SEPTA’s Death Spiral: An Assault on Philadelphia’s Working Class

January 14, 2025/Brian Mazelis

What happens when an entire metropolitan area’s public transportation system shuts down? Luckily, Philadelphia didn’t have to find out in November when two strikes by SEPTA workers were narrowly avoided. Within weeks, Transportation Workers’ Union 234 (TWU 234), SEPTA’s largest union, and SMART 1594, which represents regional rail workers, both authorized strikes if the company did not meet their demands as their contracts expired. Winning 5% raises, pension boosts, and security improvements, TWU’s contract is expected to set the precedent for SMART and other contracts within SEPTA.

At the same time, anxieties have been percolating around the self-described “death spiral” SEPTA is experiencing. This has to do with the “indefinite suspension” of SEPTA’s Bus Revolution, which planned to overhaul the existing infrastructure with the intention of making services more frequent and reliable. These plans were cancelled and new plans were announced to increase fares by 21.5% and cut services in 2025.

That was before Governor Shapiro stepped in to shuffle some money around from the federal highway budget and throw SEPTA a 153-million-dollar lifeline, preventing these dramatic changes. Instead, riders now face a 7.5% fare increase that went into effect on December 1. This bait-and-switch tactic is meant to appease riders, but it is clear there is an impending crisis at SEPTA that needs to be addressed. $153 million is still about $90 million short of the annual budget deficit of $240 million that SEPTA is currently operating under.

Although the strikes and the worst of the fare hikes were averted, SEPTA workers and riders still have much to fear in the coming period without a concerted fight to demand a public transportation system that benefits the whole of the city. 

People who use SEPTA are not the only ones who benefit from its services; the entire regional economy is largely dependent on the transportation authority. From the stores we shop at to the essential services provided in our communities, nothing runs if people can’t get to work. Additionally, less public transportation means more cars, which means more traffic and vehicle emissions in an already heavily polluted city. Needless to say, letting the conditions at SEPTA continue to crumble benefits nobody. Why, then, is it so hard to fund?

There are a number of reasons why SEPTA has not received the funding it needs. It’s true that Republicans in the state legislature have consistently blocked attempts to boost funds for the company, but that is not the only reason for what we’re seeing. Even if SEPTA received the full $240 million to meet one year’s operating budget loss, for instance, there remains the reality of $5 billion in back repairs.

The real issue is that even though public transportation is a necessity, it is not publicly owned. SEPTA is technically a “public authority,” meaning it is a “corporate instrument of the State,” so it operates exactly like a private, for-profit company with a board that is arbitrarily appointed and executives who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salaries while riders and workers suffer. In order to transform SEPTA into something that genuinely serves the people, the people must not settle for the slow destruction of our public services, but demand that our tax dollars actually start being used to improve our quality of life.