As Chicago-area public transit faces possible cuts next summer, it’s worth looking at the experience of Philadelphia, the first major U.S. city to go off the so-called transit “fiscal cliff.”
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, cut service by 20% on Aug. 24 after running out of federal pandemic grants and failing to earn back riders to 2019 levels.
Since then, Philadelphia transit has faced two weeks of chaos, foreshadowing some potential outcomes for Chicago-area transit if Illinois lawmakers don’t pass a funding bill in the fall veto session next month to plug a multi-million budget hole.
Last week alone, a Philadelphia judge reversed the cuts, a company paid to sponsor trains to an Eagles game, and students struggled to find city buses to take to class. On Monday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro authorized nearly $400 million to reverse the cuts and buy two years for state lawmakers to pass funding for Philadelphia-area transit.
“I would describe [the cuts] as an unmitigated disaster,” Connor Descheemaker, a transit advocate in Philadelphia, told the Chicago Sun-Times Monday. “It’s a tremendous legislative failure.”
In Illinois, lawmakers must help find funding by 2026 to stave off potential 40% cuts to the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace.
“Philadelphia has been first to play their hand about sweeping cuts,” says Joseph Schwieterman, transit expert and director of DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. “It’s an ominous warning for what we may see in Chicago.”
Mass confusion
If transit cuts happen in the Chicago area next summer, riders will likely be caught off guard just as SEPTA riders were when the agency slashed trains and buses three Sundays ago.
Some commuters showed up to bus stops on routes that had been eliminated. “Frustration and confusion at Center City transit hubs amid cuts,” a headline ran at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The cuts even affected attendance at school, which began that week and depend on city buses, just as Chicago Public Schools does. About 63% of Philadelphia schools reported more late arrivals than normal, and 50% reported higher absentee rates.
Even advocates like Descheemaker struggled to follow transit funding developments that happened nearly every day.
“It is bewildering to keep up with,” Descheemaker says.
Cuts jammed up in the courts
Chicago area transit cuts could get held up in the courts.
A Philadelphia judge ordered SEPTA to halt its service cuts last week, just days after the cuts were implemented, when a consumer advocate and two riders sued arguing the cuts disproportionately impacted marginalized groups. The ruling reversed cuts but allowed SEPTA to raise fares by 21.5%.
Chicago area transit agencies are already planning to hold public hearings on potential cuts later this year, in accordance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, to ensure cuts are implemented equitably.
Although the Philadelphia lawsuit was effective at halting the cuts temporarily, Schwieterman says it is unlikely the courts could prevent a “worse case” scenario in Illinois.
Corporate sponsored trains
One unlikely outcome of Philadelphia’s transit cuts was corporations stepping in to fund certain trains that had been eliminated in the service cuts.
Last week, FanDuel paid $80,000 to SEPTA to cover 10 express trains to shuttle fans to and from a Philadelphia Eagles game. Uber had initially offered to sponsor the trains after additional service to sports games was cut under SEPTA’s first round of cost savings.
Short-term funding fix
SEPTA got a last-minute funding lifeline on Monday when the governor authorized $394 million to be transferred from the state’s construction project fund to cover two years of SEPTA’s operating expenses.
The move gives SEPTA relief to cover a $213 million operating deficit. But the decision to divert money intended for keeping up transit infrastructure could hamper public transit later down the road.
Descheemaker called it “service cuts by another name.”
State lawmakers still key to funding solution
Any long-term funding solution in Philadelphia must come from state lawmakers, Descheemaker said. But lawmakers there — where Republicans have a majority in the state Senate — are divided on how to fund transit and have yet to pass a state budget for next year.
The funding question should be easier in Illinois, where Democrats hold majorities in both state House and Senate. But even with that comfortable majority, Illinois Democrats failed to pass a funding bill during the spring legislative session.
State lawmakers put the funding discussion on the “back burner” while focusing on transit reform, said Kate Lowe, professor at University of Illinois Chicago’s department of Urban Planning and Public Affairs.
“Regardless of one’s perspective on reform, more work on funding needed to come earlier,” she said.