Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Kendra Brooks, Councilmember Cindy Bass who's near and dear to SEPTA, and then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you so much, Council President. Thank you, SEPTA, for coming out and taking our questions. My first question is, is SEPTA willing to engage in a strategic partnership with rideshare companies to help optimize service delivery for riders with accessibility needs?
The short answer is yes, we are. We are open to that idea. And we have engaged rideshare companies on this, on this approach a few times over the years. In the early parts of the rideshare kind of phase, there were some federal restrictions on how we could use rideshares. There are still some federal hurdles we have to overcome that apply to our drivers, because we are recipients of federal dollars so our drivers are subject to some federal requirements, such as drug and alcohol testing and so on. So we have to overcome some of those challenges. But, yes, we are very much open. In fact, I would say we're more than open because we know that we have our own challenges in meeting the demand for our paratransit and our shared ride customers, so we have very limited resources for drivers and availability, and that does reveal itself in some of the customer dissatisfaction in the service we're providing. So we are open to engaging with TNCs to the extent possible and getting them to become part of the SEPTA system.
Oh, that's great news. My next question is about SEPTA's Key Advantage. We think it's a great program and it helps Philadelphia and saves money on transportation and helps businesses lower cost and it helps keep our buses safer with increased ridership. I want to thank you for working with City Council to create and expand this program. Can you tell us about the participation levels in this program and how has the Key Advantage participation changed over the past year? And how about the preceding three years?
So Key Advantage started with a couple pilot companies, some of the bigger organizations in the region, and many of them have remained customers. And again, it comes down to for us, it's providing transit to the organization. So they in turn provide that fare to their employees as an employment benefit. We have some really large partners as part of that, and there's a number of programs that engage in that. And I'm looking for -- so at the current participation levels, funding is about million 4 annually so that's new revenues 5 that we may not otherwise have. 6 And again, it comes down to 7 inducing ridership. What we've 8 learned as we've engaged with our 9 partners in this program is when 10 someone has a fare card in their 11 hand, they're much more likely to 12 use it and that puts more people on 13 transit and fewer people on our 14 roadways. 15 We have some really big 16 partners, Penn Medicine being one 17 of them, who has been with us from 18 the beginning. We have engaged 19 with landlords to have them engage 20 with renters. We are looking for 21 some of the bigger partners. I've 22 already spoken with folks at Temple University, for example, to try to bring them into the fold. Community College of Philadelphia, we've done a program with them for the West Philly campus. So there's a number of these institutions in Philly that have engaged with us and continue to engage with us to get them involved. So there's a lot to do there.
Do you have any ideas of how we can increase participation in the program? And to the thought of CCP, what is the partnership with CCP and does it include students, especially students that receive the CATTO scholarship?
So the CCP relationship, we were both parties or have been engaged in negotiations to figure out how to expand that partnership. I know that's been very public, but the truth of the matter is we have been speaking with Community College to try to expand their footprint in the program, how they engage, whether it's the full student population, because many of their students are part-time so they're looking at what that means to them and how they can engage in that, but that's a decision that the Community College will make. And we're in discussions with them now in how to help them arrive at a good decision.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Cindy Bass, then Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, then Councilmember Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to -- I had a couple of questions, but I wanted to start off to go back to Councilmember Kathy Gilmore Richardson's point about the changes to SEPTA -- hello. How are you, sir?
Good to see you. But I wanted to go to her point about the changes to SEPTA. I wanted to ask, and I'll ask specifically for those of us who grew up sort of like North Philly and South Philly. Councilmember Brooks, Council President Johnson, what was the bus line that ran up and down Broad Street? What was that bus?
Does anybody know what the bus that goes up and down Broad Street is now?
And so, the point I'm making here is we still call it the C bus. You know, you change the name, you change some of the scope of service on it. For most of us, it's kind of I'm going to catch the C bus and go down to South Philly or up to North Philly or whatever, and it remains. So we've spent a lot of money on these changes that a lot of Philadelphians really have not embraced. And I'm someone who grew up in the city catching SEPTA. I know how to get to every part of the city thanks to SEPTA. I used to take the 48, the 33, the Route 60 to 54. Those were my North Philly lines. But because of those lines and SEPTA's work, I know the city so much better. Because again, like the Council President, we didn't have a car. SEPTA was our car, so we have a lot of respect for the work that you do. Now, that being said, I do have some concern in your conversation. You mentioned the funding crisis that threatened last year, SEPTA service cuts, fare increases and the like, which really had all of us and the legislators in Harrisburg extremely nervous about what that was going to mean for our constituents. But then there was this article I came across in the paper that we were giving away five properties in very desirable neighborhoods along the Chestnut Hill East and the Chestnut Hill West Line to a developer for 99 years for $1. It was the first of its kind agreement, and it certainly should be the last of its kind. Also, I want to point out that another piece of real estate SEPTA owned was leased to a developer in Ambler, and that was just this year and they're paying $402,500 per year, with annual 3% increases for a total of $236 million going to SEPTA over 99 years. So help me understand, $236 million or $1. Help me understand. Make it make sense.
Sure, I would love to do that. So the two examples are really vastly different. What we leased for $1 were the station buildings, not the whole property. The station still belongs to SEPTA, the station building, which in many cases will likely be transformed into some retail space, coffee shop, food service place, so that is a much smaller investment for anyone than the property that you're speaking of out in Ambler or contract, where it's an entire parcel that will be developed into housing with a parking garage and maybe retail. So it is a little bit different in the approach that we took.
So I have no doubt that it's different. But at the same time, $1 for five properties is outrageous when you're asking us for money. It is outrageous that these kinds of conversations are even being had and that SEPTA is having the financial cliff that threatens us all. For those of us who ride SEPTA now, who have ridden SEPTA and respect the work that you all are doing, for those of us who care about public transportation, it is really quite outrageous that SEPTA would give away this very valuable property on a very desirable line, the Chestnut Hill East and the Chestnut Hill West. I just really cannot make sense of what has happened here.
I certainly understand your position. But what I will say is we tried to lease those properties individually and we went through a bid process that wound up at $1. These properties --
I'm sorry and don't want to cut you off, but I would say in saying that you went through a bid process, we were never contacted so I don't know who you -- if you needed some help or we're looking for some minority participation. Because the other thing I want to mention is that there is no minority participation on these properties, and that is as well shameful when you look at the overall ridership that supports SEPTA day-to-day.
And certainly, the first time that you and I spoke about this, that was one of your chief concerns, we had not engaged you well enough. And I acknowledge that that is probably the case. So we have done a much better job on the Germantown property, for example, that I know we've engaged you and your office a great deal and you've given us great feedback on that. So we are learning from that lesson that you pointed out to us on how better to engage with Council, how better to engage with your teams and the communities. So, yes, certainly we could have done much better in our communications with you during that process.
And as I understand it, in our research these were properties from the original -- before it was SEPTA, it was PTC?
Probably long before. It's railroad property. So it's likely Pennsylvania Railroad or --
When it was PTC, part of the conversation that we've been advised of is that the leasing of these properties, there is some question as to the legality of the leasing of the properties because they are actually PTC properties that were leased to SEPTA. So there is a question as to if these properties could be sublet. And so, that's a conversation that we will have. But I just think the optics of this really look horrific for SEPTA. And again, we're out here selling this product. And the product is if you're connected, you can get five properties for $1 for 100 years. Sounds great if you're in the loop, if you're on the end. But for most of us, this looks like somebody got a hook-up. Plain and simple, somebody got a hook-up. And as we're talking about trying to put more money into programs like Zero Fare, that's where that money comes from, that's where we get those dollars from. So I know you get it. I know you understand exactly where I'm coming from. Because again, we have had that conversation before. Two other things I wanted to mention just briefly, and that is that SEPTA operators -- I don't know if you know this or not -- bus operators are being blamed for tickets that if people are in bus lanes and the bus automatically gives them a ticket, then the operator is assumed to have done something, signaled them somehow, caused that ticket to happen. So we already have some concern about keeping our operators safe. That's something I think that SEPTA really needs to look into. And the other thing really quickly was, I was glad to hear you say that you want clean stations. You want your stations to be clean at all times. It shouldn't matter if somebody's dropping by or whatever. The station really just should be clean. Because we had this conversation previously with a general manager who said, well, we're doing the best we can. No, that's the wrong answer. The stations were pretty dirty. I'm glad to hear you say that. I do have a concern about the lack of bathrooms in the subway system. I can't remember who mentioned that -- okay, Rue, my colleague, Councilmember Landau. Because I have a connection with SEPTA in the subway system. As an example, the elevator at the North Philadelphia Station, which is Broad and Lehigh, is constantly broken. And it's broken because people are using it as a restroom. And so, SEPTA needs to figure out how to get restrooms in the stations. It's really just that simple. I know it's probably a whole lot more expensive to send out the mechanics to fix an elevator that is eroding because someone is urinating constantly in the elevator system. So if SEPTA could figure out how to make that happen, I think in the long run it's actually going to save you all some money on those kinds of repairs. So thank you, Mr. President. Those were my questions.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad, Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, then Mr. O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. Good morning still, almost. Good to see you all. Thank you for all the work you do. And once again, we recognize Wendy who keeps us plugged in. I wanted to go back to 2021. I know you were not in this position, but you were in SEPTA, as was many of you. And there was that horrific sexual assault that happened on a train between here and Upper Derby to 69th Terminal. I was not elected at that time. I was the President of the National Organization for Women, the Pennsylvania Chapter, and we had a rally that got on the train and went from there to Upper Darby to really talk about lack of security, lack of issues. There were some demands made then and I just wanted to see what the follow- up was around that. And mainly, they were about monitoring those cameras with live people. And they had cameras then, but nobody saw what was going on and could have stopped it much earlier. So one was about live monitoring of cameras and public transport, more trained social services personnel which got discussed I believe already, and education for customers and passengers, what to do and have clear messaging around that on our trains and subways and buses. And so, that's one part of the question. The second part is, we're embarking on a human trafficking campaign of awareness and prevention. The RFP has gone out. I wanted to know what SEPTA was doing around this issue in this year and then to continue going forward. So those are my two main questions. CHIEF LAWSON: Yes. So to go back on some of those, some of the demands that you mentioned we didn't at the time, but have since successfully achieved the ability to have live look-in on all of our trains. So that technology was introduced a couple years ago. And on every shift, as long as trains are running, I have a team, a civilian team of folks that are watching these trains. So we've achieved that. That has actually resulted in a lot of crime reduction for us. The work that they're doing is phenomenal. So we've seen that success. In terms of human trafficking, a couple years ago we spent some time working with the Department of Transportation on the creation of a training block for frontline staff. That was achieved through all frontline employees at the time that we delivered that a couple of years ago. But part of the work that we did on that was developing a training block for new employees. So now, every new employee that comes into SEPTA gets a block. So how to recognize signs of human trafficking, how to report it, things like that. So everybody touches every frontline staff that works at SEPTA. I will tell you specifically for this year for the events of 2026, that we are working on sort of a refreshing awareness campaign. So the police department is putting together sort of training bulletins for our staff. And starting in May, we're going to start rolling out every week a new training bulletin for staff and it's going to be on things like recognizing suspicious behavior, how to recognize it and report those things. Human trafficking is going to be a topic for that. So kind of the goal is as we move up into the bulk of these events, refreshing our employee staff with how to recognize these things and how to report them.
Well, thank you. I'm glad to hear about that. I wanted to know since you have this live monitoring have you been actually able to intercept and stop, what's the data around having that? And also with the training, since you've had it for a while, how do you follow up to see how effective it's being or not and where's data around that? CHIEF LAWSON: Yeah. I don't know if we have specific data on attributing arrests to it. I have examples. Many times our live monitoring team, our virtual patrol team, is seeing incidents, both serious in nature and nonserious. So they're directing police all day long. Essentially, if I could describe the workflow, right, they'll see an incident that requires police attention, they'll snap a picture and within a minute, that's in the hands of every police officer in the field. And this is going on all day long, where pictures are going out to our team. So I mean, it's been instrumental in some of the positive statistics that we've referenced.
I so deeply appreciate that. The reason I ask this and ask for data is to tell our public that this is happening and you are doing this proactively and you're making it safer. People don't know that. I mean, it's a good thing in one way that you can catch people doing bad things, but I think you would increase ridership if people knew you were so proactive about this and making sure and then tracking it. Without tracking, I'm just taking your word. I don't disbelieve you, but I think for people to know there should be a dashboard of some sort that SEPTA should have that says this is what security looks like on SEPTA, and we could have dashboards for other items that SEPTA grapples with. But that's a public-facing kind of tool that could help your ridership, so many things it could do. So I think we need to be proactive in telling our communities, our constituents, that the money we are investing in you is bearing fruit and they need to see that. People need to see their tax dollars being used appropriately. So I thank you for the work. I just need to advertise and amplify it and have data to actually back up what you're saying, because I'm a scientist. So I will take your word, but I need trust and verify. So I would appreciate that. Thank you so much, Council President.
I want to echo those sentiments, again maybe some type of SEPTA safety public campaign and, again one that builds the confidence up of the public in the ridership. But also again, one of the key conversations, and my members can testify, we were meeting with the Senators up in Harrisburg. They were saying, well, it's not safe. We live in the county, it's not safe there. And we're saying, but our numbers tell us otherwise. But the onus is on us to create that narrative that, no, here's the facts, we are making progress and we are safe in these areas. And to be quite frank, we should be even safer, cleaner than Regional Rail, right, in terms of the level of service that we're providing to the intercity ridership, similar to folks that take these trainings to go out into the counties when they're leaving Philadelphia going back to their counties where they live at. And so, that would be our expectation, to see some type of campaign when you come next year and they say, here's how we're telling this SEPTA story. So with that being said, the Chair recognizes Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips, then Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, Nicolas O'Rourke, Jim Harrity, then Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. I just want to say thank you to Scott for his leadership. You have been truly yourself in this role, and I think it's been really telling. We want to thank you for what you're doing to bring SEPTA to life. I just have a couple questions. So along the lines of what I've been working on here in the city and all of our budget hearings, I'm focused on helping SEPTA become even more responsive when it comes to our neighbors. Responsive government when it comes to SEPTA is important as well. So first question that I have is around the bus operators. They're your primary concern. Our bus operators, all of our train operators, they're our primary concern. What is the standard operating procedure for a bus operator or a train operator if they're experiencing some level of conflict or danger that's happening? Are the police readily available or is it like they may not get there until moments later? What is the rapid response when it comes to something?
So first and foremost, we train all of our frontline staff in de-escalation. So we are trained. Our operators are all trained to de-escalate a potential conflict, understanding of course that the de-escalation techniques only take you but so far. In the event that there is an incident or let's say before an incident occurs, if the operator feels that they are in jeopardy, they have a two-way radio aboard the bus. They also have a silent alarm aboard the bus that they can trigger a response. That response in the City of Philadelphia is generally under four minutes for a police response for a crime or a violent offense. That's not just take into account where our police are, because the City of Philadelphia will respond to those sorts of events as well and they are usually more readily accessible to the bus depending on where it is, so that happens rather quickly. In many cases when there is a violent offense that occurs on a bus where a passenger strikes an operator or something to that effect, almost every single time our transit police are making an arrest in that case. It may not happen at the scene, but it'll happen shortly thereafter.
What about just not the violent ones. What about the nuisance person, the person who's just being a nuisance? They're loud, they're causing disturbances among the riders. I mean, are they asked to just de-escalate that? Are they asked to have SEPTA police come out at that moment because they're technically not public safety officers?
Sure. It varies depending on what's happening. So let's assume it's a nuisance, somebody's, I don't know, playing loud music on the vehicle and the operator is instructed that if it's safe to do so, have that patron kind of turn the music down or whatever, use headphones or whatever the ask is, do it politely, do it professionally. If it's not safe to do so, then they can request help. They can call on the radio to our control center and say, I have a passenger that's causing a disturbance, they're doing this. And then the control center will make the call in concert with the Transit police who sit side-by-side with them. Is this a police issue or is this a supervisor issue, either or both can be summoned and they will be summoned in a moment's notice from the control center once the report is made. But all that decision-making happens in our central control center which is at our headquarters.
Great. And lastly, because I just heard the bell, a lot of our residents in the 9th District are concerned about the fact that it seems like every so often there is a potential strike looming. They would love for leadership to work even better with the union so that we don't have these potential strikes. Is there somewhere in the budget where you're accounting for maybe reserve funds for future salary increases for our union, you know, workers that work at SEPTA, so we can stop or whatever they demand? It'd be nice if you all are more hand-step, you know, lock- and-lock, and they can get not a year contract, but they can get multiple years that they're agreeing upon, so it's not always a threat potentially of us not cooperating.
So the answer is yes. Every year we go into our budget presuming that it's a contract year where we know we're going to negotiate a contract. We will establish a budget of what we expect to incur in salary increases for the union into that budget, and that's how we approach negotiations.
Is that lockstep with the union where the union feels -- when you make those budget decisions?
Certainly, the union sometimes believes it's not enough and that's part of negotiations. But what I will say though, I'm very pleased to say that we have not had a disruption since 2016 so almost years since 7 the last work stoppage. And that's 8 something that SEPTA couldn't say 9 for a long time. We were seeing 10 work stop just every two, three years. Now, getting to a multi- year contract is my goal as well and I know it's also the TWU's President's goal. He and I meet often and discuss -- we don't just wait for contract cycles to roll around. He and I have regular discussions and ongoing discussions about how we can improve things here at the organization. So I know it's his desire as well as mine to get a multi-year contract done. We need stabilized funding in order to reach that agreement, which is why we were able to do a two-year deal this time because we knew we had two years of stable funding in order to get that done.
No, thank you. Thanks, Council President. I just want to offer that up. I mean, I've been hearing about some of the pensions of some of the retirees are not increasing in this growing, rapidly-changing economic world, and those things should be considered. And if you need to ask us, right, to help you get closer to that, I think a lot of us would be in favor of that. I know I would. And then I just had the quick suggestion of you have a lot of events and programs. One of the things that I think could be helpful is if you had on each one of your buses and train lines an area where there could be flyers that could be posted up and every operator says, hey, take a flyer, there's a meeting coming up, here's a change that's happened to the line. That way we can really account for the fact that the people who normally ride the bus or the train are getting that information. I think that would be really helpful. I mean, I don't think that's a big cost to put something like that, a little thing to stick onto something so people get information about upcoming events. Because we had a meeting at (inaudible) the other day and people are like, we didn't know, we didn't know. I'm like, okay, what is SEPTA doing when it comes to advertisement. I have other questions, but that's all I have for now in terms of my comments and questions. I do want to say that Verbena Avenue, if you could take note, in our district is being talked about a lot of times around cleaning and quality-of-life issues. We constantly get questions about maintenance and cleaning around that area. Is there something you could do on that? I just want to make sure.
I can't speak specifically to that area. But I mean, cleaning and security is kind of the focus, that's our entire focus at this moment. But what we can do is I can go back and look at that --
Can I get a point of information please? What is the size of your cleaning operation?
So the cleaning operation is in excess of about 700 staff, and that's to clean stations, facilities and vehicles. Each vehicle fleet has its own dedicated cleaning staff --
Yes, that's correct. And that's just the custodial staff. Then there are supervisors and managers and things like that, that oversee that, but 700. And that has been a dramatic increase since COVID. When we entered 2020 for example, there were only 180 cleaners dedicated to the subways, the Market-Frankford Line, the Broad Street Line. That's about 350 now. So we've really dramatically increased the cleaning ranks.
Yeah. Maybe they could work with Carlton Williams, Council President?
Yeah, I was thinking like Clean and Green along the SEPTA stations, and we're all rowing in the same direction on this issue. I think part of this is a perception of people's experience, right. And I know you're doing work. You say 700 people, right, but how do you measure your impact, right? And I know we have a long Subway and El system, right. But really, I will look at how often those teams are powerwashing the stations as well as the subway cars. And I guess because of some of the quality-of-life issues that we're dealing with, particularly along the Broad Street Line, but definitely that Frankford El Line, right. And we know what the issues are around Kensington and so forth, that we're just stepping up and ramping up those efforts, right. And again, when you talk about PR, I would have some type of Clean and Green SEPTA initiatives. Again, that boosts morale, the ridership, that something is being done. And again, it also arms us when we go to Harrisburg and they say, well, this was going on in Philadelphia and we say, oh no, here's the positive things that are taking place and why we're advocating for additional SEPTA funding. And so, those are just some of the things to think about. And we're here to be partners in this, because we have family members that take SEPTA day-in and day-out. We have friends that take SEPTA day-in and day-out. My wife takes the 17 bus, right. Yeah, she takes the 17 bus. And so, I want for her what I want for myself and the same thing I would want for my constituents and family as well. So we're a partner in this as well. So Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada --
-- then Nicolas O'Rourke, then Jim Harrity and Jamie Gauthier.
Good morning. Thank you for being with us this morning. I guess I'm a bit frustrated because I hear what you're saying, but the realities of the folks in my district who take SEPTA, who rely on SEPTA, whose only option is SEPTA is painfully different. And so, I've sat here budget season after budget season and we're having the same conversation. And so, I guess my question first -- let me start with a comment first and, that is, in order for you to create the next generation of transit riders, it is not going to take funding. It is going to take a safe experience. I see a sign back there that says we won't get there without SEPTA, but we're not going to get anywhere if we're not safe, right. And so, I'm extremely frustrated around the safety aspect and the cleanliness of our system. My phone is blowing up because I have a direct relationship with the people that I represent in the 7th Councilmanic District, many of whose only option is SEPTA. And for them to tell me that they are using pipes on the train, for them to tell me that they have to move from train cart to train cart three and four times to get from Kensington and Allegheny to 15th and Market is a problem, right. For them to tell me that people are shooting up on the trains, for them to tell me that they have to stand the entire ride because there is a problem on the system that they report on their app and it's not responded to is a problem. We cannot continue to sit here and ask for transit funding if we're not creating a safe experience for everyday riders. We just can't, right. There are people that meet around quality of life in Kensington every day. Chief Nastell(sic), what is your relationship with Deputy Commissioner Rosario? CHIEF LAWSON: We have a good relationship. Our staff meets weekly with the Kensington group. He has my number, I have his. We pick up the phone, talk to each other on issues over the years. We have a good working relationship, I would say.
I asked him the same question. He said, we really don't have one. And so, there's a lack of communication. When Nastell was here, there were weekly meetings, people were talking every day, people were present. They were a part of the solution. We need to get there. I don't know what needs to change, but you both should be saying we have a daily conversation, we know exactly what is happening around outreach. We have a relationship and are communicating with DBHIDS and CBH and all of those outreach providers on the ground every day to make sure that when people get on our transit system, they are having a safe experience. It has to happen. It has to happen. There is no reason why I'm sending Wendy photos of five, six police officers at SEPTA stations when there are people who are living unsheltered inside of your spaces. No reason for that. There's no reason for that. There's no reason why I should be driving around at any time of the day and there's open fires inside of your stations. No reason for that. Because you guys apparently have cameras, right, so somebody should be monitoring your cameras to see that there's an open fire inside of your structure. We can't talk about increasing fares or cutting routes and still ask people to take our transportation system when we're not doing for people. And I want to be a supporter of SEPTA. I know that it's many in my community's only option, but it is not acceptable. And it is not fair to Wendy to receive text messages on Sunday, on Friday, on Monday, on Wednesday. It is not fair. Because I know if I'm blowing up her phone, there's other members 10 that are blowing up her phone. And 11 I'm not asking for special 12 treatment. I'm asking for fairness 13 in response. 14 We know what's happening 15 in Kensington. We know. And so, I 16 am asking for you all to figure out 17 what the plan of action is going to be as it relates to meeting on a daily basis, if necessary, at the beginning until we stabilize the situation from Tioga all the way down to Berks Station, because it's when apparently things change and give my riders in my community the same attention that you give other neighborhoods. That's what I'm asking for, so that we can get there with SEPTA.
Thank you. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke, then Councilmember Jim Harrity and then Gauthier.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being with the -- afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being with us today. It is very possible that not everyone understands. So I want to highlight the amazing work that y'all are doing with a shoestring budget. We all hear when things go wrong we have no 3 qualms about pointing it out, but I just want to make sure everybody knows on record how much is going right. In 2024, SEPTA was ranked as the most efficient transit agency in the country. It is able to provide each ride at almost half the cost, as I understand it, than Boston or Chicago. In 2024, SEPTA saw a 33% drop in crime. That is the single largest, I think, one-year decline in the history of this particular transit system. SEPTA reported its highest-ever customer satisfaction scores last year. And on top of that, by 2031 SEPTA will be rolling out, as you've already spoken to, Mr. Sauer, completely new El cars, trolley cars, a completely new and modern system. It is high time, I believe, that we recognize that we can. And if we work together, we continue to row in the right direction, together in the same direction. We'll have what any world-class city requires, and that is a world-class transit system that is affordable, that is clean, that is consistent, that is safe, that is expansive. And we'll all need to work together more effectively because we all have a stake in this, SEPTA, the city, the state, the private sector even. I've had several conversations about that. It's clear to me, President Sauer, that the SEPTA organization is doing its job on those particular points that we've raised. But my question for you is, what can the city do to make that job easier?
Well, certainly I appreciate that. I think it's -- I'm hard-pressed to come up with an answer more than what you all have done. I mean, committing the dollars that you are considering to commit to SEPTA is an important step for us. It virtually unlocks $1 billion from the state and displays the commitment that the City of Philadelphia has towards transit in this region. The advocacy that you all did last year in Harrisburg advocating on our behalf, I mean that really meant something, certainly not just to SEPTA, but to all your constituents. And then of course, the new commitment now to the Zero Fare program, the Key Advantage program. The City of Philadelphia is our largest customer, not just geographically, but the City of Philadelphia's Administration is our largest customer on the Key Advantage program. The commitment to Zero Fare, the school district, all those commitments, that's the information I take to our institutions for Key Advantage and say, look what the city has committed, look what the school district has committed to, we need your commitment now. So that continued advocacy helping us push these institutions, these large businesses towards SEPTA, that would be a big help to us. That is going to be my mission for the next year, to get out and sell Key Advantage to the largest employers of the region to get them bought-in to transit as part of their budgets and part of their commitment to the region.
In that same line or at least kind of in that same theme, I introduced, as you know, the Transit Access Fund more than a year ago at this point, some legislation that we introduced last year. The Transit Access Fund would dedicate, just as a reminder .05%, a half of a percentage of the General Fund. That's equal to the Housing Trust Fund, which also takes out .05% of the General Fund, to permanently fund the Zero Fare program and to provide matching grants to small employers to participate in SEPTA's Key Advantage program, bring in transit passes to more employees citywide. We all know how critical the Zero Fare program is. We've talked about it already today. But like Member Brooks lifted up, I kind of want to talk more about the Key Advantage program. On the question and the hope of expanding revenue, how important are low-income ridership programs like Zero Fare and Key Advantage in actually realizing that?
I mean, it's important for that reason of course. I mean, certainly the ridership, there are low-income residents that are going to try to ride anyway. But there are also low-income residents who see maybe that fare as a barrier to riding. So that low-income fare reduces that barrier, gives those folks an opportunity to ride. That certainly helps us with revenues. That's revenue that we didn't have. But what it also does for us is it now lessens the burden on that low-income rider to find other ways to try to ride, and I'm speaking specifically to fare evasion. We certainly don't want to make anyone's life more difficult. Fare evasion is a problem for us. It costs us millions of dollars every year. But giving that low-income rider the ability to ride, the ability to pay a fare and also reduces our interaction with our police department potentially with that low-income rider, so reduces all sorts of friction and just opens the door to jobs and education and things that maybe that customer wouldn't have access to without that low-income fare.
Let's say in a dream world the Transit Access Fund passes. How impactful would city-funded matching grants be to leverage private investment in SEPTA? And also, how might more robust private investment, which I know that you talked about leveraging, help our negotiating position in Harrisburg next year?
I mean, that's part of our goal and part of what Council President probably heard in his feedback from the Senate last year. We want more P3 investment in transit. We want that too. Many of the real estate transactions we're doing today is to encourage P3 investment, to get people investing in the properties around transit, so that in turn induces ridership. Advertising and marketing, station naming rights, all those things feed into our non-fare box revenue and allows us to keep costs down, it allows us to generate more revenue on our own, which then in turn reduces the obligation that may or may not be needed by government. So there's lots of things that all this feeds into the wheel and make SEPTA run. But generating our own revenues outside of what goes into the fare box is very important for our survival and our future.
All right. Well, the bell was wearing me out a couple times, so I'll tighten and put a bow on this and just say that I echo honestly, and you know I am a supporter and it is essential for SEPTA to be top tier, right. We deserve that and we're a world-class city so that has to be in place. And also, I echo the sentiments of my colleagues that have frustrations around cleanliness. And I shared this with Ms. Wendy on our call. Perception is the ultimate reality, not necessarily the ultimate truth, but it is the ultimate reality. Even if you haven't rode SEPTA, you probably would be discouraged from riding if you hear the stories of what our experiences have been, what anybody's experience has been as it relates to going into some of these stations and seeing the condition that they're in. I'm encouraged to hear about the uptick from 100 to 700 workers that are focused on cleaning. And also, if staffing up doesn't get the job done, then maybe we have to double what maintenance looks like on a regular basis. Whatever the current program is in terms of maintaining cleanliness, we have to look at that, how do we double that to make sure that we're not just hoping to fall into cleanliness, but it is top priority in the same way that we should be prioritizing infrastructure. This is infrastructure upkeep. I don't want us to pretend that we're New York. We are our own city. And also, you mentioned sometimes hearing frustrations about people talking about what they've seen in Asia. I'm concerned because the last couple of years we have seen, whether it's in New York or here, when torrential downpour comes as a result of climate change, what have you, you've got water coming through the walls at the train station. It's really challenging when you see videos of cities and towns, whose names I can't currently pronounce in China, where you got trains going through houses and buildings and stuff like that, and it's clean as a whistle. If the water does come down, you can see the fish. So I think we really need to prioritize, not just kind of as an aside, but as top-tier focus how we actually realize clean stations in the City of Philadelphia because we are a world-class city and we won't stop having huge events. And so, I think it's particularly important. So, yes, I will continue to fight to make sure that you have funding to be able to do that. But if there's some way that we can reorient to make this a number one priority as well, I think that would be in our best interest. And in conclusion, I'll just say I appreciated Member Phillips lifting up what I think is often overlooked, which is the idea around free transit. There's a culture in professional spaces I think that permeates, that normalizes, standardizes short-sightedness and narrow-mindedness and almost de-incentivizes imagination. Everything that we get a chance to experience in this city comes first from someone's vision. And I think if we can imagine possibilities, let's not cut ourselves off at the hip. It would be good if we had the perfect transit system. It would be good if everyone had access to that and be able to get around. We should not I think fall back on that, you know, and think because we have a grasp on the numbers or what have you, that we can't do these incredible, dare I say, utopic things. We should see that as a vision. Aim for it. As they say, shoot for the stars, sometimes you'll land on the moon. Anyways, thank you, Mr. President, for the time.
Councilmember Jim Harrity. And then we'll wrap up this first round with Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you both for your service. Going to get right into it just for the sake of time, and apologize. One of the things of going next to last is that sometimes your questions have already been asked. SEPTA plans on rolling out the Bus Revolution. Redesign and phase is starting this August which eliminates routes. 12 The first phase, what 13 criteria determine what routes were 14 cut and how equitability will be 15 remaining routes? How equitable 16 will remaining routes be to 17 low-income neighbors? SEPTA's FY27 18 budget relies on a second and final year of 394 million PennDOT capital transfer to cover operations. What is SEPTA's plan to fund in FY2028 and beyond? And finally, SEPTA's 2027 plan relies on borrowing 4.3 billion over years to fully fund and replace the Broad Street Line cars. What is the plan of replacement if those cars fail before the replacements are funded?
Okay. I 7 think I have them all. So let me 8 start with the Bus Network. So 9 part of the criteria as we looked 10 at the Bus Network -- and this 11 process of course started several 12 years ago -- the goal of the Bus Network was to give more opportunity to more people in a shorter amount of time. In other words, can I get you from where you begin your trip to where you want to end your trip as efficiently as we can in the shortest amount of time. So that's how it all started. As part of this, as we kind of went through and identified specifically which routes would be affected, which routes would remove service, which routes would get service, that all goes through an equity analysis. And as part of the annual service plan presentation that's happening today, we are presenting this implementation phase, this Phase 1, that's going to show what's affected and how it's been affected and as part of that, that equity analysis. And I just happen to have a couple numbers I could share with you. What we're happy to say is that today we have eight routes that are considered high frequency, 50 minutes or less, seven days a week. That number is going to almost triple. We're going to be at 29, so actually it is going to triple. It's going to almost four times. That's going to be at 29 once the full network gets done. But as far as the equity analysis is concerned, we're showing now that this annual service plan that we're presenting today is going to show an increase in 660 revenue hours across the network. That includes an increase in minority routes and a decrease in non-minority routes. So essentially, we're showing through this analysis that the system becomes even more equitable. So that is a pleasant change that we're going to show to our customers. We tend to focus on what the system is not going to have instead of what it will have. We are going to add frequency to routes that are our highest ridership routes. We're going to add connections where connections didn't exist before, and make them when you connect two frequent routes together, it makes the whole trip easier than one infrequent route on a winding route. So all those reasons make the Bus Network meaningful. Now, I also realize that your constituents probably like their bus route and they like that stop outside of my house. So we are trying to meet people where they live and talk to them about what their needs truly are and try to find a good solution. And that's part of the engagement. That's why we're taking this on a phase-by-phase approach, to make sure that we're not doing anything that's too radical that we're doing today and then two years from now, it gets implemented and then we have a whole lot of new people in the room that maybe didn't hear that initial analysis. So that was thing one. So the other part was the Fiscal '28 capital program, I think, Fiscal '28 and beyond. So our capital funding is just like our operating funding. We have a need, a big one. We deferred or descoped project, 44 projects at the start of last fiscal year, the current fiscal year actually. And we had to do that because we had to shave $2 billion out of our 12-year program. That was for a variety of reasons, hyperinflation, low funding, increased costs in all the projects that we did. So what we need is a comprehensive solution to funding. We need something that addresses both our operating needs and our capital needs. The only way we're going to make a dent in our $10 billion backlog is to start spending and improving the system at a much higher rate than what we're doing today. That's going to take funding. There's a whole slew of ideas out there on how to accomplish that, either from the state or from local sources. We give our needs. We give folks to experts like you who are going to figure out how best to proceed on this. 3 billion that we referenced earlier. So we're trying to make inroads.
We've moved some projects around in the program to try to meet the needs of our constituents, to try to meet the needs of our riders, from station accessibility to new rail vehicles to new buses. We've got new buses back in the program this year when we thought we might have to defer them for a couple years. These are really tough decisions that we're making on a very limited budget. There's things that we can do to meet Councilmember O'Rourke's vision of shooting for the stars. We want to hit those stars too. But there are funding needs we can certainly do better internally and how we execute. But there are funding needs that we just can't escape. 3 billion. I think the last question was, how are we going to make the rail cars last. That is certainly a concern. I think we made really good progress in getting the Silverliner IV fleet back, and we have a plan going forward to do more intense overhauls of the IVs to try to get the last years out of them. Our Market-Frankford Line cars are also going through a -- we took the lessons that we learned from the Silverliners and have now applied them to the Market-Frankford Line cars and the Broad Street Line cars to try to learn what are these components that were built 40 years ago that now we have to pay a little more attention to. They weren't in the maintenance and overhaul schedule because the builder called that a life-cycle component, right. That's going to last the life of the car. Well, the life for the car as they knew it is not the life of the car that we need. So now, we're learning from that process that we have to pay attention to some components that maybe weren't in the original maintenance table.
Thank you very much. And wrapping up this round is Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon, General Manager Sauer. And thank you to you and Wendy, one of your newest hires, Ciani, who served for many years in the 3rd District Council Office and your entire team for everything that you do to keep Philadelphia moving on a daily basis. I am very grateful to represent a district that is served so well by SEPTA. We are the only council district where a majority of residents do not drive to work. And so, I recognize how SEPTA keeps not just West and Southwest Philly moving, but the entire Southeastern Pennsylvania region. And I wish that more of our leaders, especially in Harrisburg, would recognize that if SEPTA stops, so does Pennsylvania's economy. And from my vantage point, and I know my colleagues will as well, continue to advocate until people really get this point and fund SEPTA appropriately. A few months ago, we were meeting pretty frequently about the emergency extended trolley tunnel closure that started in the fall. And I just have some questions about where things stand currently. So SEPTA is still closing the trolley tunnel for seven hours every night, which significantly harms many of my constituents. We have not had normal trolley operations since November and now it's mid-April, especially as we gear up for this summer when we will welcome millions of visitors. Not having the trolley tunnel fully operational is going to keep tourists out of West and Southwest Philly, denying our small businesses the same economic opportunities as their peers in other parts of the city, and it will be harder for my constituents to get to the events taking place across our city. And so, can you tell me what's the timeline for getting the tunnel open 24/7 again? And related, why have the temporary shelters been removed from 40th and Market, given that they are still needed every night?
All right. So thank you for that. Yes -- and we certainly appreciate the support that you gave and the help that you gave us during those difficult months when the trolley was closed every day, all day. So I'm pleased to report that we have submitted our plan to reopen the tunnel in the evenings to our state safety oversight. We're awaiting their feedback. I'm optimistic we can have this tunnel open by the end of the month and be able to run 24-hour service back in the trolley tunnel. What we've seen over the last several months, and we reopened the trolley tunnel on a limited basis starting in January 12th, I believe it was, so we spent that time, those three months, looking at the slider on the trolley, looking at the wire. Every night we were in the tunnel, examining the wire. And what we've been able to find is that the changes we made, the adjustments we made to everything is we're seeing back to normal results. So we didn't see any issues, which is why we started compiling a report a couple weeks ago to submit to our oversight. We're ready to reopen the tunnel. So like I said, by the end of the month I think we should be back to normal.
I also wanted to ask, what lessons SEPTA learned during this unexpected trolley emergency? And how will you improve how you get information out to community members about future closures or service disruptions? I'm hopeful that there's no trolley blitz this summer because of 2026 but even for the closure last year that we didn't expect, it took SEPTA over a month to get real information about the severity of the situation out to community members. And so, we need better systems in place for the future. And I'd like for you to speak to what process changes you're making.
So that was the number one issue that we had to learn right away. We didn't really know what the severity was at first. And I think the absence of that knowledge really gave us pause to communicate and that was a mistake. Even if we didn't know, it would have been better to tell people we didn't know and when we would know. So that was a number one lesson that we kind of took from it and having those processes in place to communicate all types of incidents as they occur, especially if we know they're going to have that dramatic of service impact. So our communications team has a more robust approach to that need. The trolley blitz, there is no trolley blitz this summer. So we've put all of our construction activity on hiatus for the events of the summer. So we're trying to make as minimal an impact, construction- and maintenance-wise as we can for the summer events and the shelters. I'll get an answer for you on -- I have to find out what happened to the shelters. I know we discussed that when we were talking about the trolley tunnel a couple months ago.
Okay. I thank you for everything that you and your team did to rectify this situation. It did take us a while to sort of get into gear. I am hopeful that we'll meet that end of the month deadline for the trolley tunnel opening. A couple minutes ago, we were talking about having our service rival, the Regional Rail. I have to notice that when you all had a disruption on the Regional Rail, you kind of moved heaven and earth, right. And so, in my district where people don't just take the trolley because it's a nice thing, they take the trolley and the bus lines and the train because it's a necessary thing, I want to see the same level of urgency and prioritization for those riders too, and I look forward to your continued partnership. We were talking about the SEPTA Key Advantage. I know that a few of the institutions in my district, I believe Penn and Drexel are participating. But I would love to sit down with any other University City institution that's not enrolled in the program and see if we can get them to participate.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Members, are you bringing SEPTA back for a brief second round, yes? Anybody else have questions before -- let me do it this way. We can finish this round with additional questions and we'll break at 1:00 and come back at 2:00; is that okay? And then we just won't do a second round. We'll just get it all out now. Okay. Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau and then also Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you. Thank you again. I wanted to talk about data. I'm the Chair of the Tech Committee. And the first question is, what settings and oversight is there on SEPTA cameras that use AI tools? Does SEPTA have an AI policy or a governance board or does it participate in the state or city's governance framework?
So I'll speak to the governance. So there is an AI policy in development. So we have limited AI applications today. They're mostly operations- based. We have some work to do internally to protect our internal data, to protect it from AI. So we have very limited usage in the back office, if you will. But we do have some AI usage on operations that are monitoring, say, Trolley Pole and pantograph applications or interfaces with wire. We did pilot AI technology on weapons detection last year. That project didn't work for us so we're not using that any longer, but we are using -- is it the Briefcam project? CHIEF LAWSON: Yeah. It's essentially a tool that helps us cut through hours and hours of video quicker, right. We input some data on what we're looking for and this system kind of runs through and cuts down the hours of time it takes to get information out.
Briefcam, great. And thank you for all of that. And what's your policy for sharing data recorded by SEPTA cameras? What would you do if you received a request from an organization like DHS or ICE? Would you release the footage?
As a government agency, we're subject to right-to-know laws just like anyone else. And so, a reasonable request from anyone could trigger release of video. When it comes to law enforcement, we certainly have partnerships with law enforcement to share video, depending on whether or not they identify it quick enough for us to get it. There are certain capabilities within the system that we have to meet. But, yeah, when it comes to law enforcement, we have different memorandums of understanding with law enforcement to be able to share on a need to --
Does the law enforcement agency have to have a subpoena in order for you to share your video? CHIEF LAWSON: Typically, no. I mean, we're really only sharing video as it relates to criminal incidents that happen either on the highway or -- it's really the only video request that we received. We have a process. We have standard MOU with the agencies that we share videos with. So we enter into that beforehand and then we have a process to go down. We have to cite the specific reason you're asking, criminal incident or whatever it is. Then we would make a decision based on that.
I would suggest you talk to the PPD about their policy of when they're sharing any data or information with ICE. And the second thing is, has your staff been trained as to what to do if ICE officers are on your trains, your trolleys, the subways or on the train platforms?
So if staff identifies law enforcement or engaged in law-enforcement activity, they report it. They report it through our control center. We get it to the police, our police department, who will engage. If law enforcement from any department or just riding the train as a passenger, that generally doesn't pique any interest from staff, unless they see something developing. So that's typical.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and Councilmember Dr. Anthony Phillips will wrap us up and we have a hard stop at 1:00.
Thank you, General Manager Sauer. I wanted you to speak on the outlook for trolley modernization in 2027. I think we know that the best way to cut down on frequent service disruptions is to implement modern, accessible trolley networks installed throughout West and Southwest Philadelphia. So can you speak a bit about that?
Sure. So Trolley Modernization is probably the single largest infrastructure and vehicle program we have. It's in excess of $6 billion total. It includes modern street cars, which are already in design, includes a new maintenance facility at 51st and Grays. It also includes level- boarding platforms at all of our street stops, accessible stations underground. Our 19th Street Station, for example, will go to construction very soon. So we are making really good inroads to advance this program. We've been told by our streetcar manufacturer that we should see a half car mock-up probably by the end of the year, so we'll be able to share that hopefully with you at that time. But we're still a couple years off from seeing actual street cars on the line. But we're hopeful we can get the first pilot car in 2029 and then start to see production in 2031, somewhere in that neighborhood.
Is that a delay? I thought that we were going to see something in '27 in our area of the city.
It is a delay. There have been some design changes we had to make after the fact, so we are working through that with our car builder. But the half car mock-up is an exciting first step where customers and stakeholders can see for the first time what the car is going to look like. We're going through the design process now for our T5 line, which is the former Route 36 trolley along Elmwood Avenue, for platforms and stations. The heavy maintenance facility is going through design right now, so we will start to see some work on that probably next year. So you're going to start to see things start to develop. We need to get our infrastructure straight on the T5 to receive the first pilot car. And that's the most important piece, to be able to properly test that car.
And can you just quickly name what are the elements of the delay? Is it funding? Is it something else?
That's holding -- so certainly funding. The project is not fully funded. The whole program is not fully funded. We kind of refer to it as a program of projects because there's lots of projects going on. The car project, the maintenance facility project, we have to convert all the overhead wire to receive a pantograph now, much like what you see on regional rail. We have to do some work in the tunnel, on all the stations, the accessibility. There's some track work we're going to have to do. So it really is a huge infrastructure project that has to happen. So there are still funding constraints. We are still funding the program, but the streetcars themselves are funded and we have design work done for the projects that we're advancing.
Thank you. And wrapping this up is Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you, Council President. I just have two last questions. I want to raise concerns about a longstanding capital project, particularly our Lawndale Station in the Northeast. The project has been on the capital plan for years. We propose pedestrian safety improvements that are critically important to the surrounding community. Now, we're hearing that the project may be delayed indefinitely. So what is the current status of the Lawndale Station project? And when can we make sure it's fully funded and get back on the capital projects list?
So the Lawndale project was part of the 44 projects that were deferred at the start of Fiscal '26, the current fiscal year. That is essentially deferred until beyond that 12th year of this year's program. So 2039 would be the first opportunity, unless there's a funding change. And then we can reintroduce some of those projects back into the program. But at the very earliest, we would not see that project begin until 2039.
Okay. And this is because of the recent cuts and so forth that had to transpire?
The cuts to the capital program at the start of this year pushed that program out of the 12-year program.
Understood. And then lastly, for our policing I am concerned from residents about the smoking that takes place. Some of the situations that happened between fights with young people getting on and off the bus and then operators have to deal with that situation. Is there a standard operating procedure that is in place? If not, it should be in place where there are officers that are literally riding around certain bus areas, not only at the drop-off but even escorting the bus in some ways. Because, you know, just having police presence at major bus stops where you notice large crowds between -- you got it in the Northeast, you have Olney, different areas that you could just like, you know what, let's always just have a police presence, not just at the let-out of the school, but also just during the actual ride so we don't have to worry about safety in that regard? CHIEF LAWSON: So there is a group within the police department that focuses on bus routes and surface transportation. They typically get their assignments because of a number of things. So either operators at the depot level are kind of reporting to us recurring problems on a specific route. And so, that will gain our attention and we'll put cops on those routes. Another way that we deploy those resources is through our Transit Watch app. So getting word to your constituents to use that app repeatedly will generate a pattern for us. We'll see a specific route pop up more frequently for, say, smoking or whatever the problem is, and then we'll focus on that with that specific group.
And that's what I was saying with the marketing. If you put it on a bus, if you repeatedly say something's happening, this will increase our presence, because a lot of people don't know that. They don't know that by having an organized group of people doing something, that doesn't, you know, they just say, oh, SEPTA's not going to do anything, they just deal with it, especially with the smoking and other things that happen on the bus. So I just want you to -- don't wait, be proactive. It's like the speed cushion law. I didn't wait for someone to get hit, you know. We worked with the city on that, Mike Carroll and Carlton Williams and so forth, mostly Carlton. But I just wanted to say we got it done before it happened. So I just want to make sure.
Thank you. Well, we thank you for your time and testimony. You do hear loud and clear that members of Council have an interest in public safety and we support your efforts. So when you grab Lil Man-Man or Lil Tanisha on the side where they smoking weed and they're raising all types of havoc, I don't want nobody inside this body talking about why y'all addressing it that way. I'm for public safety. I'm for when my wife gets on a train and she comes home safely. When my wife gets on the bus, she gets to come home safe. And so, we share that sentiment, but also we can also provide behavioral health services and outreach and wraparound services and support for those who are most in need. But we're your partners though in all seriousness. And whatever we can do to be supportive, I'm sure Wendy will keep us abreast of all things SEPTA as well as she has been doing in terms of how we move forward and be supportive of your efforts. But thank you for your leadership and going. And I've been around for a little bit. I don't think I went to Harrisburg with a General Manager walking through the halls of Harrisburg, working in partnership with the Mayor and members in Council. Well, the first time that members of Council done that, but members of Council to actually advocate together in a unified fashion. I don't remember a General Manager doing that. And so, that's a testament to your leadership of going up there stating the case as to why we need we need permanent funding for mass transportation and specifically SEPTA -- (Applause.)
Permanent, permanent, permanent. And so, whatever that takes for us to get it done, I'm sure we will continue to work in that direction. Council will be at ease until 2:00 p..m. Thank you. (Lunch recess.)
I want to welcome everyone to Philadelphia City Council during our budget hearing process of the Committee of the Whole. Ms. Loughead, could you please call the next panel.
Jane Golden, Executive Director of Mural Arts; and Emily Schapira, President and CEO of Philadelphia Energy Authority. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
Good afternoon. I'm Jane Golden, the Executive Director of the Mural Arts Program, and I'm joined by some esteemed colleagues today. If you could say your name.
Good afternoon. I'm Andre Chaney, and I'm an artist with Mural Arts.
How you doing. My name Sadiq Hawk. I'm a Rec Crew member at Mural Arts.
Well, thank you very much for being here today. Ms. Golden, could you please state your name for the record and please begin your testimony.
Yes. My name is Jane Golden, and I'm the Executive Director of the Mural Arts program, a job I feel very privileged and honored to have. I have remarks, but I wanted to say a few things, just personal things, to City Council before I start, if that's okay with you. So it's hard to believe, but this is my last budget testimony before City Council after so many years. It has been a privilege and an honor to partner with all of you in the service of the city. I just wanted to use a small part of my time upfront to thank you from the bottom of my heart. The partnership we have created is nothing short of extraordinary, and it has served as an inspiration to cities both near and far. Whatever Mural Arts has accomplished in my tenure, it was done in partnership with a really big village. But please know and never forget that an important part of that village is the city, its Mayors, of course, but without a doubt, members of City Council and their beautiful and wonderful and inspiring staff members have helped move our work forward. So on behalf of the Board and this amazing staff, I want to recognize and thank each of you. We honestly could not be who we are and do the depth and breadth of our work without your counsel, your support, your wisdom and your investment. You have truly helped demonstrate the power of art as a public good in these challenging and polarizing times. We need this work more than ever. So I ask you to please stay close to Mural Arts. The village we have built together is strong, and I believe there is a wonderful new chapter to write with your support. And so, now I would like to begin my remarks. So good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. As I said, I'm Jane Golden and I'm joined by my esteemed colleagues today. And I'm pleased to provide testimony on the Fiscal Year 2027 operating budget. For four decades, Mural Arts has partnered with artists and residents and community organizations across Philadelphia to create public art in the shared spaces of our city. Together, we have created more than 4000 murals across every Council District, every Council District, artwork shaped through collaboration and grounded in local histories, experiences and aspirations. In doing so, we've strengthened neighborhood pride. We've helped establish Philadelphia as the mural capital of the world everybody. Can we have a round of applause? (Applause.)
And we've created a powerful way for residents and visitors alike to encounter the city through the voices and vision of its communities. But the murals are only the most visible part of what we do. What people see on the wall is just the surface of something much deeper. Behind every mural are months and months of listening, of conversation, of trust-building. We begin by asking who lives here, what stories are held here, what should be remembered, what deserves to be seen. And then we work together, artists, neighbors, community groups, businesses, city agencies, City Council, to bring those voices into the public space of the city. Yay. For us, this has always been about making sure that anyone, anyone, anyone in any neighborhood can walk out their front door and see something that reflects them. This is what the citizens of Philadelphia truly deserve. And it reminds them, it reminds people that they belong here. The collaborative process is at the heart of everything we do and how we advance Mayor Parker's vision, but also your vision and priorities for Philadelphia. Public safety, education, economic opportunity, education, cleaner, greener neighborhoods, all of it. So I want to start with public safety. We have long believed that safety begins with providing young adults and young people with opportunities, with dignity, with respect, with a chance to be seen and heard. We want to provide them with opportunities so they can start to believe in themselves and what they can become. Through the Guild, our restorative justice workforce program -- can we have a round of applause for restorative justice? (Applause.)
I get so excited. I know that I know this and I see -- like, I talk about it, but I'm always excited. It's, like, odd. I wake up and just am excited. Mural Arts provides people returning from prison and who've been impacted by the criminal justice system with structured work, coaching and support as they rebuild their lives through the Rec Crew -- the Rec Crew, let's hear it. (Applause.)
That work continues in neighborhood recreation centers, and we want to thank the Recreation Parks & Rec Commissioner Susan Slawson. We're working in public spaces where participants work alongside artists to create places that feel cared for, that feel welcoming and full of possibility. Each year these programs serve at least 70 returning citizens and roughly 80% move on to jobs training or education. Yay. With full FY27 support, we can grow this work, deepen employment partnerships and pilot scholarships to help participants broaden their choices and opportunities. Public Safety also depends on whether residents have places where they can participate, contribute and shape community life together. In Tacony, Mural Arts created the Tacony Lab -- (Applause.)
-- as a neighborhood cultural space. See, that's the thing with artists. They see things other people don't. Some people might say, oh, that's an empty business. But we're like, no, we see possibility, and that is so exciting. So the Tacony Lab, it's a neighborhood cultural space where artists and hundreds of residents come together through workshops, exhibitions and shared programming that build civic participation, local pride and a stronger sense of belonging and meaning. Mayor Parker's budget proposal this year talked a lot about economic opportunity, and this is very relevant and exciting to us. Every year Mural Arts employs at least 250 artists. Let's have a round of applause for that. (Applause.)
Attracting and sustaining Philadelphia's creative workforce and investing in the people whose imagination helped shape this city. And I want to thank our Chief Cultural Officer Val Gay, who is here. And through Color Me Back, the city's first program of its kind, the Same Day Work program launched in 2019, it has become a model for many successful programs throughout Philadelphia. We offer same-day work and pay and we're working with people facing housing instability and behavioral health challenges. It's an amazing, inspiring program. And I invite all of you to come visit us. We're underneath a Clothespin, we have a hub there, and in Kensington at K&A. And in particular, I know that we have a member from CEO that's here, and I want to thank them for their invaluable support. Operating from Suburban Station in Kensington, the program engages roughly 450 residents each year for approximately 3200 shifts and distributes more than $250,000 in wages. That's great. But what makes this work so powerful is that it offers -- and, Councilmember Lozada, you have often cited this, that it offers more than a paycheck. For hundreds of people each year, Color Me Back provides a place of welcome, consistency and human connection. So many people are living in isolation, and it seems like something, oh, so obvious, but it doesn't happen all the time. Each shift brings together dignity, creativity and access to support, meeting people where they are and helping them move forward in really concrete and wonderful ways. We also very much believe in young people. And since we started in 1998, we have been really dedicated to art education, art ed. Each year Mural Arts serves more than 2600 young people through free, free arts education and career-connected learning rooted in public projects. Yay. These are young people whose creativity might otherwise have little room to grow in school or after school, and our work helps open that door. Across the city, we see students develop skills around collaboration, critical thinking and form real relationships with practicing artists and employers. The work gives students a voice and a choice. Inevitably, they begin to see themselves differently, not just as students, but as makers, contributors and future leaders of our city. This year 107 teens are participating in Career Connected Learning and paid youth interns 11 are working alongside artists and 12 project managers on neighborhood 13 projects, getting and gaining experience confidence and a stronger sense of what is possible for their own futures. And moving on to a topic we love, cleaner, greener and more beautiful neighborhoods. This is about the daily experience of living in Philadelphia. What does it feel like to walk down a block that is cared for, to see beauty where there once was neglect, and to know that your neighborhood matters. Each year Mural Arts completes between 80 and 100 public art projects, 80 and 100. And when people call us, they think I am speaking for the entire state, not a city. So yay Philly. (Applause.)
We engage roughly 20,000 residents in improving their neighborhoods, we perform more than mural 13 restorations and we carry out 100 14 graffiti remediations. And now, 15 through the gateways to 16 Philadelphia Highway Beautification 17 initiative, we are helping to 18 reshape some of the city's most 19 visible entrances with our great 20 partners at Clean and Green. In fact, if you go on the highway and you go by the CSX wall, you will not believe it. We are shutting down the train and artists are painting in the middle of the night between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning. And people said it could not be done. Just tell us it can't be done and we will do it. (Applause.)
I want to thank Mayor Parker for her leadership in creating this ambitious effort and for including Mural Arts in this important work. And I want to thank my colleague, Director Williams, who I've known for a long time and believes in art. And 2026 is a landmark year and we are featuring 108 new projects. And here are just some of the exciting examples: We're doing a tribute to Philly music legends. We are honoring the Sunra Orchestra, Quest Love, Jesse Bermudez, Celia Cruz. We're doing a tribute to Black dance, celebrating Sidney King and Joan Myers Brown and others. We are celebrating Philadelphia's extraordinary, extraordinary LGBTQ heroes, including Gloria Casarez. And Councilmember Landau, Councilmember Squilla, I don't know where you are but -- there you are. Thank you, thank you for bringing this mural to life and it is so beautiful. The design is just absolutely stunning. And then we are also working with the Tacony Lab and doing Northeast 250, its threads of history. And there will be all these artist-led residencies, events and community flag-making. In FY27, additional investment would allow us to support up to 10 more mural projects requested by community groups, residents and Councilmembers, and it would help us to begin addressing a very large restoration backlog that we have, that we really want to work on because we want our collection to always sing. In fact, in fact, just as a special thing today, we unveiled a design in your district -- oh, and Councilmember Jones, you've both been involved in this. And it is a tribute to the Negro League and the Philadelphia Stars. And we are going to show you that design right now because we think it's good to have an interactive session. So is everybody ready? Here it is. It's at 40th and Parkside. (Applause.)
Everybody, we had a mural there and the mural went away. And what's really nice is that the developer who took the mural away is building a wall in the Memorial Park so the mural is coming back to life. Yay. Whenever murals go away, they should come back to life. Okay. I digress. So anyway, as I -- this is the sad part. As I prepare to step down after four decades of service, I do so with extraordinary gratitude and unwavering confidence in Mural Arts future. The work is upheld by Mural Arts staff. And I just want to say, could people who work at Mural Arts raise their hands? (Applause.)
These are extraordinary people who have such dedication. I feel so lucky to work with them. Amazing artists and community partners and public leaders like you who believe in the power of art to help our city thrive. It has been truly the honor of a lifetime to steward this work in service of making Philadelphia a safer, cleaner, greener city, blanketing neighborhoods all over with art that honors people and stories that make our city strong. I know that shared commitment will carry Mural Arts forward. We are so grateful to all of you, to Mayor Parker and her administration and for the leadership of the Chief Cultural Officer Val Gay and the entire team at Creative Philadelphia. And I want to end with, you know, we had our second mural book. We asked Sonia Sanchez to write a foreword. And instead, what she did was she wrote a haiku and I wanted to read part of it to you. She says, Philadelphia, roots lighting these walls with fireflies, flowers stretched in prayer on a cornerstone wall. Brown-skinned children dancing with butterflies, these children's faces light up the stars. Philadelphia painted with blue hallelujahs. Winter a warrior's face. I hear people singing in an open alley a galaxy of dreams. Common ground is we, forever tasting the earth hands in the green light, always saluting peace. Even in the rain, these murals pause with rainbows. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
And now, my wonderful colleagues here are going to talk briefly about the work and the impact on their lives.
Yeah, they have to be very brief though because we still have another person as well that would like to also give their testimony, the Philadelphia Energy Authority. So please move forward.
Good afternoon. My name is Mike Voight. I've been with Color Me Back for two years. I was connected to the program because of a friend was working on a project in a lot in Kensington called Stop the Risk, Matt Tomesco, who's a program manager and artist with Color Me Back, was doing a mural project there that included putting up fence decorations and making planners. I started working there for a few months and then I went to rehab. When I got out of rehab in June, I went to live at Riverview Wellness. While I was at Riverview, I saw Matt again because he was doing a mural with his floral designs there. He told me to come to work with him again at Color me Back. And because I'm able to leave during the day at Riverview, I've been working as an assistant artist at Color Me Back since then. Mural Arts also paid me to do a workshop series at Riverview. I created a bracelet class and that helped me focus on teaching and setting up a routine. The other people at Riverview constantly stopped to talk to me about the bracelets in the class. I've always loved art, but I never had training in it until I came to work for Color Me Back. The program has given me the life, the ability to aid in my recovery in a positive way. That helps me stay clean. It gives me something to focus on. The art helps me to meditate and puts me at ease. I also love the working environment. Matt is an awesome and great boss. He's very attentive and always listens to people. If I have a problem, I can go to him and talk to him about it. Because of Color Me Back, I've been able to save up money for when I leave Riverview to have my own place. Thank you. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. I'm Nadia Dashell. I came across Color Me Back when I was walking by the studio at Suburban Station. I was working, but it was just a job. It wasn't exciting and not a lot of money. I have always loved doing artwork on my own. And so, I decided to sign up. I've been with the program for two years and I worked my way up to becoming an assistant artist. I've been involved with many projects, including a mural at Esperanza Wellness Center, a mural at Mother of Mercy House, three murals at 5th and Lehigh and a mural with Ukrainian artists that's currently installed on the third floor of City Hall. I'm one of the artists who's been doing community engagement for the Large Heart of Kensington Creates project that we're doing on the SEPTA El Line in Kensington. And I will be an assistant on three murals we're installing in Frankford this summer. I've also been through the muralist training program that's offered by Mural Arts. The biggest change I've seen in myself with Color Me Back is that I've gotten out of my comfort zone. I've worked on projects in all different kinds of conditions and I've built a certain resilience. I've been able to adapt to new environments and new people. I've also been able to share my knowledge and taken knowledge from other people around me. My plan was always to do art on the side and I never thought I could make it my career. Now, I'm an assistant artist actively working on murals throughout the city. The people in the program are also like a family to me now, and I don't think I would have met most of them if I wasn't in this program. Thank you. (Applause.)
My experience with Mural Arts leads me to think even now this isn't just an audience, it's a community, a community of artists, mentors and people who believe in second chances. Being here today matters because this program didn't just give me a space to create. It gave me a place to grow. The art showed me that this isn't just painting on walls. It's progress, it's storytelling, it's emotion and it's healing. I learned that creativity, no matter what form it takes, can be a path to growth and new beginnings. Mural Arts reminded me that we are more than our mistakes, that real change doesn't come from judgment. It comes from support. Mural Arts also didn't teach me -- I'm sorry, Mural Arts also didn't teach me about just artistic skills. It taught me about accountability, it taught me about reflection and it taught me a lot about my community. I learned that restorative justice isn't just about punishment. It's about rebuilding. It's about rebuilding confidence, rebuilding trust and rebuilding ourselves. I see the importance. I see the value in all my peers here. We support each other and we all learn from each other as well. I just want to give a special shout- out to everybody that's here supporting everyone. (Applause.)
Excuse me real quick. Young man, can you just state your name for the record for the stenographer please.
I just wanted to say that my desire and passion to be an artist is what brought me back home, but Mural Arts is what kept me home. And what I mean by that is that ever since I was a kid when my imagination was at its most wildest, I always had aspirations and dreams of being an architect, a graphic designer, illustrator. And unfortunately, growing up I felt that in the school systems, because art was taken out, it wasn't a feasible career choice. And so, what wound up happening is when I had the choice to go to college, I left and I felt like a stranger in Moscow when I was in a different state, because it didn't have what Philadelphia has to offer. And I also feel like if you want to make it anywhere, you got to make it at home first. So I started doing my research on what Philadelphia had to offer and I found Mural Arts. And when I found Mural Arts, I came back home and I began to engage with Mural Arts. And I didn't just get access to projects. I got access to a community ecosystem, a place where I could define and also refine my artistic voice and abilities. And I have to say that since then, I'm doing pretty good. I can't lie. (Applause.)
With that said, what I'm also ultimately saying is that if we choose not to invest in Mural Arts, what we're ultimately saying is that the people who put their life and their voice on the line and continue to do their own form of advocacy and depict what's going on in our city and push our city forward by way of art, ultimately it'll be a disaster. My last point -- I'll speed it up -- is that the first thing that you learn in art history is that you know about the painting in the caves of Lascaux, which is some of the earliest depictions of art in art history. I feel like Philadelphia is a new cave of Lascaux, not because we're just the mural capital, but because we're truly telling stories that push everything forward. So I feel like we have to invest and overinvest to calculate for inflation and things like that, to ensure that that young kid that's about to make the decision on whether or not they can stay here and not leave, they'll choose to stay because they know that the city also backs initiatives like Mural Arts, which is extremely important. And it's just the right thing to do. So thank you. That's my testimony. (Applause.)
Can we give all of our young people that testified, let's give them a big round of applause. (Applause.)
It is not easy to come up to that podium and provide testimony in public with all of these strangers sitting here listening to you. And so, it takes a bit of courage to be at that table. So thank you. And to the gentleman in the back who's in recovery who talked about how art is therapy, yes, art is therapy, art is healing. Continue to keep doing a great job. I just want you to know that as well. (Applause.)
I'm going to ask Emily Schapira to give her testimony and then we'll allow questions from members of Council to address the Mural Arts program as well as Philadelphia Energy Authority at the same time.
You can stay up there, but Emily Schapira is going to join you on the side.
Emily, just state your name for the record and please begin.
Sure. Good afternoon, Council President Johnson, members of Council. I'm Emily Schapira, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Energy Authority or PEA. I am so proud and honored to be here today in Council chambers with Mural Arts program who has been such an inspiration to us over the years. So glad to share this table today. I'm going to share a shortened version of the testimony I submitted in writing and happy to have any questions today. PEA, as you know is an independent municipal authority advancing projects that deliver on the city's most urgent priorities, lower bills, stronger infrastructure, safer neighborhoods and quality jobs. In Philadelphia, clean energy is not just one thing, it's everything. Since 2016, under the banner of the 10 Year Philadelphia Energy campaign, PEA has driven $1.3 billion in investment, creating nearly 11,000 jobs, exceeding the ambitious goal we initially set out to reach. We recently conducted a full economic analysis to assess the complete impact of our work over the last decade and the return on the city's investment in PEA. And I'm really excited to share this with you today. This is the first time we're releasing these numbers. First, the benefit in municipal tax dollars. The city's invested $14.7 million in PEA's annual budget since 2016. In that same period, our work generated over $25.3 million in city taxes. So I'll repeat that, the $14.7 million that you've invested in PEA over the last 10 years produce $25.3 million in combined personal income, sales and business taxes to fund city government. (Applause.)
Second, for every $1 of city investment in PEA, we've spurred $90 of local investment in Clean Energy projects and programs, so a 90x return. 4 billion across Pennsylvania. So what has this investment meant to actual Philadelphians? I'll give you a few examples. 3 10 billion of investment and 11,000 jobs represent the 427 households served by Built to Last so far, who have had their generational wealth preserved, utility bills slashed and health improved through Whole Home Repairs. It represents the nearly 4400 households, over half of whom are low- and moderate- income, who are generating clean, long-term, affordable electricity on their roofs through Solarized Greater Philadelphia. It represents the nearly 130,000 brand new, long-lasting and highly-efficient LED streetlights that save money and make every corner of the city safer at night. It represents the 118 Philadelphians that graduated from our Green Retrofit Immersive Training or GRIT program, and the 224 individuals we connected to clean energy jobs with employers like PECO, PGW and Solar States through our Good Jobs Challenge grant with Philadelphia Works and others. It represents the 14,503 students that attend the public 16 schools that have been retrofitted 17 using the Guaranteed Energy Savings 18 Act to be more comfortable, 19 healthier learning environments, 20 and it represents the nine small- 21 and medium-sized local plumbing 22 companies hired by the Water and 23 Sewer Service Line Protection Program who have grown their businesses to serve critical residential infrastructure for the nearly 90,000 Philadelphia households enrolled in the program citywide. That program has saved consumers $90 million in repairs, and over 70% of all claims were served by minority-owned firms. We are incredibly proud of these achievements and so many more. PEA's work in '26 and '27 supports the priorities of the Parker Administration to make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest city with access to economic opportunity for all and also meets the priorities of City Council to use the tax dollars of hard-working Philadelphians in the most thoughtful, impactful ways to the benefit of all. We learned that we don't need energy to be at the top of the priority list. We fit easily into the day-to-day and strategic priorities of both branches of government. As we focus on the next decade of work for PEA, we plan to scale up, grow this work to be bigger, better and more. For FY27, PEA is requesting a total budget allocation of $4 million. 3 million for PEA. We've demonstrated our ability to turn investment in PEA into economic benefit for the city and all Philadelphians, and we ask for your support to scale and accelerate our work. I want to just take one second to explain why city funding is so important for us. It's a critical piece of the puzzle. PEA has shown proof of concept through nationally-recognized programs like Built to Last and Solarize, and we use the success of those programs to attract new funding to Philadelphia. We rely on much more than just city funding. Our total FY27 budget from all sources is more than $14 million, but city funding is what allows us to develop the next iteration of big projects and effective programs and stabilize our staffing infrastructure to scale up programs that work. E. Initiative and pitch to bigger funders. It helps us speed up our pipeline of city energy and capital projects as well. City funding also helps us provide technical support to elected officials, regulators and others to navigate the complex and systemic energy issues we're facing, especially in an environment where data center growth and geopolitics are causing an unsustainable increase in energy costs for every Philadelphian and for even city government as well. PEA needs the stability to do what it's designed to do as an authority work across departments and capital cycles to improve energy infrastructure and stabilize our costs.
We will continue to return every dollar invested and more. 3 million amount, we will be challenged to maintain our staff, much less to strategically expand our capacity to meet the moment. To conclude, this body has a million hard decisions to make when it comes to the budget, and this should not be one of them. We've done what we said we would do and there is more work to be done. We've taken the investment made in us and grown the pie exponentially. We've been frugal, grown responsibly, established our own program funding and have aggressively sought philanthropic and other dollars to ensure that we can deliver for the people of Philadelphia. Since I joined PEA staff 10 years ago, 10 years ago now, we've worked hard to build a reputation of being an effective, strategic organization that delivers. I hope our strong track record of success and the overwhelming support of partners, stakeholders and community members lends credibility to our request, and I hope we can count on your support this year. Thank you so much for the time today. )
Thank you. Before I turn it over to my members, I just want to say it is truly an honor and also a bittersweet moment because I've had the opportunity to work with Ms. Jane Golden over the last 20-plus years in some capacity. I first met Jane Golden when I was part of a program called City Year and they had a Mural Arts team. And I remember you asked some people that wanted to be a part of the Mural Arts team and other people that wanted to be a part of other teams where you saw an immediate impact from the work that you would do. We had the Habitat for Humanity team where you would go and build houses. We had another team where teams were in schools working with children. But when you're doing a mural, that's a process within itself. And I remember talking to the Corps members at that time, I was a project manager, really encouraging them to be a part of Mural Arts team, because murals can transform the lives of individuals, right, especially a lot of people that come from Black and Brown neighborhoods that are looking for hope. You may say, well, what do you mean. There's some murals in parts of the city where you might see an image of an individual that you may not normally see, rather that's a lawyer, rather that's a doctor. In my neighborhood of Point Breeze, I remember we had a mural of an astronaut on the corner of 18th and Reed as a part of a mural that was inside of a neighborhood garden, right, or in Southwest Philadelphia off of 53rd and Greenway, there's a major mural the Tuskegee Airmen, right, which also will inspire young people to dream beyond their local neighborhood, and that's the work that Mural Arts has been doing throughout the City of Philadelphia, but also Jane Golden, with her leadership, her passion and her infectious attitude, right, and energy, which she brings to this position really is going to make it harder for the next person who has to fill her shoes. And so, it's truly an honor and a privilege to have this opportunity to work with you and we're going to keep you around as long as we can. We know you're not going to go too far, but you're an icon and I'd like to say an actual institution to the City of Philadelphia, because you have transformed murals and taken our city to the next level. And beyond murals, you also got involved in social justice by helping individuals who deserve a second chance. And so, I'm going to ask for all my colleagues and everyone, can we stand up and give her a round of applause please? (Applause.)
We appreciate you, Jane. We appreciate all your hard work and all your dedication. I didn't even talk about the work you do up at Phoenix Prison. Most people may or may not know, helping prisoners find a sense of hope or when you took them to the Barnes Foundation, where normally the Barnes is for the che-che folks, right. And Jane thought it not robbery to make sure we open it up for individuals who deserve a second chance of trying to get their lives together. And could you imagine somebody that's incarcerated saying, my artwork is in the Barnes, Barnes Museum. And so, that's the type of work that you do in terms of your leadership. And so, I'm going to take this moment to begin having my members acknowledge you and ask questions of the Mural Arts program. I'm starting off with Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke and Councilmember Jamie Gauthier.
Thank you, Mr. President, and echo all the sentiments that you shared as it relates to the great impact of Jane Golden and all that has been done. Jumping right into it. I was excited to hear about the $790,000 that's being allocated to Mural Arts as a part of the Mayor's Gateway Project to beautify the highways, Philadelphia's highways, prior to this summer. At the same time it struck me, upon considering the highways being beautified, that SEPTA could equally use that same kind of facelift along the transit stops and along those tracks, especially considering how many international tourists will be relying on public transit instead of cars. So obviously, that's smart for '26, but we are a world- class city and this will not be the only year, it hasn't been the first and it certainly won't be the last, that we welcome the world into our city gates. So if this body were to allocate a similar amount for beautification of SEPTA's infrastructure, would Mural Arts be prepared to use that funding? And if so, how far could that money go? How many murals could we create? How many of the Color Me Back same- day-work-and-pay opportunities could there possibly be, etc., so on and so forth?
Sure. Thank you. Thank you for that question, Councilmember. So I want to say that Color Me Back really got its start partnering with SEPTA, and the early work was in the concourse right under the Clothespin. And it struck us at the time that that was really important because some of the people that we were working with actually were in the concourse and saw us there and signed up for Color Me Back, and that sort of was transformational. But then it's also, how do you change individuals but also impact the built environment of our city, and one mirrors the other. And so, during COVID we worked and did these columns that are just so beautiful. And right underneath the Clothespin there are a couple new murals. And we're working with SEPTA and other places, but it would be a dream to be able to mobilize the talents and the energy and the passion and dedication of Color Me Back to transform stations along the El. I mean, for us that is a dream scenario. And I just want to turn it over to my colleague Nadia Malik, who runs our extraordinary Porch Light Program. Nadia Malik, would you come -- (Applause.)
Nadia Malik. I'm the Director of the Porch Light Department, which is our partnership with Department of Behavior Health -
Could you say your name for the record please?
And thank you for the question. So right now we're actually going through the approval process with SEPTA in Kensington. We are doing a project with Councilwoman Lozada's office doing what we're calling Gussets. If you don't know, gussets are the little triangles that are on the El line. If you look at the El line, the poles, there's a little corner of the poles. We are doing 400 of those with the residents of Kensington. SEPTA is going through its approval process to allow us to install 400 of those pieces made directly by Kensington residents, all up and down between Tioga and Lehigh. So all the little -- not all the little stops, but the stops that don't have the little gussets that don't have any electricity issues, we're going to have them up and down the El. We figured if that goes through the approval process, people are going to ask for those in other parts of the city. So I think those are pretty economically easy to do and it is so community engaged. Because again, people are directly painting those. It's a small piece, so people can directly do those. But as Jane was mentioning too, we have been able to mobilize in the stations throughout the city. So we have obviously worked in Suburban Station. We are asking for permission in Kensington right now for the Allegheny Station and for Tioga, for the walls that are at those stops. So, yeah, it would be amazing. And like Jane mentioned, the folks in Color Me Back, they call the Suburban Station space their home, right. They lived there, they slept there. The other stops, the SEPTA stations are home to people. So if we can be an asset of recruiting those folks to kind of beautify the spaces that they called home and hopefully find new homes for them. Then I think it would be an amazing asset. But also, again engaging directly with communities so they can see their own work along the El, I think would just be an amazing, amazing project.
I agree. I agree. Duly noted. Let me shift hard to PEA, if you don't mind. Can you give us an update -- and good afternoon to you. Thank you for being here as well. Can you give us an update on how PEA is deploying home funding in the Built to Last program? I'm sure I'm not the only member of this body who is very interested in the continual support of getting more of those homes off the waitlist. Can you speak to that?
Sure. Well, thank you so much for that question, Councilmember. Funds just started flowing. So we are just beginning to layer H.O.M.E. funding into our projects that are ongoing. We've committed to a minimum of 267 new homes that will be taken off our waitlist. Our current waitlist is 4767 homes. It continues to grow. There is a never-ending need for funding for this. So we are looking everywhere and reaching out to all sorts of new funders, but we are moving forward with the H.O.M.E. funding. Now we're excited that that's moving. It really highlights the importance of this operating budget that we're asking for. We need to be able to build the staffing and the sort of prework that it takes to deploy those H.O.M.E. funds quickly. We got $8.25 million thanks to the support of this body in the first year for H.O.M.E. funding. So we have to deploy quickly and make sure that we scale the program up in the ways it needs to. That's going to require full staff members even though H.O.M.E. won't pay for full staff members. So that's part of the reason why fully funding the operating budget request is so critical. Secondly, we expect that we'll be able to do more than those 267 homes with it, pending other grants and other federal funding and other types of funding that our partners have. So we'll update you on those numbers as soon as we have them. We've currently completed 427 homes. We have 270 more that are in construction right now with other funding that's not H.O.M.E. funding, and then we'll add this additional 267, so we'll be at a little over 900 homes with this H.O.M.E. funding.
Yes, sir. I see that you all are running another cohort of green construction training. Can you tell us how PA is helping to train and connect Philadelphians with good jobs and clean energy? I think it's important to get that on the record, given the climate around an attitude towards green energy these days.
Absolutely. A lot has changed at the federal government in the last couple of years. And so, that has impacted the clean energy industries. However, the technology continues to move. There are still some tax credits available. I'm sure you all are hearing in your districts the increasing demand to cite data centers and the needs of PECO and others to make sure that we have actually enough power to power the needs coming up. We're seeing these huge investments at the port and other places and all of that needs power. And so, that really has kept the demand high in Philadelphia. We are perfectly located and a strategic market for almost all of these industries. So we continue to do our own training a little bit through the energy coordinating agency, through our GRIT program. We've graduated almost 120 people from that program. We're also closing up the three-year Good Jobs Challenge Grant with Philly Works, where we placed I think almost 230 people into clean energy jobs. And we continue to fund and partner with dozens of other organizations across the region and in Philadelphia who are doing all different kinds of trading, whether it's the construction work that's needed to do real energy-efficiency work or whether it's things like solar battery installation, manufacturing, electric vehicle charging infrastructure installation, so we've got sort of a full gamut. We're also restarting our CTE program at the school district hopefully this fall, and they're just hiring a teacher right now, so we'll be excited to continue that training. And I'll just say this really quickly. We hear from the industry all the time that there is not enough labor. There's a labor shortage in construction and clean energy. And at the same time, we have an unemployment rate among young Black men in Philadelphia that is two to three times the citywide average almost all the time, regardless of the economy. And so, if we can be connecting the dots here, that saves everyone. That helps the industry with the problem that they're designing. And you've got eager young people that want to do this work. So that's what we've been working to do and we've seen --
That was a great ending to that question. Awesome. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Mike Driscoll.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon to both of you. My questions are for PEA, but I wanted to start by saying, Jane, you are one of the most powerful, impressive advocates I've ever had the opportunity to watch and work alongside, and I just want to thank you for everything that you've done for our communities and our city at-large, and you have made us endlessly proud. In fact, myself, Minority Leader Kendra Brooks and Minority Whip Nicolas O'Rourke, we were just in Seattle for a housing conference. And although there are some things to envy in Seattle, like their investment in their public transit system, murals are not a thing that we were envying. In fact, we saw their murals and we were kind of like our murals are so much better. And so, you make us proud and we have the ability to go other places and talk about and know what a fantastic job Mural Arts does here and what a gift you've been to our neighborhoods and our city. So thank you so very much.
My questions are actually for PEA. Each year during budget season, and today is no exception to that, we hear about PEA's effectiveness, your competence. We hear about how much revenue you bring to the city. We hear about the multiplier effect when we give you money and how much money you're able to multiply it to bring to your programs. We hear about amazing projects like the Philly Streetlight Improvement Project, buying solar farms for the city, Built to Last, job creation, all of it, right. And we know how much funding PEA needs to achieve this goal or these goals rather, but every single year the budget that the Administration presents to us cuts PEA's funding back to a baseline of about $1.5 million, harming the agency's ability to function effectively or plan long- term. And so, this is actually a question for Sabrina Maynard and Rob Dubow, but I'll just get it on record. I want to know what the logic is behind the Administration's decision each year to try and cut PEA's budget in the budget proposal? And I also want to know how this improves PEA's operations, how it sets the agency up for success and how it adds to the Administration's goals to achieve 30,000 housing units and to be the cleanest, greenest city in the country. So I'll just put that on record and hope that we hear back. And then for you, Emily, I wanted to hear more specifically how does this dance that we do every single year where Council is essentially asked to cut your budget, how does that harm your ability to carry out and grow key programs? I know you've talked about that a little bit, but I wanted you to expound.
Thank you so much for that question. It causes a delay essentially. So every year we kind of wait through the first half of the year to conserve as much as we can, kind of take things a little bit slow, see where we end up, see what we can ask for and where the Mayor is going to land. We do participate in the Administration's budget process, but have not -- that hasn't changed anything. We're not part of the five year plan -- or we are part of the five year plan, at 1.3 million. We're not able to be considered for additional funds at any point in that process. So it certainly slows things down. And I'll just give one example. We're working on a project right now with the Water Department and PGW. If you ever drive up 95 and you see the flame that's kind of coming up from the side of the road, that's the Water Department flaring biogas. So it's the byproduct that comes out of the sewage treatment process. That can be used in the plant for energy and sort of offset what they have to take from PGW. PGW could also be using that as a clean source of fuel to continue to make Philadelphia a reliable place for natural gas and we're just wasting it, and that's bad for the environment, bad for everybody, bad for the Water Department. We've been working on this project for years and it's kind of been slow and steady because we haven't had the resources to be able to staff it fully. And these are the kinds of things that happen when we're sort of funded at the minimum amount from the Administration.
Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for doing hard and good work even in an environment that's not optimal. You are an agency that carries more than your weight, right. You are multiplying benefit throughout the neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia, and I just hope that this is something that we can stop doing every year. I'm fighting to get you a budget that allows you to do your proven and impactful work. And so, hopefully Council will be able to get you the dollars you need, but I hope next year that we're looking at a different budget proposal. Thank you so much. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Mike Driscoll.
Thank you, Mr. President. Welcome ladies. Council has been -- not everybody in your chairs the last couple weeks has been as warmly welcomed as you two, and much richly deserved. Emily, I just want to point out, just as Councilwoman Gauthier says, we got to figure out you getting in the budget, just like we got to get Tacony Lab in the budget. I mean, the return on investment is there. It's proven. In our negotiations, Council President, I think we need to make that clear to the Administration that, you know, it's well worth the investment, Emily. So thank you for what you do. And, Jane, I'm excited that all the visitors are going to come from around the world are going to see the beautiful work of your team in the next couple of months and I'm sure they're going to be thrilled at the work product that you've produced. And thank you for that and thank you for all you've done. Just want to get back to the Tacony Lab. For me, it's a wonderful thing for that neighborhood and for the children in that neighborhood. But from your perspective, what do you think the impact of the Tacony Lab is?
I think for -- I think we share a lot in common because our budget is -- it's proposed at 3.7. And last year, because of Council, it went up to 5.2 and we've been working with that number. And so, if we were to go back to 3.7, we'd lose things. We would lose staff, programs, invaluable programs. And like the Tacony Lab and what I think about the Tacony Lab is just it's this relatively small investment for something that has become a beacon. I mean, honestly if I had a magic wand or if I were a funder, I only wish, we would have Tacony Labs in every Council District of the city, because the places like Tacony are miles, miles from any anchor arts institution. I mean, it's great that we're in a city with world-class museums. That's great, but not everybody goes there. So how do we bring art to people. And so, Tacony Lab is the quintessential multi-tasker, you know, programs for seniors, for kids, free programming. It's a maker space. It's got residency programs. It's like a beacon. And I can't even imagine -- if you were to tell people in Tacony that the Tacony Lab was going away, I think they would find it unfathomable. And so, it is the wisest of investments. Because Emily, like what you're saying, it is not a lot of money for a huge impact. Thousands of people are coming through those doors. And why shouldn't that happen in a city like Philadelphia, the birthplace of democracy. Someone once said that Mural Arts was the visualization of democracy, because people actually have a say over what is in their neighborhood and I applauded them for that statement, and we need to stand on that and believe in it and take it to the bank. And Tacony Lab is a wonderful example of it and I cannot thank you enough for your support.
We're going to keep fighting for it. Kudos to you, Barb Bower and your entire team. Well done. (Applause.)
I visited the Tacony Lab too. So Councilmember Driscoll is doing a great job. I know it's something near and dear to his heart. So great program. Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, then Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you both for the work that you do. I've been fortunate to be able to work very closely with speaking --
Can you speak into the microphone a little bit more.
Okay. I'm sorry. I've been fortunate to be able to work with Jane and your arts on transforming different parts of the neighborhood. And one thing I think is clear is that we can't agree on a lot of things sometimes in the neighborhood, right. But when we talk about art, when we talk about beautification, when we talk about partnering with stakeholders like Mural Arts, everyone is always on board and everyone says yes, and that speaks volumes about not just your leadership, Jane, but also about the leadership and the artists that are involved in Mural Arts. And so, thank you so much to all of you for your willingness to work in the 7th Council District, particularly through the Heart of Kensington Creates Initiative that is going to bring I think to life an entire corridor that for a really long time has had challenges. I'm really excited to see that come to life. Jane, can you talk a little bit about the Heart of Kensington Creates? What is the work? Who was involved? How was the engagement process working directly with multiple neighborhoods within that Kensington corridor? And what do you believe the impact will be once it's complete?
Well, first I want to start with huge gratitude to you for believing in us and believing in the power of public art. I remember the day you talked to me about it and I almost fainted, because I was so excited and just my gratitude knows no 10 bounds. So I just want to start with that. And it has been just a thrill, and I'm going to tag team with Nadia. Maybe you want to come back up and we can be a little team here. So we're partnering with Impact Services. What a great organization. And we are bringing lots of residents together. And what was so interesting, Councilmember, I remember the first meeting and you were there, you could see that it was a big group of people that don't necessarily agree on things, just what you said, but everyone could agree about public art and how much they wanted it, and that's why this Gusset project along the EL, everybody loved it. We could work with homebound people. We can work in hospitals. We can work with children. We could work in schools. Everybody can design a little part of it. And then there's going to be 12 major murals and we are also able to regrant to small galleries and work with a lot of local artists. So really it's like a platform for true expression to flourish. It's phenomenal. It is a phenomenal project and we're going to have a big arts festival and tours. I'm just get so excited I could leap out of this chair. Nadia, what would you like to add?
Nadia Malik. So as Jane mentioned, we're doing murals. And then with the 4 Esperanza Health Center, we are 5 starting this Thursday, tomorrow. 6 We're doing monthly engagement so 7 that anyone who wants to work with 8 the artists, they can come in and 9 work, but Mat Tomesko, who is the 10 artist on the Gusset Project. Our 11 goal was to have 400 individual 12 little triangles made directly from the community. We're at about 350 at this point. So you can tell we've done a lot of engagement throughout the community. As Jane mentioned, Impact is an amazing partner. We just spent -- Matt spent a week at Memphis Street Academy, so it's a bunch of kids there that made their little paintings that are going to go up and down the El. And then the 12 muralists, I believe Ricky is the project manager on this and I think he can give us that information. But I believe at least half of the artists that we picked are from -- more than half are from Philadelphia and have connections to Kensington. So I know two of the artists have studios in Kensington, but the main goal of this project is all of those artists will be listening directly to the community and we purposely picked 12 spaces that are up and down Kensington Avenue. So as you mentioned, the little neighborhoods make up the larger neighborhood. They all have their own say. They all have their own idea of the neighborhood. So each neighborhood, each part of the neighborhood can have a different mural that is their say. So we'll be rolling out that engagement next week. We'll be giving people a calendar of here's how you can meet the artists. And the artists are very clear that this is very community- focused, right. This is not a project where you can't not hear from the community. We obviously want the artists to express themselves. They are amazing, beautiful artists. They have their creativity. But this is we want to hear from the community and then put that out there publicly.
And also, we'll have tours moving forward too. Every year there'll be tours going to this part of the city.
Okay. Thank you. Can you share the Affirmations Avenue Project? What do you believe the impact will be on not just the neighbors that are there, but on folks that are traveling through the neighborhood? What would the Affirmation Avenue Projects say to them?
Well, I think that Affirmation Avenue is so interesting and it's our hope that we can take it to some other parts of the city, that it's really about the history of the community and identity of the community and how the community sees themselves. And it's really just an interesting way of creating public art that it's like a street sign and not on a wall. So it sort of takes people like, oh, look at that. So I'm hoping that people can see their lives reflected back to them in ways that people understand. I think one of the wonderful things that I know I'm biased about public art is I think it gives people the dignity and respect they truly deserve and it lifts up our history. It talks about our memory. It deals with where we're from and that's what Affirmation Avenue does. So I'm hoping that that's just their little anchor points along the way that people walking will say, what does that sign say, what does this say and learn more about the community as they're also looking at the big, bold, beautiful murals. So the two artists that lead Affirmation Avenue, they are public school teachers, are part of the public school. And so, they do a lot of their work based on research as well. So in Kensington every neighborhood that they go to, they look at the lost Black history in that neighborhood. And in Kensington, a lot of that was AfroCaribbean history as well. So they've done an amazing job of focusing on history that people might not know about the neighborhood either. And so, I think it's great that people see those signs, gives them a little nudge to be like, oh, I didn't know that, maybe I can do some more research. But again, they're talking directly to people in the neighborhood who represent that Afro-Caribbean history as well.
Awesome. Thank you. I'm excited about that. And then one question for EPA. You all referred to a study that was conducted by the University of Pennsylvania where you talk a lot about how streetlighting can improve or reduce crime. Can you share with us how many light structures you've actually been able to change? Do you have that information by Council District? And if there have been any challenges that you've experienced and all of that good stuff?
Yeah, thanks for that question. So the Philadelphia Streetlight Improvement Project touched every single streetlight citywide, including all of the alleyway lights as well. We had Future Track clearing debris and trash from 1800 alleyways citywide. We replaced 125,305 fixtures and we're just finishing the punchlist now, so we've got a couple more to go but almost done. The project was delivered on time and on budget. It employed hundreds of people. We had incredible diverse participation on that project. We had 47% MBEs, 22% WBEs. We surpassed our projected 58% participation rate. It was about a $92 million project. It pays for itself in just over years, with 5 $8 million of savings annually to 6 the city. 7 And we do have the 8 numbers by Council District. In 9 the 7th we replaced 12,317 10 fixtures. I think that's all of them and happy to share those numbers with the rest of Council as well. And I'll just mention --
I'm sorry. And in the 7th, have all of the pictures been completely changed?
99.5%. We've celebrated. It's done, but there's just a little bit of a punch list. There were a few fixtures or a few poles where PECO needed to come in and do some maintenance first before we could replace it or something like that. We had a set of fixtures as well for Commerce Street and a couple of others where it was a different kind of fixture and the manufacturing plant took longer than we hoped, but it's almost entirely complete.
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Council President.
Thank you very much. Councilmembers Rue Landau, Jim Harrity, Nina Ahmad and Mark Squilla.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you both for being here and thanks for bringing your teams. You guys are wonderful for all of the work that you do in Philadelphia. I want to tell you that I too am struck by this power duo here of agencies that seemingly do completely different things, yet there is so much overlap. You both provide incredible job training programs to people who need them to provide employment and stability for households. You transform neighborhoods, both collectively large neighborhood transformation, but also individually in houses. You are absolutely our leaders in the return on investment and you tell us every single year that the more money we allocate to you, the more that comes back in Philadelphia in so many different ways. You are both so positive and will just continue to work if we give you more, that all you keep thinking is that good things can happen in Philadelphia and that you will not hear no for an answer, and your creativity and your ingenuity is just so inspiring. We have spent weeks, and a couple of years for some of us and many more years for the rest of us, of hearing other parts of city departments and agencies not be able to answer questions as clearly, not be able to tell us what happened to the money last year, not be able to tell us why a project wasn't finished. And it is so wonderful to hear what you two bring to the table and your organizations and your teams and so frustrating as well for the larger picture, which is not your problem. It is ours. But I got to tell you the contrast is huge. So I hope that doesn't buy into my time. But I just wanted to say that. Jane, you are amazing. You have transformed our city. You have added color and light and beauty everywhere. We know you're not really going anywhere, but thank you and thank you for bringing this team and building your team. You guys are an incredible force and we just know we just got to give you more and more and more. So at the fear that I'm only going to have one chance, I'm going to go two questions for Mural Arts and two questions for PEA. But my first structural question for Mural Arts has to do with the fact that you said there's 195 murals that require restoration or conservation. What is the estimated cost to address this backlog? And what risk do we face financially and culturally if restoration is deferred?
Well, I'd say restorations can go from a couple thousand to much more. I mean, the problem in Philly, it's just what it is, it's old architecture, so you don't know if they're leaks and if there's bad flashing and sometimes stucco pulls off and collections age, they just do. I got my start in Los Angeles. And at the time, LA was the center of the mural universe. And many years later I had moved here, it was early Mural Arts. And I got a call from the LA Times and they said, you know, murals in LA are going away. And I was like, what, that seems confounding to me. And they said, well, the city program, they lost their funding, so the graffiti abatement teams, the murals got graffiti, they just take them away or the murals are fading and they take them away. And these were brilliantly-painted murals. And I just thought to myself, oh, we can never let that happen in Philadelphia. And fast-forward, all these years we are known internationally as the city of murals. People come here from all over the place. I mean, over the last month I can't tell you how many people have stopped me and said, I moved to Philadelphia because of the murals, so we want to maintain them. The money that we're asking for, the 1.9 million that we really need, is because of restoration because it's such a little sliver that we have now. It really just doesn't go that far. And believe me, we stretch it really far. But I feel like we've tried everything to raise private money for restoration and mostly we failed, because people want to give money to new things or to programs and people just take it for granted, oh, the collection is just always going to be great, but the answer is, no, it won't. And we just need to make sure that we're always on a mission to maintain that collection. Because it's not just about beauty. It speaks to our lives.
Thank you. Second Mural Arts question is, after four decades of your leadership at Mural Arts, what steps are being taken to ensure institutional stability, continuity of artists, relationships and long- term sustainability?
Yeah. Thank you for that question. Well, I feel like we have an extraordinary staff. And for the last number of years, I've been thinking a lot about the next generation of leadership. And we have our COO Lisa Murch, our Chief Advancement Officer, Aviva Kapust, and the executive team, and Aviva and Lisa will be carrying on. We have an incredible leadership team, the directors of our departments. You met Nadia, Damon is here, Michelle, Phil Asbury from Community Murals. Here are people that absolutely love the work and are dedicated to our city and I have no doubt that they will be extraordinary stewards of all that Mural Arts does. And I think all you can really do is to make sure that people are in place so that you feel that the service delivery and all we do will be uninterrupted. And I feel very confident that that is the case.
Excellent. Thank you. Two quickies for PEA. I promise not to come back --