Swarthmore and the Urban Politics of SEPTA

On Nov. 22, at the Frankford Transportation Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro announced he was directing Secretary of Transportation Mike Carroll to devote $153 million of federal highway funding to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). The decision comes after an eventful few months for the Philadelphia area public transit agency, that included an expansion of regional rail service, a threatened workers’ strike, and a rider fare increase of 7.5%. 

Shapiro’s move staves off the much larger rate hike and service cuts that were planned for the beginning of 2025 after operating costs rose without an adequate rise in state funding to match. Before the announcement, agency leaders and officials were deeply concerned about what the financial deficit could have meant for the future of Philadelphia’s public transportation. In email correspondence with The Phoenix, Swarthmore Assistant Professor of Art Sony Devabhaktuni, an urban architect and researcher interested in the relationship between infrastructure and human networks, outlined the threat: “Underfunded urban transportation systems, certainly in the United States after COVID, are in a death spiral where lack of funding leads to service cuts and rate hikes which in turn leads to less ridership and less income.”

“Public transportation is critical to the functioning of the city,” Devabhaktuni said on the use of SEPTA for movement without cars. “Like other types of infrastructure — say for the distribution of water or electricity — it allows for the movements that sustain life.”

Jennifer O’Mara (D-HD 165), Swarthmore’s representative in the state legislature, emphasized this warning in a phone conversation with The Phoenix. “[O’Mara and her colleagues in different Philadelphia area caucuses and House committees] felt a real urgency over the last few months to unite in the House and try and get them more funding. We were very aware that, as a state, we do not fund SEPTA the way that other mass transit agencies across the country are funded, and that we really needed to address that.”

O’Mara also articulated how Pennsylvania provides less of SEPTA’s budget than other states provide comparable transit agencies, despite its size. “SEPTA relies on funding a small line item from the state, and funding from Philadelphia and the surrounding counties that it serves. It’s a real disparity if you look at our size compared to state investment,” O’Mara said.

SEPTA officials began warning of the severity of the financial crunch in April 2024, after additional funding from federal COVID recovery bills, including 2020’s CARES Act and 2021’s American Rescue Plan, depleted. At a Philadelphia City Council hearing, SEPTA CEO and General Manager Leslie Richards shared the agency’s need for an additional yearly $161 million, an amount that Shapiro was able to pass through the state House in the spring, but not the Republican-controlled state Senate.

“When the governor did his budget address in February, he laid out a plan that would increase the allotment that SEPTA receives of our sales tax revenue,” O’Mara explained. “It wasn’t going to increase taxes, but it was going to change the way the pie is divided up, and it was going to give all mass transit agencies a larger share of that portion of money. This would have resulted in us giving SEPTA enough to cover their operations cliff. We just kept being met with opposition. Senate Republicans don’t seem to believe that SEPTA is as important as it is for the whole state.”

The chaos surrounding SEPTA’s funding also comes during the second year of Swarthmore’s participation in the Key Advantage UPass Program for students, and recently, for staff and faculty. The program allows enrollees a SEPTA Key Card eligible for 240 rides per month on any part of SEPTA’s transportation network. In Swarthmore’s case, most travelling students take advantage of the town’s regional rail station right at the base of campus to get into the city on the Media-Wawa line.

Devabhaktuni thinks that the college’s collaboration with SEPTA furthers Swarthmore’s goals of social justice and protecting the environment. “For students and the rest of us living in this country, there are fewer opportunities to be in a public space with people who we don’t know or might only have contact with for a few minutes. In my mind ‘the civic’ operates not only through institutions like city hall or actions like voting, but also through the everyday practice of encountering difference. Riding the tram or taking the train is also about sharing space with people who are strangers to us and the trust that this sustains,” he said.

O’Mara agrees about the importance of connecting Philadelphia to suburban institutions like Swarthmore, adding, “The governor acted in a way that was really necessary and shows his willingness to lead on a topic that impacts so many people.”

Shapiro’s move was also notable because the money now directed to SEPTA was originally designated for highways, representing a rare break from the way that highway funding typically finds more political backing. Because of this, Devabhaktuni wants to be careful about how this announcement is framed, remarking, “Casting this as an either-or between highways and public transportation funding sets up a battle between automobile interests and those who depend on public transportation. If things are framed in this way, the dynamics of urban politics in this country mean that highways will win.”

O’Mara also discussed the way that public transportation is deprioritized in relation to highway funding. “SEPTA moves almost 800,000 people a day. And when we saw I-95 collapse, the governor sprang into action, and that impacted around 160,000 people a day. If you’re thinking about transit in our region, SEPTA must be running, and it must be running frequently to allow for that number of people to use it,” she said. “The alternative is we put all those people back on the road when we are seeing the impact of traffic on climate and our struggling infrastructure.”

Daniel Pearson, an editorial writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, also pointed out that SEPTA’s total operating budget of $1.7 billion for 791,000 daily rides puts it as a more efficient agency than comparable agencies like Boston’s MBTA $2.5 billion budget for 875,000 daily rides and Washington, D.C.’s WMATA $2.4 billion budget for 850,000 daily rides.

Still, Shapiro’s decision only represents a temporary solution, as the $153 million does not amount to the size of SEPTA’s deficit, nor does it, as a one-time flexing of funds, allow for a regularized funding increase. SEPTA Board Chair Ken Lawrence has warned of service cuts that would begin in July 2025 if the state does not approve more funding.

Devabhaktuni also emphasized that the announcement of this funding does not solve the underlying problem. “There needs to be a longer term commitment to public transportation within the state and on the federal level for SEPTA to both stabilize and develop in ways that could truly address some of the larger transportation needs of the region. Without that kind of commitment, car culture will continue to shape social, environmental and economic relations at every level of social formation in this country. In my mind, there is nothing more determinative to how we live and relate to each other in this country than our dependence on the automobile.”

O’Mara believes that Pennsylvania Democrats have found a good solution, referencing the Shapiro-backed plan that passed the House in the spring, allowing for a greater share of state sales tax revenue to go to mass transit agencies all across the state. “It’s not often that we can find a solution that will result in more money, without[that money being] for a specific purpose, [and] without raising taxes,” she said.

“The plan that we have that would reallocate sales tax revenue helps mass transit in all 67 counties. That’s what was so beneficial about that plan. Because mass transit may look different in other counties, but it exists, and it’s also struggling. I, as a member of the transportation committee, have learned about transit agencies in Scranton and Allentown and Pittsburgh, and even in small counties where they only have buses or a transit authority that covers multiple counties. They’re struggling for the same kinds of things, revenue, jobs, keeping people on the workforce, because they’re not making enough money.”

That plan has continually failed to pass the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate, as lawmakers in the chamber have tried to negotiate for the funding to come from a tax on skill games and machines around the state. O’Mara says that Shapiro and Democrats have been open to such a deal, but that the Senate Republicans haven’t been able to put together the pieces, despite some state Capitol insiders arguing that Shapiro hasn’t been proactive enough in ensuring adequate SEPTA funding in the face of Republican opposition.

“It feels to me that the Senate has been unwilling to do this because it benefits Philadelphia, and they have this belief that Philly shouldn’t get more state funding. But at the end of the day, SEPTA serves five counties, and the contracts that SEPTA has with businesses across the Commonwealth generate millions of dollars of economic revenue,” O’Mara said. “SEPTA has a footprint across the whole commonwealth, so to not do something [about it] for political reasons is a failure of leadership.”

The uncertainty surrounding SEPTA’s financial situation is also amplified by the recent federal elections of Donald Trump to the presidency, and the Republican Party’s secured majority of seats in both chambers of Congress. SEPTA partially relies on federal funding that comes through subsidies, such as those in the CARES Act and American Rescue Plan, as well as through processes where the federal government matches and multiplies local and state funding. The $153 million in funding announced recently from Shapiro is also originally from the federal government, and while it was designated for highway projects, Shapiro used state executive power to reroute it to SEPTA. 

Trump and congressional Republicans have campaigned and governed generally against federal spending on public transportation, and against the large-scale infrastructure investment bills that congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden passed and enacted in 2021 and 2022 that injected large amounts of money into public transportation authorities and initiatives around the country, including SEPTA.

“I am concerned for cities in the United States under the coming administration,” Devabhaktuni said.

O’Mara agreed about concerns over what a Trump administration would do for infrastructure, but hopes that Trump and national Republicans will treat funding public transportation as a politically advantageous policy. “My hope is that, because Pennsylvania ended up swinging red this time around, that President-elect Trump will not act in retribution and will try to grow his popularity in the state. I don’t think he’ll do that if he takes funding away from SEPTA or from any other line item in Pennsylvania.”

These dynamics highlight the volatility that the public sector is subject to in a swing state and a time of switching federal administrations. And, Swarthmore’s SEPTA station and participation in the UPass program brings those issues right to campus.