagine them trying to get their child to a daycare center or to a babysitter? Have to take three buses or four buses … just disruptive,” she said.

Like many others, she’s particularly worried about the deeper cuts planned for January, if SEPTA’s budget problem isn’t resolved by then. The agency would completely shutter five Regional Rail lines and more bus routes, and set a hard daily stop to all bus and rail service at 9 p.m., creating an enormous challenge for her many employees who work night shifts.

“I spank myself, because I thought maybe I should have been prepared earlier, but it was such an up and down, and we didn’t know what was going on,” Allie said. “I’m just praying that it doesn’t happen, and that everybody can come to some kind of resolution, for the sake of the people.”

Personal impacts that slowly build

As riders cope with the cuts and fare changes, transportation experts and advocates are expecting to see a variety of effects, such as more cars on the roads, slower highway traffic at peak travel times, worse air pollution, tighter on-street parking, and perhaps more bicycling and carpooling.

Yet exactly when and where those will happen is difficult to predict, they say. 

That’s in part because many of the initial cuts will affect relatively small numbers of passengers scattered around the authority’s five-county region, like those who take lower-ridership bus lines or use Regional Rail in the middle of the day. Some people will also find alternate routes, masking the immediate effects.

“It will be a very personal impact on people,” said Elise Turner, spokesperson for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC). “Some commuters may not see a difference, but for others who use those routes, it could be devastating, if you’re trying to get your child to school or trying to get to work at a specific time.”

The higher fares coming on Sept. 1 will lead some financially challenged riders to change their travel habits, but it could take time for them to feel the bite and act. The effects could also become clearer as workers and families settle into their fall schedules.

“It will be a slow burn that starts to reveal itself more and more over the next few months,” said Jeff Stade, CEO of Jawnt, which runs SEPTA Key Advantage employee pass programs. “It’s complicated by a lot of things, like people coming back to school or being away on summer vacation. Once the service cuts go into place, we’ll start to see the real impact of what it does to SEPTA ridership.”

Regional Rail faces a ridership hit

DVRPC ran the full slate of planned SEPTA cuts and fare increases, including the January cuts, through its travel demand model and found they could result in at least 275,000 more car trips daily across Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. (There are currently about 8 million car trips a day.) 

Commutes on southbound I-95 and the eastbound Schuylkill Expressway into the city could take about 20% longer, among other impacts. The increase in driving would boost greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in Philadelphia by about 4% and the city’s overall carbon emissions by 1%, according to WHYY’s calculations.

Much of the additional traffic would result from the rail line shutdowns in January. DVRPC did not separately model just the first round of cuts that are happening next week, said Matt Gates, the commission’s associate director for travel trends and forecasts. 

That said, he noted that the reduced frequency of Regional Rail trains could lead some riders — those who can’t fit the new departure times into their schedules — to switch to cars and ride-hailing services, worsening traffic. 

Those include suburbanites who work from home and run errands in the middle of the day, a group that has grown since the pandemic, he said. Mid-day trains will start running every two hours instead of hourly in the middle of the day on some routes.

Gates also noted that past fare hikes have shown that Regional Rail riders are more sensitive to higher costs than people using buses and other modes. That could mean Regional Rail as a whole will take a relatively big ridership hit next month.

“That’s something that could happen beginning September 1. If that’s the case, then it could be more Center City congestion, a little more difficulty parking,” he said. “Combined with the off-peak headways going to two hours, if you’re not working a traditional 9-to-5 job, maybe Regional Rail’s a less-viable alternative.”

Please don’t drive into Center City

The city’s preparations for the cuts mainly consist of preparing for and trying to avoid an increase in car commuting to Center City, in part by encouraging more drivers to use transit for the last leg of their trips. 

The Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) created a map of lots where commuters can park and switch to a rail or subway line, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority is considering creating more “pop-up” parking lots on the outskirts of the city. The city is also encouraging more carpooling.

To deal with a potential increase in driving, city staff will monitor traffic conditions to see if signal times need to be adjusted, limit street closures for construction, and focus on enforcing no-stopping rules on North Broad Street during rush hour, among other steps.

“We will review the driving and parking trends and adapt our response and planning accordingly,” an OTIS spokesperson told Billy Penn. “While these traffic conditions may become more manageable over time, the inescapable consequence of these cuts is a significantly more fragile transportation network overall. Without full SEPTA service, the severity and duration of transportation disruptions due to traffic crashes and other unplanned events will be considerably greater than before.”

An increase in driving would also boost demand for parking in central Philly, but garage and lot operators say they’re not concerned about shortages. The PPA’s properties are typically only 60% to 65% full on weekdays, spokesperson Martin O’Rourke said.

“We anticipate an uptick, a bump in cars in the garages,” he said, but “there will be parking available.” As for on-street parking, “it’s always at a premium, even without the SEPTA cutbacks.”

Robert Zuritsky, CEO of Parkway Corporation, said his company keeps the roughly 40,000 spots in its garages and lots near full capacity during the week, but he’s not concerned about a surge in demand in Center City’s business district, especially not right away.

“Next week is probably the slowest week for business in the whole year,” he said, as people finish up last-minute summer vacations and take off for Labor Day on Friday. “It won’t be that big of a deal. Next year is probably [when] something could happen.”

Zuritsky said he’s seen what happens during SEPTA strikes, and the disruption for his company and the city as a whole far outweighs any potential benefits to parking operators. 

“The parking industry really wants a healthy, vibrant economy, where people are not nervous about not being able to get to their meeting on time or their doctor’s appointment,” he said. “Clearly, SEPTA is vitally important to the city and the region. This is a very bad thing for the city’s economy and our prospects.”

Families scramble on first day of school

While it remains to be seen how the service reductions play out, some groups will definitely be scrambling to cope right away, including some of 198,000 public school students in Philly whose new school year begins Monday. 

In Northeast Philadelphia, in particular, students already have limited transit options and longer average commutes due to the area’s low population density, and their area will see some of the worst service cuts in the coming weeks, SEPTA officials have said. 

At Baldi Middle School in Bustleton, for example, about 60% of the students use SEPTA, and the school will see three bus lines cut next week and a fourth in January. Those include three 400-series bus lines dedicated to serving schools.

Principal Bianca Gillis told Chalkbeat that she was worried the losses will lead to students being late for class and increase absenteeism. “It would just create unreasonable demands on children with those kind of necessary pivots that families would have to make,” she said. 

Another group that will soon feel the pain of service cuts are Philly sports lovers, including Eagles fans who attend the team’s first home game of the year on Sept. 4, a Thursday night with an 8:20 p.m. starting time.

Traveling to and from Lincoln Financial Field will be “chaotic,” SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said at a Pa. House Committee hearing in Philadelphia Wednesday. 

Usually SEPTA runs 10 extra trains in the hour after the game ends. Now there will only be three or four, unless the agency’s financial crisis ends immediately and it can make plans to restore that service. SEPTA will carry about 4,000 people on those trains rather than the usual 16,000.

That could mean thousands of “extra” fans driving to the stadium and trying to park there, creating gridlock that results in them stuck in their cars. Others might try getting an Uber or Lyft, perhaps after first walking several blocks out of the congested stadium area.

Uber is no panacea

The South Philly stadium complex isn’t the only spot that will be suddenly grappling with a dearth of transportation options. Starting next week, more people throughout the region might find themselves calling an Uber when they have no other convenient way to get to their destination. 

Drivers for the ride-hailing services are well aware they might be getting more work. On one Uber drivers forum last week, after a commenter noted the threat of competition from Waymo’s self-driving vehicles, another responded, “Don’t worry, after SEPTA cuts all of its service, business will be booming.”

Uber is no panacea, though, according to Stacy Bartels, manager of DVRPC’s office of transportation demand management strategy. More Uber trips mean worse traffic and more air pollution, plus they’re unaffordable for many of the lower-income residents who make up a major portion of SEPTA’s ridership.

“There is going to be a certain percentage of the population that’s not going to be able to afford to do that on a regular basis, and we all know that those companies also have peak pricing and things like that,” Bartels said. “It’s really hard to budget for that, because you don’t know when you need a ride, what it’s going to cost, that kind of thing.”

For many people, losing a SEPTA route will mean simply missing out, whether on an Eagles game or some other event.

“I want to go to the Coheed concert in Philly on the 27th, but with SEPTA cutting the Mann Loop, I would have to pay an Uber to get there and back,” lamented one SEPTA booster on Twitter/X. “It’s more likely I don’t go😭”

Biking for the win?

Among OTIS’ recommendations are that people consider using Indego, the city-owned bike and e-bike sharing service. Coincidentally, Indego will be running a promotion during September that gives new users a 30-day pass for just $1, down from the usual $20.

“We’re anticipating higher demand for Indego, particularly along the corridors that are being impacted,” said Nate Bowman-Johnston, the service’s general manager. “We’re anticipating the need to move more bikes around, swapping more batteries, doing more maintenance. Hopefully Indego will be sort of a solution for folks who are going to be impacted.”

While Indego’s classic bikes are good for relatively short trips, Bowman-Johnston said its pedal-assist e-bikes make it easy to go relatively long distances. His commute from the East Falls/Manayunk area to South Philly takes half an hour, much less time than it would on SEPTA, he said.

If the new service cuts play out similarly to past SEPTA strikes, it’s likely that some people will be permanently converted to cycling, he said.

“If this terrible thing that’s happening to the city can lead to more people getting on bikes instead of relying on cars, that would be a great outcome for us,” he said.

Jessie Amadio, a board member at Philly Bike Action, said she’s expecting many lower-income people who can’t afford cars, like restaurant workers and students who live outside of Center City, to start cycling to their jobs and classes. 

“SEPTA absolutely needs to be funded, and there’s just no way around that,” she said. “But I do think that if people have to try to bike, a lot of people are going to enjoy it.”

That could lead to a tightening of the market for good-quality used bikes, more calls for things like better bike racks and off-street bike storage, and increased demand for instructional programs for people who are not used to navigating congested city streets, she said.

“The predictions for increased traffic are humongous, and that’s going to make the roads more dangerous, and you’re going to have more people on bikes and more people in cars,” she said. “It’s going to be kind of a show.”