Tag Archives: #SEPTA

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When judges assume executive authority What could possibly go wrong?

Conservatives have been gleeful that some out-of-control federal judges like James Boasberg have been frequently bitch slapped by higher courts in their attempts to stymie President Trump’s agenda, and those are the things about which we hear, but those are not the only instances of judges deciding that they know how to run executive agencies better than the people who are supposed to have the authority.

SEPTA fare increases and Regional Rail cuts can’t start next week, judge rules

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

by Abraham Gutman and Andrew Seidman | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:39 PM EDT

A Philadelphia judge on Friday ordered SEPTA to halt planned service cuts to Regional Rail and fare increases due to begin next week, following a daylong hearing in a City Hall courtroom.

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued her order from the bench, telling the attorney for the transit agency that “everything must stop.”

“Status quo must be maintained,” Thomas-Street said.

The parties will meet again in court on Thursday, when Thomas-Street will consider whether to make the order permanent and expand it to include reversing cuts already in place.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportion Authority (SEPTA) has been taking steps to remain solvent since the hoped-for $213 million assistance from the state government has not yet been approved by the General Assembly. Democrats control the state House of Representatives by one vote, 102-101, and want to give SEPTA the money, but the state Senate, controlled by Republicans 27-23, hasn’t been willing to go along. The state budget was due July 1st, the beginning of the Commonwealth’s fiscal year but still hasn’t been passed by the legislature, and that $213 million remains in limbo.

So, SEPTA’s leadership had to deal with the fact that the anticipated aid hasn’t come yet. General Manager Scott Sauer didn’t want to make the cuts, didn’t want to cut service at all, but he still has to make SEPTA operate within its means.

The ruling came after attorney George Bochetto filed a lawsuit this week in Common Pleas Court on behalf of a consumer advocate and two riders who argued the transit agency’s actions were unlawful. They contended that the cuts — which started Sunday amid a state budget stalemate — would have a disproportionate impact on marginalized groups, violating their rights protected by the Pennsylvania Constitution.

“The judge is saying: No more further cuts,” Bochetto said after the ruling. “Enough double talk, enough triple talk. Do it.”

What? Does Her Honor believe that she can order the state Senate to pass the budget she wants?

We previously reported on Mr Bochetto’s lawsuit and his attempt to compel SEPTA to act as a welfare agency.

SEPTA maintains a Service Stabilization Fund of roughly $300 million, which the system uses “to pay bills and unexpected expenses, as well as a reserve for potential catastrophes.” Some $100 million from that fund had already been spent to fill the budget deficit. The plaintiffs want SEPTA to use that fund to avoid the fare increases and service cuts, which could be done, and here’s where Judge Thomas-Street’s order comes into play: SEPTA’s leadership took executive decisions, the decisions which are their responsibility and for which they are paid to take, but the judge is saying that no, their decisions were wrong, and those decisions must be taken a different way. Judge Thomas-Street has, in effect, arrogated SEPTA’s leadership to herself, dictating a decision to SEPTA’s managers.

It is legitimate to argue with a decision taken by someone in authority to take those decisions; who hasn’t at times thought of his bosses as ‘those idiots up there’? But that does not and should not mean that a judge should have the authority to change those decisions and specify a new one. SEPTA’s decisions were not illegal; they just didn’t go the way that some people wanted them.

There is some wry humor in all of this. With Judge Thomas-Street’s decision, the pressure on Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman to cough up that asked-for $213 million is reduced. With slightly over $300 million in the Service Stabilization Fund, SEPTA could more than cover that $213 million deficit, the taxpayers of the Commonwealth don’t have to fund SEPTA at all! And next year is next year, so who cares, right?

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Now this I can support! Let the counties served by SEPTA pay for SEPTA

While there are all sorts of reports on movement in the Pennsylvania General Assembly on additional funding for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), at least as of this Friday morning writing, no funding agreement has been reached. Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has paid forward some of the city’s $135 million subsidy, to keep city bus service for schools, but that’s only a stopgap for the system’s projected $213 deficit.

But this story from The Philadelphia Inquirer is at least a little bit better than the notion that the taxpayers throughout the Commonwealth should pay for SEPTA:

Philly’s collar counties are only authorized to tax property. Could SEPTA’s budget crisis change that?

County officials have long sought broader taxing authority. Some say the debate over transit funding could force the issue.

by Katie Bernard | Friday, August 29, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

Officials in Philadelphia’s collar counties are hopeful that the monthslong impasse over funding for SEPTA may push lawmakers to consider a change to state tax law they have sought for years.

With many of their residents dependent on SEPTA for daily work commutes and other trips into Philadelphia, officials across the suburban counties — Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester — say they are committed to its success, and they contributed more than $30 million to it last year. But the state’s laws, which allow counties to tax only property, prevent them from doing more to support the agency without raising property taxes.

Officials have long asked state lawmakers to grant them the authority to tax wages, sales, or property transfers. Some wonder if the current debate over the beleaguered transit authority may finally push the issue.

“They’re holding up public transit funding for the entire commonwealth,” said Monica Taylor, a Democrat who chairs the Delaware County Council. “All of these things are piling up and coming together, and they haven’t passed a budget. … This is hopefully pushing for the opportunity for people to come back to the table and start talking.”

There’s much more at the original, but you get the drift: the counties want to be able to wring more and more money out of their people.

My position is simple: the people who use SEPTA should be the ones who pay for SEPTA, through a reasonable fare increase of 75¢.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading

But, if the government leaders want to keep treating SEPTA not as a public transit system but a welfare agency, frequently welfare for the well-to-do, at least if Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester counties start taxing their own residents for a system that is available to them, then the people of Carbon, Cameron, and McKean counties, which do not have access to SEPTA, will not.

Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, and Delaware counties are, respectively, the four wealthiest counties in the Commonwealth.

If those heavily Democrat counties — Philadelphia, Chester, Montgomery, and Delaware counties all voted heavily for then Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff, while President Trump carried Bucks County by the slimmest of margins, 291 votes out of 402,349 total votes cast — want to tax their people more heavily to pay for SEPTA, let them!

The fairest system is for SEPTA riders to pay for SEPTA, but what I have suggested is at least the second most fair system.

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
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From where will all of this money come?

The biggest issue in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia at the moment is more state funding for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, the mass transit agency which run buses, trains, trollies, and subways in the metropolitan area. SEPTA has a projected $213 million deficit, and has instituted significant service cuts to try to keep the operating expenses in line with projected revenues without the aid from Harrisburg for which they’ve been begging. My good friend Daniel Pearson and the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have been adamant that the Commonwealth must come through with money, or utter disaster will strike. Note how the elevated train comes to destroyed tracks in a tweet from the newspaper!

We noted here that the solution is actually simple: a 75¢ fare hike completely closes SEPTA’s projected deficit.[1]Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the … Continue reading The newspaper in general, and Mr Pearson specifically, are opposed to further fare increases, pointing out that the base fare has jumped from $2.00 to just under $3.00 since 2018.

But, as the city is desperately looking for money from SEPTA, what else is the Inquirer presenting to readers?

Everywhere you look in the newspaper you’ll find stories of more and more money being spent, and more and more money being demanded, and no one seems willing to ask: from where will all of this money come?

The Transportation Workers Union Local 234 approved a new contract in November of 2024, which included “a 5% pay raise and safety improvements including bulletproof enclosures on buses to protect Bus Operators, upgrades to radios, and fixes to allow uninterrupted communication in tunnels.” That contract expires on November 7th of this year, which means the union will be going back to ask for more money again. From where will this money come?

I get it: the inflation of the Biden economy hit everyone hard, and though inflation started coming down during Mr Biden’s final year in office, the inflated prices never went away. As much as President Trump tries, inflation could come under control, but prices almost never go back down. Everyone is still trying to catch up, but when it’s government spending that is trying to catch up, the taxpayers are the ones who have to shell out. Pennsylvania’s state income tax rate is fairly low, just 3.07%, but the Commonwealth and the localities make up for that by trying to nickel-and-dime people to death on everything else.

Would you believe that the Borough of Jim Thorpe actually requires people to buy a permit, for the price of $5.00, to move into or out of any place in the borough, and that no public or private moving company shall enable such without verifying the moving permit? Violation of such can bring a fine of $600 and possible jail time. $5.00 might not seem like much, but this is an example of the petty ways in which the governments keep trying to stick their grubby hands into people’s pockets.

Philadelphia doesn’t require a move in permit, but charges $25.00 — $50.00 in Center City and University City — for a permit to occupy two street parking spaces for your moving truck.

Someone who looks a lot like me snowblowing in my old neighborhood, December 29, 2012. Does my neighborhood look wealthy to you? Click to enlarge.

Is it any wonder that the Republicans who control the state Senate are reticent to just give and give and give the taxpayers’ dollars to SEPTA and to Philly? Every dollar they give just means the more dollars that will be demanded in the next budget, and while Republicans are reasonably strong throughout the Commonwealth, Philly is as close to a “No Republican” zone as it can get. Do my former neighbors in relatively low-cost, conservative Jim Thorpe[2]Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris … Continue reading really want to send more of their hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize wealthy inhabitants of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Lower Merion to take the train to Center City?

When Mr Pearson wrote “Harrisburg can’t let regional factionalism keep them from finding common ground on SEPTA: The stalemate over the state budget has entered a new, fractious phase, pitting lawmakers who represent predominantly rural areas against their counterparts from the commonwealth’s larger cities,” he was noting just how different Philly is from the “predominantly rural areas,” as though that’s a surprise, but his goal was a victory for SEPTA and the “commonwealth’s larger cities” over the rural areas. The people of those predominantly rural areas have expressed their differences at the voting booth, and they expect their elected representatives to vote their interests, not Philadelphia’s, yet the stories listed above show us, show the people of those predominantly rural areas how the commonwealth’s larger cities want to spend and spend and spend. Is it really any surprise that the Republican-controlled state Senate is reluctant to throw more and more and more money to Philly?

References

References
↑1 Here’s the math! SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total. With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.
↑2 Voters in Carbon County gave 66.90% of their votes to Donald Trump, while the voters in Philadelphia and Delaware counties gave 78.57% and 61.15% of their votes, respectively, to Kamala Harris Emhoff. Both the state Representative, Doyle Heffley, and state Senator, David Argall, for Jim Thorpe, are Republicans.
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The solution to SEPTA’s woes is simple I did something ridiculously simple: I did the math!

I lived in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, for fifteen years, from 2002 into 2017, a long enough time to get pretty familiar with the place. So, when Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) decided to tweet that “Mass transit is a lifeline for the people across all 67 counties who rely on it every day to attend school, get to work, and power our economy,” I had to think about it: had I ever seen a bus, other than a school bus, in Carbon County?

The answer, of course, was no, I never had, never in fifteen years noticed a public transportation bus.

Jim Thorpe is a small, very ‘walkable’ town, and I spent many of my days off doing just that, walking through town. Here’s one of the photo albums I took, on October 12, 2013, and you can see just why I walked through the picturesque town.

Mass transit in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Photo by D R Pico. Free for use with appropriate credit. Click to enlarge.

The latest outrage in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia isn’t crime, isn’t murder, but the fact that the Republican-controlled state Senate has been unwilling to pass a huge, additional appropriation for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, and my good friends at The Philadelphia Inquirer have waxed apoplectic about the whole thing.

Philly lawyer George Bochetto hired to sue SEPTA to stop service cuts

Bochetto said that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities.

by Thomas Fitzgerald | Monday, August 25, 2025 | 8:39 AM EDT

Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto demanded SEPTA halt service cuts and said he has been hired by a group of riders to sue the transit agency, in an email sent Sunday night.

“SEPTA’s planned service reductions are draconian in nature and will have a severe impact on racial and ethnic minorities and low-income citizens in Southeastern Pennsylvania without any legitimate basis,” Bochetto wrote in the notice, which was first reported by Big Trial on Substack.

Consumer advocate Lance Haver is among those involved in the action to block SEPTA’s service cuts, according to the Substack post. The action comes as Harrisburg has failed to approve new state funding for mass transit. The first round of service cuts began on Sunday.

“SEPTA’s legal counsel is reviewing the letter and intends to contact George Bochetto today,” said Andrew Busch, a spokesperson for the transit agency.

SEPTA had been living on post-COVID funds from the Federal government, but those ended. In 2024, Governor Shapiro redirected $153 million in federal highway funds to SEPTA, because, horror of horrors, the Governor didn’t want SEPTA’s customers to have to pay more to use their services:

Earlier this month, SEPTA moved to enact a 29% across-the-board fare increase followed by deep service cuts next summer, as the agency grapples with what officials call an “unprecedented” post-pandemic financial crisis. It faces a recurring deficit of $240 million annually.

While Shapiro’s efforts have paused the 21.5% fare increase expected for Jan. 1, riders will still face an increase of 7.5% beginning Dec. 1. Shapiro said the federal cash infusion would limit service cuts, but did not provide further detail.

So, it wasn’t just Pennsylvanians in the small towns and counties throughout the central part of the Commonwealth who were being taxed to provide cheaper bus and subway rides for Philadelphians, but taxpayers in Montana and Wyoming and Missouri who were having to dig deeper into their pockets as well.

Back to the first cited article:

Bochetto said in an interview Monday that a suit would challenge the service cuts on the grounds of a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities. SEPTA completed an equity analysis before adopting the cuts.

Oh, so now SEPTA isn’t a public transit service, but a welfare program? Got it! But that’s not an argument which will play well with Republicans.

“They’re committing a fraud on the public,” Bochetto said, noting SEPTA has $390 million in a reserve fund. “There is no reason why these cuts are necessary.”

Haver will be a plaintiff in the action, Bochetto confirmed. He declined to discuss other groups or individuals who may join.

The group plans to seek a judge’s injunction to stop the cuts, Bochetto said in the email, addressed to SEPTA General Counsel Gino Bendetti. That likely would require SEPTA to draw from its service stabilization fund instead of cutting bus routes and reducing trips across all modes of transit.

Pretty typical these days: the lawsuit seeks to have a judge usurp the executive decision on how SEPTA’s funds are to be spent. This is the kind of bovine feces which needs to be slapped down, hard. I don’t care what you believe SEPTA should be doing; that’s for the agency’s leadership to decide, not judges.

SEPTA’s average daily ridership was approximately 768,291 unlinked passenger trips in May 2025, representing a 7% increase from May 2024. The bus system accounts for the largest portion of daily ridership, with 354,820 unlinked trips, or 50% of the total.

So, let’s do the math! With 768,291 unlinked passenger trips every day, and a projected operating deficit of $213 million, how much would fares have to increase to cover the deficit? 768,291 x 365 = 280,426,215 trips per year. A $213,000,000 deficit ÷ 280,426,215 daily trips = 75.96¢ per trip which would need to be collected to completely eliminate the projected deficit. Call it a 75¢ per trip added to the fares, just to male collections simpler, and the budget can be brought under control.

As we previously noted, the Inquirer reported that SEPTA was losing roughly $50 million a year from fare jumpers, much of it by people who could easily pay:

Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said the agency has learned so far that the majority of fare evaders are everyday working residents — nurses, lawyers, even city employees with free passes, who, in a rush to catch the train, or out of habit after not paying in recent years, step over the turnstiles.

In a city like Philadelphia, nurses can make up to $100,000 a year. Attorneys? Normally they make pretty good money as well. City employees with free passes? When they use their passes, the city pays their fares. SEPTA has been trying to make turnstile jumping more difficult, but needs to install more barriers to do so. More, the system needs point out to those who skip fares they could easily pay just how much they are damaging the entire system.

The entire SEPTA crisis is caused by the cockamamie concept that the people who use SEPTA should not have to pay for the benefit they receive. Just raise the fares to what they need to be to operate the system!

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right Aren't the left at least somewhat aware that they still depend upon a civilized society for their lives, property, safety, and professions?

I have previously mused that Philadelphia Inquirer main editorial writer Daniel Pearson could actually be a conservative, though ‘moderate Democrat’ would probably be far closer to the truth. Though Mr Pearson is not the Editorial Page Editor, I would guess that he has some influence. And I have noted how the newspaper has granted outside OpEd space to people who seem to share their general editorial positions.

That seems to have led to this:

Why Pa. should deploy the National Guard to SEPTA right now

Unless conditions improve, SEPTA’s survival is at stake. Deploying the National Guard can bring riders back and make SEPTA safe for everyone.

by Brian Pollitt, for the Inquirer | Wednesday, April 3, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

When a bus shows signs of a mechanical problem, you call a mechanic. The goal is to do preventive maintenance, rather than waiting for a complete failure. But if buses and stations are plagued by a breakdown of civil society, who do you call?

I’ll admit it: upon that last, the movie there, “Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!” ran through my head. 🙂 Continue reading →

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Once again, an otherwise detailed article in The Philadelphia Inquirer omits a pertinent fact. The newspaper just doesn't want to mention the crime angle

Perhaps it’s wrong of me to expect more in-depth coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer, and my $285.48 annual subscription, but this one jumped out at me:

These Philadelphians got rid of their cars in the past year. They haven’t looked back.

“Now that I’m forced to walk, I’m seeing the city more than I did before,” said one newly car-less resident. She used to pay about $400 a month on her car payment and insurance.

by Erin McCarthy | Friday, February 9, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

Dajé Walker’s Hyundai Elantra was stolen from a Brewerytown parking lot in July, only to be found a week later on the side of a local highway.

The car that Walker had driven for three years was “in shambles,” Walker said, and the insurance company deemed it a total loss.

“I had that existential crisis moment where I was like, ‘Do I need a car or do I want a car?” she said.

Around the same time, Walker, 28, got a new, completely remote job as a project manager. The news sealed her decision: She took the insurance payout of about $15,000, putting some of the money in savings and using the rest to move from Brewerytown to Old City, and never looked back.

She no longer has to set aside $300 a month for her car payment and another $100 for insurance. When she recently moved to Old City, she didn’t have to worry about securing a convenient and safe parking spot, which can cost at least $250 a month at private lots.

There’s a nice photo of Miss Walker, with her dog, on the narrow, brick streets, streets wide enough for a horse-and-buggy back in 1776, in the historic Old City, a really nice area in Philly, if you can afford it.

But while Miss Walker was able to get a new, 100% work from home job, published at the very same time was the article “IBX’s (Independence Blue Cross) new in-person office policy has some workers feeling betrayed. Others are job-hunting. Senior employees say they are worried that their teams will quit to find more flexible or better-paying positions at other companies,” which was a follow on to the Groundhog Day article, “Independence Blue Cross changes its work-from-home policy, the latest big Philly employer to require more in-office days: The insurance company had been allowing most employees to work remote as much as they liked. Now, they’ll be required onsite a majority of the work week.”

So, more and more employees are being expected to do something really radical and actually come to work in Philly; won’t those workers need a way to get to work?

More people are back in the office, but commuters say SEPTA service isn’t back to pre-pandemic norms

SEPTA service isn’t back to 100%, but it’s still outpacing ridership, even as employers push more in-office time. Would workers be more willing to commute if transportation schedules bulked up?

by Lizzy McLellan Ravitch | Friday, October 6, 2023 | 9:18 AM EDT

On Wednesday morning, SEPTA sent 39 notifications of Regional Rail trains running at least 10 minutes late and warned of potential delays or cancellations on 18 bus and trolley lines “due to operator unavailability.”

“It’s a gamble” trying to catch the bus, said a Pennsylvania state employee from West Philadelphia, who asked to remain nameless out of concern for their job. “There were times I would wake up earlier to get an earlier bus, and that wouldn’t show up.”

SEPTA’s mismanagement by CEO Leslie Richards is famed far and wide in Philly.

They have taken a rideshare to work on multiple occasions because their bus route options were canceled or late. Walking to a further bus stop isn’t an option because they have a disability. A lifelong bus rider, they said the system was more dependable before COVID-19.

[Sigh!] In English grammar, properly understood, the masculine subsumes the feminine, meaning that the singular masculine pronouns are used to refer to one person, even when that person’s sex is not known or specified. Anything else is sloppy writing.

“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” the West Philly bus rider said. “People could lose their jobs” if they’re late for work.

Septa’s ridership is down 39% from 2019, the year prior to the panicdemic, though the bus service alone was back up to 75% last October.

Back to the first cited article:

After a surge in car-buying statewide at the height of the pandemic, there are signs that some Philadelphians like Walker have made the decision to do away with their cars in recent years, bucking larger trends.

In 2022, more than 638,000 passenger vehicles were registered in the city, about 24,000 fewer cars than were registered here a year prior, according to the most recent state data. That represents a 3.6% decline in registered vehicles over a period when the city’s population decreased 1.4%, the largest one year drop in 45 years.

Do all of these things make sense together? Car ownership is down significantly from the population decrease, public transportation ridership has significantly decreased, and more people are being required to return to their employers’ offices? We reported, just two days ago, that the newspaper did not report politically inconvenient facts about vehicle ownership, that while the Inquirer reported on the surge in automobile insurance rates, completely ignored was the possibility the city’s huge auto theft and carjacking rates had anything to do with that surge.

Well, here they go again. The newspaper has previously reported:

Philadelphia has seen a surge in plateless vehicles. Some are abandoned, but others are the result of drivers attempting to evade law enforcement, parking tickets, or toll-by-plate systems.

There was also this:

How rampant phony license plates are being used to get away with crimes in Philadelphia

Fraudulent temporary tags have flooded into Philadelphia from states with looser rules — like Delaware.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Dylan Purcell | November 18, 2022 | 5:00 AM EST | Updated: 12:11 PM EST

(F)ake license plates are an old tool of criminal trades, what’s new is the flood of fraudulent temporary tags into Philadelphia from states with looser issuance rules — like Texas and Delaware. These phony plates have shown up increasingly in police investigations into shootings, carjackings, hit-and-runs, and car thefts. (In addition to counterfeit plates, thefts of auto tags this year to date were 2,378, a more than 60% increase over the same period in 2018.)

How, I have to ask, is it good and reliable reporting to tell the newspaper’s readers that fewer people own cars without mentioning that the city has seen a surge in vehicles on the street which some people possess, though “own” might not be the proper word? There was not the first word in Erin McCarthy’s article to even hint that, Heaven forfend!, there might be more cars on the road possessed by scofflaws and criminals.

Miss McCarthy’s article was entirely upbeat, telling readers that there are good and reasonable ways to live in the City of Brotherly Love, that Philly “is known for being one of the best cities to live in without a car (though historically not all neighborhoods have the same access to public transit),” which, I would guess, will be something referenced in yet another article telling us that we must give up cars to save Mother Gaia.

William Teach reported, just this morning, that we are being told by Our Betters that the behavior of the public as a whole must be changed to fight global warming climate change, but at least Miss McCarthy’s article is trying to be persuasive rather than authoritarian.

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There is a two word phrase to accurately describe the electric buses sold to transit agencies, and the first of those two words is “cluster”.

The Biden Administration and the global warming climate change activists want to force all new vehicles sold in the United States to be zero-emission come 2035, because they believe that our personal choices don’t matter, but even now they are pushing plug-in electrics, seemingly unconcerned with the possible drawbacks. From Fox Business:

Electric buses are sitting unused in cities across the US; here’s why

Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed

Continue reading →

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SEPTA wants more tax dollars, but just a $1.00 fare increase would wipe out their deficit Shouldn't SEPTA's expenses be paid by SEPTA's riders?

1 dead, 13 injured after 2 SEPTA buses collide at Shelmire Avenue in Philadelphia, July 22, 2023.

The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer, in an effort to persuade the state government to provide more money for the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, undermined their own argument with just two sentences:

And for many Pennsylvanians, public transit is simply not part of their daily life. Nor is it for about 45% of Americans, who have no access to public transportation at all.

The obvious question is: why should people who don’t use SEPTA, and don’t even have a chance to use public transportation, see more of the tax dollars they pay go to SEPTA? Continue reading →

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Run her out of town on a rail! Rather than the $425,000 to which her $75,000 raise boosted her, Leslie Richards needs a $425,000 pay cut, and a SEPTA train ticket out of town.

If you were apprehended after shooting at a crowd of people in a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority station, would you expect to simply be let go, even if you had missed everyone? I wouldn’t, but, then again, I’m not a 16-year-old girl.

A 16-year-old girl is facing arrest for a SEPTA subway shooting at the 15th and Market station

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office issued a warrant in the Nov. 19 shooting at the 15th and Market Street station.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Monday, November 27, 2023 | 1:00 PM EST

A 16-year-old girl who police say shot at a group of juveniles inside the SEPTA station at 15th and Market Street earlier this month — but struck no one — will be arrested for that crime, authorities said Monday.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said an arrest warrant had been issued for the teen in connection with the Nov. 19 shooting on the station concourse. The girl, whom authorities did not identify because she is a juvenile, is expected to face charges of aggravated assault and firearms violations.

The teen had been detained at the 11th Street station on the day of the shooting because she was wanted on a family court bench warrant for theft, the district attorney’s office said.

She is expected to be arrested for the shooting by the end of the week, authorities said.

The language on this story is unclear, to say no more. Was she already locked up on the bench warrant? Will she be arrested while already behind bars, or is she out on the streets? Normally, one would expect an apprehended shooter to have been arrested on the assault and firearms charges right away. Were the police waiting to see if uber-permissive District Attorney Larry Krasner would want to take any action since the shooter was a 16-year-old girl?

The teen girl opened fire on a group of juveniles who were following her out of the station and up the exit stairs, the district attorney’s office said in a statement. Video obtained by investigators shows the teen shooting from the steps, fleeing, and then throwing a backpack into a trash can in the concourse, the statement said.

A handgun was recovered from the trash can and matched the live rounds and shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, the district attorney’s office said. When the teen was detained on the bench warrant, authorities said, she was wearing clothing that matched what the shooter was seen wearing on surveillance footage.

There’s more at the original, but it’s about SEPTA’s negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109, who have been working without a contract since March 31st. The union postponed a strike date of November 20th, until a decision on December 13th:

The transit police officers are asking for a pay increase amid a staffing shortage and a rise in antisocial behaviors — like smoking and turnstile jumping — but not violent crimes.

Is shooting up a subway station not a violent crime if the shooter never hit anyone?

But I have to laugh at that last quoted paragraph for other reasons: reporter Rodrigo Torrejón listed “smoking and turnstile jumping” as the antisocial behaviors, but for some reason declined to mention the biggest “antisocial behavior” plaguing not just SEPTA stations but the city itself: drug addicts littering the stations and the tracks with used needles, and junkies passed out on the streets and in the stations and even the train cars.

The (supposed) marathon bargaining session scheduled to begin on October 23rd obviously didn’t solve anything, and SEPTA has only been surviving on federal deficit spending aid due to the COVID-19 panicdemic.[1]No, that’s not a typographical error, but exactly how I see the government response to the virus. Now CEO Leslie Richards, who has presided over worsening service yet got a $75,000 raise earlier in the year, a plethora of bus and trolley accidents, and train stations littered with the homeless and drug needles, with the transit service plagued by delayed service and accidents, with chronic shortfalls in essential staff wants more money from the taxpayers to subsidize SEPTA passengers. Just yesterday, a day in which SEPTA had a whopping forty routes cancelled or delayed due to ‘operator shortages,’ a man on the system stabbed three people at the Walnut Locust station before being shot by a SEPTA police officer.

But, things have improved today: only 21 routes cancelled or delayed due to ‘operator unavailability.’

The Philadelphia Inquirer, not exactly an evil reich-wing site, described the SEPTA trains:

The Market-Frankford Line has its own incense: a combination of cigarette, weed, or K2 smoke. People in the throes of opioid addiction are sometimes frozen in a forward lean in train cars and on platforms. People experiencing homelessness might use a couple of seats or a station to seek rest away from the cold and the heat.

To me, that’s a bit more serious than “smoking and turnstile jumping,” but yeah, I’m an evil reich-wing Republican! I’m the kind of man who would have used the word “junkies” rather than “people in the throes of opioid addiction,” and “vagrants” rather than “people experiencing homelessness.”

Miss Richards will have to somehow hammer out a contract with the SEPTA police officers, and will have to do it in the face of reduced revenues, from a lower number of riders and the loss of Federal dollars as the Covidiocy spending ends.

At a time when the left want to push people out of their cars and onto public transportation, Miss Richards has overseen a real decrease in the quality and service of one of our nations larger public transportation systems. Rather than the $425,000 to which her $75,000 raise boosted her, she needs to get a $425,000 pay cut, and a SEPTA train ticket out of town.

References

References
↑1 No, that’s not a typographical error, but exactly how I see the government response to the virus.