10 commuting nightmares from SEPTA riders afraid of the proposed cuts

Is 2025 the year SEPTA’s long-threatened “death spiral” becomes a reality?

Philadelphia’s transit agency says that if it does not secure additional funding by the end of June, severe cuts, mainly targeting the city’s robust bus service, will go into effect Aug. 24. That would be followed by a fare increase in September, and the elimination of five Regional Rail routes and a 9 p.m. curfew on the El and Broad Street Lines in January.

» READ MORE: Is my bus route getting cut? What SEPTA’s proposed changes could mean for you.

SEPTA is the sixth-largest mass transit system in the United States and runs 800,000 trips across its services each day.

Riders from around the region have been reeling since the early April announcement. The Inquirer asked readers to share how fewer transit options would impact them.

Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

» READ MORE: See how your commute could be impacted by SEPTA's proposed cuts.

We have one car in our family. My husband has an office on Penn’s campus and works in two hospitals and a clinic. I work for the School District of Philadelphia and travel to 14 different high schools and school district buildings, usually working out of two or three locations a day. We bicycle, take buses, use Indego, and — when we can coordinate both of our schedules — sometimes drive to daycare and work.

My husband usually takes the bus with the stroller — about 30 minutes door to door — and then walks to work, which makes his usual 15-minute bicycle commute an hour of busing and walking. When he needs the car, I walk my son about 45 minutes to daycare and then use Indego bike shares to get to the schools where I work.

This process is already a huge chunk of our day and energy. I can’t imagine what we would do if the SEPTA cuts happen. It would make it really hard to work and live in the city. Philly is at a breaking point for families. We can’t have so little daycare availability alongside worse traffic and fewer public transit options.— Allison Seger, Cedar Park

I am a sophomore at Community College of Philadelphia, and I work in a restaurant. That means I’m often traveling pretty late. If subway service ended at 9 p.m. and the overnight buses became less frequent, I’d probably ride my bike, but many of my coworkers don’t have other options. Some of their commutes are much longer and subsidized by the Zero Fare program, so they don’t have the income to spend on a car or electric bike if their bus route gets cut or if subway service ends at 9 p.m.

When I lived and worked in King of Prussia, I had coworkers who would take the 124-125 buses from Philly. Sometimes they would be late because the bus got stuck in rush hour traffic. Other times they would get out of work late and have to wait over an hour for the next bus back to Philadelphia, getting home well after 1 a.m. It’s a lose-lose for them if service gets cut. They either won’t be able to afford a car, or if they can, the traffic and commute will be even worse. — Matthew Moskovitz, Fairmount

When I moved back to the Philly suburbs after living in D.C., I began regularly using the Paoli-Thorndale line to commute from my apartment on the Main Line to my new job in Center City. Never once did I consider that this line would be cut, and I dread the thought that I might have to start driving to work, even though I love going into my office.

After all the hype of post-pandemic return to office, suspending the line will discourage people like me who use the Paoli-Thorndale line every day from going into the office as frequently. On the days that I choose to travel into Center City, it will most likely be by car, which will drastically worsen commute times for everyone, including those who have never stepped foot on a SEPTA train. — Anna Lombardo, Wayne

As a recent college graduate, I do not have the funds to afford a car, not to mention insurance and fuel. SEPTA massively expands my job opportunities. Without SEPTA’s lines, my opportunities in an already massively disadvantaged job market are even further limited. — Ariana A., Ardmore

SEPTA is what makes Philly livable for so many undergrads, graduate students, medical residents, and staff at universities. This is especially devastating amid nationwide funding cuts to universities, causing places like Penn to implement a freeze on salary increases for staff.

I take the 49 bus from Fairmount to University City every day. During rush hour, my two-mile commute may take 45-50 minutes. With the proposed budget cuts, the most time- and cost-effective option for me is to walk to and from work every day. While this is certainly not the worst possible alternative, I can’t help but wonder what my options will look like on days of extreme weather, or when I experience bouts of chronic pain due to autoimmune disease. — Ashlee Propst, Spring Garden

I work my dream job in Wilmington for one-third of the year. I cannot afford car ownership, so without the Wilmington line, I will be stuck working my “survival job” year-round with no break and no dreams. And at my survival job, I work past 10 p.m. every night including weekends, so instead of being able to get a 15-minute subway home, I’ll be walking 45 minutes to an hour under the proposed 9 p.m. subway curfew. As a young woman, the idea of walking around at 11 p.m. or later in a city brings me trepidation. — A.F., South Philadelphia

As a student at Drexel University, I plan on commuting to University City from Bethayres. I will likely have to register for classes that are late in the day and will make it impossible for me to get home if I need to take a late train. I don’t have a car so I would need to either Uber back home or find a ride with someone. This isn’t only going to make getting to and from places difficult for people who work but also for students who rely on public transportation to get them to and from school every single day. I can’t imagine not having access to the transportation I rely on today. — Kasey Shamis, Northeast Philadelphia

I moved to Philadelphia for the public transit. I was working a remote job in Florida, still living in my college town three years after graduation. I knew I wanted to live somewhere where shops, culture, and friends were a quick walk or train/bus ride away. Philly checked every box.

Since then, I have made dozens of friends, taken trips all over the region (with SEPTA!), and started a relationship with someone in Media.

There are occasional frustrations, like just missing an hourly train at Suburban Station, or needing to leave before I want to in order to make the last train home. But the SEPTA cuts would wreck my life and destroy a big part of what drew me to the region in the first place. — Duncan Adkins, Center City

I live in Manayunk and work in Trenton, five days a week in person. Taking public transit doesn’t work for me. I’d have to take two commuter rails and spend around two hours just to get to work in the morning. If I drive, it takes 1-1.5 hours.

The hardest part of the commute, assuming there aren’t any big accidents anywhere, is getting from my apartment to the entrance ramp of I-76 over the Green Lane Bridge. Sometimes 20 minutes of my commute is just traveling 3.5 blocks because of all the congestion leading to the highway.

If Manayunk loses its excellent transit, I can’t even imagine how bad the commute will be. I might be forced to move out of the city entirely to avoid spending three or four hours in the car every day. — Erin Reagan, Manayunk

I moved to Philly in 2002 to be a part of City Year. I lived in West Philly and students I worked with at Southern (formerly known as South Philly High) were amazed that I was able to get there on SEPTA. Most of them were freshmen and had never been farther north than what was then called the Gallery. At least a few started to explore Philly just because I explained how I got from West Philly to Southern in one stop!

SEPTA took me everywhere — to Germantown, to Manayunk, to the stadiums to see the last games at the Vet. I didn’t own a car for my first 15 years in the city. Now, even though I do drive, I still ride SEPTA about 70% of the time.

Losing the access, the affordability and the freedom it offers for so many would be devastating for Philadelphia, for its citizens, for the region, and for the state of Pennsylvania. — Will Fenton, Point Breeze