(The Center Square) – It was a wild ride in 2025 for the millions of Pennsylvania residents who rely on public transportation.
And 2026 looks no calmer.
Ideas were floated and rejected. Routes were suspended and resumed. Funding was denied then extended via emergency measures. None of it ever seemed to come to a resolution.
The year started with an optimistic plan revived from the previous year from Gov. Josh Shapiro to give public transit a permanent revenue stream. Take an extra 1.75% from revenue already coming in from state sales tax and put it toward funding transit, with the two biggest recipients being Philadelphia-area SEPTA and Pittsburgh Regional Transit.
Though they are the biggest metro regions in the state, they aren’t the only places with vital public transportation services. All 67 of the state’s counties have some kind of public transit. In rural regions where doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and grocery stores are few and far between, many of the state’s elderly and disabled have no other means of accessing basic necessities.
“The economic vitality of every one of our 67 counties is dependent on the enactment of that proposal,” said Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, or PennDOT, Secretary Mike Carroll, who noted that rural counties are “completely dependent” on the six counties that comprise the SEPTA and PRT service areas.
Nevertheless, Republicans in the legislature have typically talked about transit as an urban problem. They highlight resolving SEPTA’s issues with crime, safety and cleanliness as prerequisites for increasing state spending, and some encouraged fare increases to help make up for lost revenue.
Still others argue that transit is an essential function of the state, revenue aside. In the Philadelphia region alone, more than 700,000 individuals ride SEPTA on their daily commute. Their numbers include public school students and thousands of doctors, nurses and health care workers.
Other funding sources were proposed. They included adult-use recreational marijuana, an idea that was squashed by Senate Republicans, and skills game taxes, the particulars of which the legislature failed to iron out. Amidst protracted budget negotiations, Republicans proposed a deal that would pull from finite capital funds intended to serve long-term transit needs like infrastructure and equipment to meet the system’s everyday expenses.
Democrats expressed intense opposition to the plan, saying the plan would essentially defund transit by diverting much-needed resources. One representative even walked from Philly to Harrisburg. Ultimately, when the legislature missed their deadline to come up with a solution and SEPTA made drastic cuts, capital funds were pulled anyway under the direction of Shapiro and PennDOT’s Mike Carroll.
Additional withdrawals of capital funds went to Pittsburgh Regional Transit and a second bite from SEPTA following federal repair orders. The budget finalized in November did not include a plan for transit, leaving some Democrats to break from their party in celebration of the long-overdue deal.
Sen. Nikil Saval, one of the upper chamber’s most outspoken transit advocates said of the budget, “Pennsylvanians are struggling to make ends meet under a barrage of steep inflation rates, high tariffs, and slashed federal services. Our people deserve more investment from their government than what we delivered today—which is why I voted no.”
With millions of tourists expected to visit the state in 2026 for America250, the MLB All Stars game, the NFL draft, and the FIFA World Cup, the battle for dedicated transit funding is sure to resume quickly as the 2026-2027 budget is negotiated.
