SEPTA may raise fares depending on the funding situation in FY2025

https://www.phillyvoice.com/septa-opera ... increases/

As SEPTA prepares to spend the last of its pandemic relief money, the transit authority anticipates changes to its business structure in the years to come if it can't bridge the funding gap.


The leftover COVID money is scheduled to be spent by April 2024, leaving an over $240 million hole in SEPTA's spending budget starting in the fiscal year 2025, which would force the transit authority to consider service cuts and fare increases.

Everyone: This 6 ABC news report was something that SEPTA riders should be aware of -
https://6abc.com/septa-train-chestnut-h ... t/14361310

The upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 (after July 1, 2024) with SEPTA's $240 million dollar budget shortfall the
"Fiscal Cliff" looms ahead...Could a 30 percent fare increase combined with 20 percent service cutbacks
- which will devastate ridership throughout on a system that is still recovering from the massive 2020
losses brought on by the Pandemic - there could be entire routes lost such as the Chestnut Hill West Line...

All anyone needs to do as a comparison to review is to look back at what happened during the first half
of the 1980s: 1980 to 1984 to be exact - when SEPTA cut services after a series of major fare increases...

In fairness there were good strategic improvements made during those years: The acquisition of the
Kawasaki-built Broad Street Subway B4 cars and light rail/trolley fleet along with the construction
and opening of the Center City Commuter Connection tunnel for RRD in late 1984 come to mind...

With alternatives available for riders such as rideshare services remembering the decline in transit
ridership over the last 10 to 15 years overall SEPTA needs to maintain service that the system now offers...

New routes such as a Roosevelt Boulevard Rapid Transit Line or any kind of revival such as rail lines that
were lost during the "Bad Old Days" of the first half of the 1980s will only remain future improvement ideas
- unless the SEPTA System that we NOW have is fully funded along with current routes being protected from
the problems that major fare increases along with service cutbacks are going to cause...

In closing it is going to be very hard to be optimistic when the potential SEPTA troubles ahead look so
pessimistic...MACTRAXX

Well this might save SEPTA
https://www.inquirer.com/transportation ... 40128.html

Gov. Josh Shapiro plans to propose $282.8 million in new state funding for public transit in his upcoming budget, administration officials said Saturday, a development that comes as a cash-strapped SEPTA prepares for deep service cuts and a fare increase.

Shapiro’s new measure would generate an estimated $1.5 billion over five years by increasing the allocation of sales tax revenue dedicated to supporting commonwealth transit systems, the administration said. SEPTA would get the largest cut.