HARRISBURG — Leaders of small transit agencies across Pennsylvania say they’re preparing to cut services, raise fares, and freeze hiring as early as next year now that additional funding won’t be in this year’s state budget.
These systems, which mainly run buses and on-demand shared ride services, serve tens of thousands of people in communities from Scranton to Canonsburg. Like many transit systems, they have struggled to make ends meet after the pandemic reduced ridership and subsequent federal aid ran out.
For months, routing more state funding to transit has been a centerpiece of Pennsylvania lawmakers’ budget talks, which have run three months past the deadline. But last week, amid political impasse, Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was taking the issue off the table.
He did that by using executive authority to flex long-term capital funding to cover daily operations for the next two years at the commonwealth’s two biggest agencies, Philadelphia’s SEPTA and Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT).
“What I expect now is a final budget deal that will not include recurring funding for mass transit,” Shapiro said at the time. “The Senate Republicans have made clear they will not do that.”
However, the state’s 33 smaller fixed-route public transit systems are unsure if they can do the same. And several told Spotlight PA, they’re steeling themselves for financial hardship until the state passes sustainable transit revenue.
Every year, the state allocates specific pools of capital project funding to SEPTA and PRT. This is the money the state has now authorized those agencies to use to cover their daily expenses. However, the rest of the state’s transit agencies don’t get dedicated dollars for large projects — they have to apply for it every year.
PennDOT didn’t respond to a request for comment about whether smaller agencies can pull from this shared pool of long-term funding. Multiple transit system administrators who spoke with Spotlight PA said they aren’t planning to try.
The one smaller agency that has publicly said it’s applying for a funding flex, the Lehigh Valley’s LANTA system, still doesn’t have clarity from the state about whether it will be permitted to do it.
Administrators for LANTA have been warning for months that without new funding from the state, it would cut its fixed route bus services by 20% and enact a 25% fare increase starting next January.
The system, which estimates that it serves more than 11,000 people daily across Carbon, Lehigh, and Northampton Counties, is the state’s third-biggest. Shapiro had initially recommended it get $32.8 million for operations in this year’s budget, a $6.6 million increase over last fiscal year.
WFMZ reported that at a recent public meeting, LANTA executive director Owen O’Neil said that now that the money isn’t coming, the agency is asking the state for permission to flex capital funds, as SEPTA and PRT have been permitted to do. As of this week, it isn’t clear if LANTA will secure that money.
LANTA didn’t respond to Spotlight PA’s request for comment about the situation, but O’Neil said at the meeting that the agency is “just kind of waiting to have a discussion with PennDOT to see what the options are, and what our potential is for going forward.”
Other agencies say that they have more runway before they’ll be forced to make tough decisions. But administrators for five of them told Spotlight PA they’re either considering cuts, keeping positions empty, or pausing planned expansions.
Some of those cuts could affect shared ride services, which provide on-demand transportation for older Pennsylvanians and people with disabilities, rather than set stops. Every small transit agency administrator who spoke with Spotlight PA said these services are a major cost.
Freedom Transit, which runs bus routes around Washington, Pennsylvania, and the outskirts of Pittsburgh, hasn’t finalized any cuts yet. But Executive Director Sheila Gombita told Spotlight PA that without the new budget funding the agency was hoping for, they’re running out of options.
She said if Freedom moves forward with cuts, the agency’s shared ride program will receive the bulk of the service reductions.
However, Gombita is also considering cutting fixed-route bus services, including limiting hours of operation and eliminating less-used routes.
“We are currently running a very high deficit in our shared ride service, and we are subsidizing that with our fixed route dollars, and we can no longer afford to do that,” Gombita told Spotlight PA.
Greg Downing, the Executive Director of the South Central Transit Authority, or SCTA, which covers Berks and Lancaster Counties, described a similar financial strain.
Downing said the average shared ride cost for his agency is about $35 a ride, while the average cost for a fixed route bus ride is less than a quarter of that.
SCTA isn’t planning on cutting off shared ride services, at least for now. As Downing said, “The people that need it are our most vulnerable population. So it's not like we can just say, ‘You know what? Nobody gets it.’”
But although cuts aren’t imminent, Downing said now that state funding isn’t looking likely, SCTA isn’t planning on expanding service either.
The agency is currently studying how to expand microtransit — smaller bus routes in isolated areas without fixed service — but Downing said if the study recommends making changes, SCTA won’t be able to take on those costs in the near future.
Instead, Downing said, the agency is focusing on maintaining current service levels. It has funds to last until the end of next year. But after that, Downing said, SCTA will need new revenue streams to keep things running.
“That's the challenge of many agencies,” Downing said. “Just not having a known source, a dependable source [of revenue.]”
Transit administrators in State College and Scranton who spoke with Spotlight PA also said they’re rethinking plans to expand services.
David Rishel, executive director of the Centre Area Transit Authority, or CATA, said it actually has a different problem compared to its peers: high demand for services and a need for growth.
The lack of new state funds may “limit how much we’re able to grow or expand,” he said.
CATA serves Penn State University and the surrounding area, which is growing in population. Administrators had been looking into creating on-demand lines to connect the community to the airport and local Amtrak stations, and state funding was going to be a big part of that. But now, Rishel’s not sure when they’re going to be able to move forward on the projects.
“What we’ve done is kind of adopted a posture of ‘We’re gonna grow as we’re going to afford to grow,” Rishel told Spotlight PA. “So if we don’t get additional funds, we’re simply going to have to grow more slowly.”
Lackawanna County’s system, COLTS, has no immediate plans to cut services, but Director of Finance Mike Danchak said the agency had been “kicking around the idea of expanding our service footprint” over the past two years.
But no new state funds, Danchak said, will “hurt” the agency’s plans to, for instance, enact a more robust weekend schedule.
Danchak added that the agency is also employing “cost containment strategies,” such as not hiring to fill positions where people have left, and not hiring outside consultants. He said they’re asking their employees to do “more with less.”
“None of this is great; this doesn't give us warm and fuzzy feelings at night,” Danchak said. “That we’re all working 10-hour to 11-hour days — this is the new normal in transit.”
Small transit operators also fear that SEPTA and PRT dipping into long-term funding will become a go-to solution to bolstering transit.
Rich Farr heads Susquehanna Regional Transit Authority, also known as rabbittransit. His agency won’t be in dire financial straits until next year, he said, though he’s already looking at reducing shared ride services to balance the budget.
But his wider concern, he told Spotlight PA, is that if agencies have to continue dipping into capital funds, they’ll hamstring transit across the state for years to come.
“What problem are we creating for tomorrow?” he asked.