Riders' Updates: Week of May 1, 2022

Published: 4 minute read

Stuff to know

Proposed SEPTA Fare Changes

If you missed it last week, the SEPTA board will be voting on the proposed fare changes this month. Though there are no fare increases and even some fare decreases, moving forward we propose the following:

  • Simplify the fare structure. There are a lot of different, confusing, and conflicting fare options.
  • Lower regional rail fare within Philadelphia to match transit fare. Now is the time for SEPTA to move toward integrating its transit system.
  • Remove ride limits on “unlimited” passes.
  • Add a low-income fare program: Allow anyone with a PA Access card to ride for free. We’ve found that statewide this program would cost only $90M/year.
  • End the cash payment penalty. There’s no reason to charge cash riders $0.50 more than riders with a card.

Proposed SEPTA budgets

Have you looked at the proposed SEPTA budget yet? Proposed capital budget here, and here’s an article on it from the inquirer. For a very good explainer of the SEPTA budgets and organization in general, watch this video from long time consumer advocate Lance Haver. While we are glad to see SEPTA being able to raise and utilize more funds with the changes in the way the state funding is given out, but we do have some questions:

  • Why such a disparity between funding for KoP rail and the Bus Network Redesign? The Bus network serves significantly more people than the rail project ever would, yet it only gets about ⅓ the funding in this budget.
  • With so much money available, why not do a pilot to try to increase ridership?: drop the price of Regional Rail within Philly to the price of transit.

SEPTA’s Bus Network Redesign

Did you know that SEPTA is changing where and when its transit routes run? In the coming weeks we’ll have more information for riders about what this means, but what we can say is this: it’s a cost-neutral redesign where they’re trying to remove fixed-route service from some areas, replacing it with “microtransit”– a CCT-like service that riders will have to call to schedule a ride. While they’re calling this a “bus revolution”– we wouldn’t be caught sleeping on the Market-Frankford Owl calling this cost-neutral bus network redesign a “revolution.”

SEPTA is offering two redesign options. Our summary:

  • Option A has more frequent service, at the cost of more suburban buses replaced with microtransit, while option B retains more routes, at the expense of slightly more frequent service.
  • Under Option A, nobody is supposed to wait longer than 30 minutes for a vehicle, whether it’s fixed route or microtransit. Under Option B, a lot of suburban busses will only run every 60 minutes
  • In both Option A and Option B, all buses, whether in the city or Bucks County and Lower MontCo, will now run 7 days a week with service from at least 5AM-12AM. (We’ve not yet analyzed other suburban areas yet)
  • Neither option really adds transit service to locations that didn’t previously have them, but rarely does either option seem to entirely remove transit from any area either, with each area either having fixed or microtransit. (one exception to this so far, Feasterville, which, at least under Option A, will lose fixed route transit with no microtransit replacement)

We’ll be releasing a lot more information about what these changes will mean to you, and how to fight back if necessary, so stay tuned.

Stuff to do

Coming Up

  • TRU non-profit incorporation later this Spring.
  • bi-weekly TRU leadership meetings are open to all members. If you would like to attend call/text 267-313-6060 or email org@phillytru.org
  • Next General Meeting: May 22, 2022 @ 3pm. Location TBD.
  • Want to join the TRU? Sign up here