Are failing public transit systems the canary in the coal mine for entitlements in general?

Photo above - Philadelphia's SEPTA transit system is on the ropes. Would pounding raw meat help?

Full disclosure. I have never been on a SEPTA (Philadelphia) bus or train. And I may never have the opportunity now. SEPTA is eliminating dozens of bus routes, and increasing the interval between commuter trains by as much as two hours. The article below says 700,000 daily riders could be impacted.

The city is also increasing fares by 22% on surviving SEPTA routes next Monday.

How much is SEPTA’s latest budget? $2.6 billion with a “B”. Up from $1.7 billion in 2024. Much of the 2024 budget was covered with accounting chicanery courtesy of Covid 19 pandemic grants, which have at last ended. Now SEPTA is facing a $1 billion bogey just to fix or repair the machinery on its 450 miles of track and 1,400 buses.

This would be a great day to own a Philadelphia parking lot. If you believe that some of those 700,000 riders have cars and will attempt the 1-hour trek (each way) into center city to work in their cubes at Temple University or Thomas Jefferson Health services. These are both public companies, owned by the government. You see the problem here. The dog chasing its tail. The largest private employer in Philadelphia is Comcast/Xfinity. Which is under a death watch due to people turning off their cable subscriptions.

Let me be clear – I don’t want anyone to miss their bus, pay $35 daily for parking, or get fired for absenteeism. But if cities drive out tax-paying private employers, and tax-paying individual citizens, there might be nothing left except municipal employees riding municipal buses. Unionized SEPTA transit workers are talking strike. As if stopping the rest of the trains and buses is going to unleash citizen goodwill, and the willingness to pay fare increases of 40% instead of 20%.

I’ve been to Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute. The Zoo. The Philadelphia Museum of Art (they moved the Rocky statue to the side entrance). The Riverfront Blues Festival, now a shadow of its former glory. In the past you could see acts like Beau Jocque, Keb Mo’, Taj Mahal, and Asleep at the Wheel. This year they had “Buster Brody’s one-man band” and “Ghost Town Blues”, which probably was unintentionally ironic.

Philadelphia is the birthplace of America. Even if you decide skip attractions like the cracked liberty bell, Insectarium, and the abandoned but still demonically scary Eastern State Penitentiary. But you apparently can’t get to any of those places by bus now. I dunno . . . call an Uber, I guess . . .

I’m just sayin’ . . .

SEPTA’s massive cuts are here and it’s ‘bad on so many levels’