Commuters and students in Philadelphia grappled with longer travel times and more crowded trains and buses on Monday, the first workday after heavy cuts to the metropolitan area’s transit services.
The region’s mass transit agency, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, said it had cut its bus and train services by 20 percent, the result of a budget shortfall that remains unresolved in the state legislature. On Sunday, SEPTA eliminated 32 bus routes, shortened 16 others and reduced the frequency of other bus and rail lines.
The system serves more than 700,000 riders daily, including thousands of students and staff members at the city’s public schools, who were starting the new school year on Monday. Next week, the agency will also increase the fare for all riders by 21.5 percent and make cuts to its regional rail service that extends into surrounding counties.
In a city known for its congested streets, residents braced for gridlock and arduous commutes, and the prospect for worse after the Labor Day weekend.
Philadelphia commuters seemed divided into three groups on Monday. Some were caught unaware and found themselves waiting in vain for buses they did not realize had been canceled. Others were making do with an air of resignation.
And then there were the frustrated. Commuters complained that SEPTA’s online apps and other communications were hit or miss, failing to reflect some of the changes that would affect their trips.
Many parents of schoolchildren had to scramble. Brianne Dayton, 34, has seven children, two of whom attend a charter school in West Philadelphia. The No. 73 bus would have taken them there, but it was eliminated on Sunday.
“With all the cuts, they have no way to get there using SEPTA, but we’re trying to figure it out,” Ms. Dayton said. For now, until she can arrange with the school for alternate transportation, she has to send them to school in a ride-share car for $30 each way.
“I cannot afford it,” she said.
Making matters worse, without the No. 73 bus, she cannot commute to her part-time job at a nursing home in Bensalem.
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The city of Philadelphia said this month that residents and commuters should be prepared for travel disruptions, and that drivers should avoid the Center City downtown district during rush hours.
In a post on X last week, Mayor Cherelle Parker urged residents to “please make a plan now, so you and your family are prepared.”
SEPTA is one of several mass transit agencies in major U.S. cities facing financial shortfalls as the federal aid that began during the coronavirus pandemic has run dry.
The agency, the fifth-largest transit system in the country, according to the advocacy group American Public Transit Association, said on its website that it had already frozen hiring and made administrative cuts to reduce its deficit to $213 million from $240 million.
“There is nothing left to cut from the budget but service,” the agency said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, proposed a state budget that would put more sales tax revenue into public transportation, including SEPTA. But he and state lawmakers have been unable to agree on a budget, which is already almost two months past its June 30 deadline.
Democrats in the state House of Representatives, where the party has a slim majority, have tried several times to pass versions of the sales tax allocation, while Republicans in the State Senate have resisted, saying existing public transportation trust fund money should be used instead. The Pennsylvania State Senate will reconvene on Sept. 8.
Without a budget agreement, there could be more difficulties ahead. SEPTA said that more cuts are expected in January that would decrease its services overall by 45 percent.
Several state lawmakers were out on Monday morning talking to commuters and trying to help them navigate the transit disruptions. State Representative Joseph Hohenstein, a Democrat who sits on the House transportation committee, handed out fliers at the Frankford station and expressed frustration that no solution had been reached.
“For the last two years, we’ve been passing bills that have presented options on how to do that funding, but the Senate Republicans haven’t moved on it,” he said. “We just can’t have people hung out to dry because someone is just now recognizing that there is a problem.”
Among the many commuters who flooded through the 69th Street Transit Center, near the western edge of Philadelphia, on Monday morning were workers wearing Amazon delivery vests, Penn Medicine scrubs or blue T.S.A. uniforms. And more than a few were harried-looking parents with school children in tow.
Shortly before 8 a.m., Dante Redden and his 7-year-old son, Jaden, arrived at the station. By that time, Mr. Redden had already been on the move for more than an hour, taking two train lines from his home in South Philadelphia — both affected by service cuts — to pick up Jaden from day care. He would now take the No. 109 bus to drop the boy off at school by 8:45. He was using a week of vacation time from his job as a sanitation worker to help Jaden’s mother deal with SEPTA’s new schedule and get their son to school on time each morning, he said.
“The bus cuts are going to be bad, man,” Mr. Redden said. “Now you’ve got to do everything earlier. The kids can’t get an education if you can’t get them to school.”
Dr. Lewis Brown Jr., 70, practices dermatology in an area of Northeast Philadelphia, six miles from downtown, that was already considered something of a transit desert even before the cutbacks, which eliminated several bus routes in the area.
He said the harm from service reductions went beyond just delays and the inconvenience of a more distant bus stop, especially for young people.
“The city is actually very territorial,” Dr. Brown said. “So, you’re talking about walking through a neighborhood, walking along a corridor that you are not familiar with.” he said. He worried that people would not feel safe.
Jennifer Zeallor cannot drive because of epilepsy. She lives across the street from a shopping center served by the No. 73 bus, so she has been riding it two or three times a week to visit family in Bridesburg. But the bus route is gone now, and getting there will now mean a 30-minute walk.
“I was bummed when I saw the sign” about the bus cancellation, she said, adding, “I am disabled, so walking a long way hurts.”
Mattathias Schwartz contributed reporting from Philadelphia.
Sonia A. Rao reports on disability issues as a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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