It was dark, too. It made me appreciate. So, you know, we're not going to let these cuts happen. So not going to happen.
So to the President's point, we have to defend your riders and we will do so vigorously. We love Wendy, but that ain't going to be enough to stop us. SEPTA GM
Thank you. So I guess as we go into our next round. I got you, sir. Council -- well, Councilmember Thomas.
Good afternoon. I'm trying to go -- I'm going to go rapid fire. A couple questions. Have you talked about the economic impact on um the entire region so have we -- have we communicated how much revenue we expect the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to lose if some of the recommendations from the governor are not adopted. And what is that specific amount? SEPTA GM
So yes we have and we have an economic impact analysis that is on our website currently. We're sharing that with everybody. And what this -- what it costs in tax revenues alone is about $675 million.
So we would -- the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would lose about $675 million in tax revenue? SEPTA GM
That's right. And that's direct tax revenue, this doesn't mean that has property tax loss and all the other things.
Council President recommended earlier that you go to Harrisburg yourself. Your thoughts on that? SEPTA GM
I -- absolutely -- I've already been three times. I got three more trips coming in the next couple weeks. So, yes, I have a place in Harrisburg now, yes.
I'll volunteer to go up there with you one day as well, so you're not going by yourself, so you can see members from Philadelphia. And I bet other members of City Council would also volunteer to go out with you, as well as advocates. I would recommend that we make it an entire Philadelphia initiative. I think what Council President -- it's important that they see you early and often, but I do want to volunteer to make sure that you have support systems and people have your back, so I'll put myself in that category. There's been a lot of advocacy on social media, but SEPTA's website, SEPTA's social media pages are not necessarily as active as say some of the Councilmembers who rode in the L in today. Are there any plans, yes or no, to improve SEPTA's social media presence to help improve your advocacy efforts? SEPTA GM
Yeah. I mean our entire communications effort is -- is improving. We -- we -- I think the effort we've made thus far has been -- has been yoeman's work. This has been our concentration, so yes, but we do have to do more on social.
When I get on the train or the L and my bus is late or my train is late, or even if it's not going to come, is there a way that I can just go to SEPTA's social media page to be able to get an update on what's happening with my particular means of transportation? SEPTA GM
Yeah, the social media page will help you in certain ways. But if you want specific information about your specific bus or your specific train, the app is the best bet. We you can actually track the movement of the vehicle as it arrives to you.
So the reason that we need the social media page is because we're going to have a lot of people coming to Philadelphia. And you have a lot of corny people like me who just don't download apps. I don't download apps. I don't have Uber or any of those type of apps on my phone. I'm not an app person. So you can't expect people to adjust to you. We have to meet people where they are. So I'm going to ask that we find a way to allow social media to provide the same updates that apps do. My last thing I want to say thank you to you, a special thank you to Wendy, the entire team at SEPTA. We appreciate you participating in the 2020 hearing, as well as the other work that you do. SEPTA -- two questions and I won't come back for a second round. SEPTA, as far as marketing, how much revenue do you generate from people marketing on your buses and on your trains? How much revenue is that? SEPTA GM
How 4 can you get that number up to 28 5 million? You can give us that 6 answer in writing. I don't even 7 want to put you on -- 8 SEPTA GM
11 Yeah, I don't want to put you on the 12 spot like that. But we -- let's get 13 a little more creative in marketing. 14 I see you partner with people to be able to get naming rights to certain stations. We see marketing and advertising on buses, sometimes on the side, sometimes on the front. Let's see if you all get can get creative in the next couple weeks before we pass a budget and come back to us on ways that you can increase the amount of revenue you get from marketing and selling naming rights and things of that capacity. Last, but not least, I heard one of my colleagues bring up board members SEPTA board members. How many SEPTA board members are Philadelphia residents who've been approved by Philadelphia elected officials to serve as board members? SEPTA GM
There are two Philadelphia representatives on the SEPTA board.
And how many total people are on the board? SEPTA GM
So 13 out of the 15 people on the board are not Philadelphia residents. And if I'm not mistaken, 15 out of 15 were not confirmed by anybody in Philadelphia, correct? SEPTA GM
I can't speak to the resident because there are those that are appointed by the state legislature.
All of them are appointed and approved by the state, right? SEPTA GM
No. 8 Well, no, Philadelphia appoints its two representatives.
Yes, but the state legislature house and senate appoint their own representatives, some of whom may be Philadelphia residents. I don't know that.
So when you go to Harrisburg, and I'm wrapping up right here, Council President. When you go to Harrisburg and you advocate for SEPTA funding, is there any consistent reminder that the people who are on the board were appointed by them and that they should be the primary funders for SEPTA? Because they appointed the board members, they have jurisdiction, they are constitutionally responsible for funding SEPTA? Is that ever a conversation up there? SEPTA GM
Listen, I can -- I can honestly say, Councilmember, our board is very active in this fight. They have accompanied me --
Just for clarity on the process and just coming from me working up there and I'm sure Driscoll can attest. Half of this argument is preaching to the choir, right? And a lot of the ones who are blocking us aren't so much from the board, it's more so Republicans from across the state of Pennsylvania that no matter what we do. So you'll get a Republican from Bucks County to be supportive of our efforts, but you won't get that Republican from Allegheny County to be supportive of our efforts. Just wanted to clarify -- clarify it just in terms of process. But Member Thomas still wants his answer so make sure you respond to his question, but I just want to clarify because I know the dynamics of what we're dealing with. Member Thomas? SEPTA GM
Yeah, I just think -- and I think it's more of a rhetorical thing. I just think it's somewhat hypocritical for a legislative branch of government to have appointed authority over any type of institution, but then not own the responsibility of funding it. Right? I think that that's so hypocritical and I think it's very disappointing that we've moved to a space in a place where something like SEPTA which should be a bipartisan issue. Right? It's not like you have to show your registration when you get on SEPTA and only Democrats can ride SEPTA. Everyone rides SEPTA. And it's unfortunate that this has turned into such a partisan issue especially when those same people who Council President is saying they have a history of blocking the funding are the same people who vote for and appoint the governing body that's in charge of this large transportation -- go ahead, President.
Yeah, I just wanted to be clear, just in terms of transparency and how that that process work. The people who are actually blocking don't lose SEPTA. The people who have the power right now who's not passing the three bills that came out of the house of the general assembly to get passed, they can care less about the city of Philadelphia. Because they focus on bridges and roads, that's their interest, because SEPTA doesn't have an impact on the immediate community. And so that's where the power lies right now and that's where the rub is in terms of trying to get them to be more supportive of our efforts. So just want to clarify that, for the record.
Thank you, Council President. So I'm hoping that when we go to Harrisburg, those same folks that the Council President is talking about will be the people who is on the top of our list to go visit. And I'm more than willing to have a respectful conversation along with you and other legislators to figure out what do we do to address this crisis. I'll submit the rest of my questions in writing, Council President. Thank you.
Thank you. And also supporting Member Thomas and this approach, also with the support of the Chairman of Transportation who's a former member, Driscoll, who's well versed in this area. It's also going to take, and I'm sure you know this already, Scott, right? When I talk about working in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce. And so having a real conversation the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce doesn't just represent Philadelphia, a majority of members come from the surrounding regions. They have a -- they have a strong Republican candidacy that's a part of the chamber. And so I've seen things move as a former member when need be when the other side of the aisle actually go to Harrisburg and make this an actual priority. I've seen them stop things from happening when they want to make things a certain priority. And so we have to be very, very strategic and pragmatic, but also speak truth to power and making sure those who have a vested interest aren't just doing rallies. Because the rallies are cute and come out, hey, let's go. But the reality is how are you actually getting it done? And a lot of it is behind the scenes having direct conversations, pushing and pulling, and at the same time strategically getting people to get to be where you need to be in terms of really supporting Governor Shapiro's budget that he's put forth with $300 million. How much would come to the city of Philadelphia? SEPTA GM
And 168 million. And we've passed how many bills out of the general assembly to the Senate which they have never supported? How many? SEPTA GM
Three. And so there lies the politics that we have to address in terms of making sure that we support SEPTA. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada for a point of information.
Just a point of information. I want to be clear, right, I'm not -- I'm not downing the people of SEPTA's board or I'm not saying that they're not professional or supportive of you. I think that the point that I'm trying to drive is that if people who are not well-versed and prepared and understand the transit system and everything that comes with it to be able to make effective, responsible decisions for it. It can get us to where we are right now, right? And so just want to make sure that, that's really what I'm pushing is that we may have amazing people on SEPTA, they just may not be capable of making transit oriented decisions and that's why we are where we are.
Okay. Well, I have confidence in the Chair, a gentleman by the name of Ken Lawrence, he's a Fels University of Pennsylvania graduate, along with myself part of Fels alumni group who's taking the helm now. And so we'll be supporting Chairman Ken Lawrence as he advocate in Harrisburg and make sure that we save SEPTA, but most importantly, address the crisis that's before us. And I'm pretty confident with this legislative body who's always stepping up to the plate and us working in partnership with our legislators in Harrisburg that we will save SEPTA. I think 2026 will come, I believe we will be in a good place so I have to speak it into existence and we're going to do the hard work to make sure that's going to happen. Not under my watch, not under this body's watch that SEPTA's not going to be supported. And so we stand on that. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jamie Gauthier, then Councilmember Bass, then Councilmember O'Rourke who will wrap us up.
Thank you, Council President. I appreciated the exchange just now with Councilmember Thomas about the different ways that City Council can support you at the state level. I wanted you to expound on how SEPTA is coordinating with the city to advocate, effectively, for sustained transit funding at the state or even the federal level? And how you want to be partnering with the city in order to do that? So for example, are there specific efforts or strategic partnerships underway in FY26 to secure additional resources or grants that would mitigate potential service disruptions or budget-driven service disruptions? I also wanted to hear from board member Mike Carroll about what's happening on the administration side. I know the Mayor is a firm believer in intergovernmental partnerships, so I wanted you to talk about what the Parker Administration is doing to lobby Harrisburg to fund SEPTA. Next, I wanted to know how much funding does the city of Philadelphia provide SEPTA as compared to our collar counties? How much service would be cut in the collar counties versus Philadelphia if SEPTA does not receive funding? And then lastly, how can residents support SEPTA's budget needs? SEPTA GM
Okay. I am jotting down the questions. I'll speak to the city partnerships. I mean, certainly this body has been a great partner. I appreciate the -- the rallies -- the comment Council President had on the rallies. But I will say that the rally that was held out here last Friday, whether or not it makes inwards in Harrisburg or not, it meant something to SEPTA, it meant something to our employees and certainly our riders. So it's -- it -- it means a lot. I have spoken with all of you on Council and you've all been very supportive and offered your advocacy. Your voices are so powerful in the region that just the fact when you use your social media platforms, when you use your speaking platforms to speak on behalf of SEPTA it's a powerful message and it works for us. And anything that comes out of this body is a help to us. With regards to the administration, certainly one of our board members is a part of the administration. But I've had conversations myself with the Mayor and I've had conversations with her key staff. They have been very strong voices on behalf of SEPTA. Mayor Parker, of course, was up in Harrisburg herself during the governor's budget address. And she made it a point to talk to me and make sure that I knew that she was advocating on our behalf. So every opportunity I know that the Mayor gets, she takes to advocate on behalf of SEPTA. As for additional funding sources and grant opportunities, there aren't many grant opportunities for operating dollars. It's more in the capital side. But we have a very active grant department that is always searching for opportunities for us. And, of course, if there's anything that Council is aware of that we should be looking at, we're certainly open to those ideas as well. Operating dollars are much more difficult to come by than capital as far as it comes to grant making. And there was something for our board member. I did? What did I -- MANAGING DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yeah, the general manager gave you the main answer. And I'll just say that the issue is so important that the Mayor's office has taken that advocacy on themselves and the Mayor herself. And I will -- I will only add this, I mean the Mayor has often, you know, reminded people it's not what you say, it's what you do. And the fact that she has put the budget in for the second year in a row is really the main thing she wants everyone to be responding to when she goes to Harrisburg and asks the Commonwealth to step up to the plate and do that on their own.
Thank you. And then lastly, how can residents get involved in this advocacy? SEPTA GM
Oh, I'm sorry, also my question about the collar counties, please. SEPTA GM
I have that as well. So as for the advocacy, our riders and our strongest advocates they have taken up the mantle already. We have seen really powerful social media hits that have gotten the attention of our legislators. We know that firsthand because we've been contacted by them. So we know that the folks out there who are our strongest supporters are our customers. And when as I've made my rounds through the legislature in Harrisburg, I was actually told on more than one occasion we've heard enough from SEPTA. We're not hearing from your people, we're not hearing from your customers. So we took that, brought that back with us. I addressed the chamber, I addressed our advocates, we talked to our citizens advisory committee, our youth advisory committee and they immediately picked up the torch and ran with it. So much so that they are getting -- they're getting the attention from our legislators in Harrisburg for sure. So the chamber -- the chamber themselves have -- have been out. They've done a video campaign, they're doing town hall digital campaigns. There's a number of activity that's going on with all of our now business partners. The community, it's really been amazing to see since Thursday alone, the budget announcement, it's really been active amongst our customers. The local subsidies by county, Philadelphia County represents 82 1.5% of our local subsidies, Delaware County is next at 8.1%, Montgomery at 5, Bucks at 2.7 and Chester County at 1.6.
Would the service cuts be proportional or would they differ by county? SEPTA GM
So the -- so the first 20% service cuts were proportional 20%. So it was 20 -- it amounted to about 20% in every county. Some ticked a point or two higher, some ticked a point or two lower, but generally it was 20% across the board. The 45% cut was a little bit different. The regional rail piece really made the difference actually the outer counties are probably getting hit a little harder than because they're losing their regional rail service as opposed to a lot of the city transit service that we still run in Philadelphia. It's not good either way. 45% cut is not a good cut no matter how we slice it, but certainly Chester and Montgomery counties are getting hit pretty hard.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke and Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. This may sound young, maybe it's because I'm an independent. I do believe that the time in history may vindicate the point, though. I appreciate the calls for like generating your own money, doubling, you know, your marketing fee, everybody rides the transit, maybe making you pay a little bit more, raise your own dollars. Not just the history, but the new normal is that we have an administration in the White House and by proxy a party that does not believe in rule of law, is not going to make any commitments to supporting things, but I think even more to the point -- to the President's point actually this isn't really just a partisan issue, it's regional, more specifically. This effective cut in revenue and the reason why I'm bringing up this point before I make this question, is that it seems to me -- it's becoming clearer to me that it may be a time where cities got to stand on their own. That's -- it's not -- it's not exciting to hear, it's really frustrating. It shouldn't be that way, but it might be one of those situations where cities are going to have to be holding their own and not have to worry about what other folks refuse to do even when it benefits everybody. This cut in revenue for SEPTA comes at the same time that we understand SEPTA is facing a fiscal crisis with serious service cuts, curfews, rate hikes coming, we've talked about all that. While I believe that we should be doing everything we can to advocate for SEPTA funding at the state level, I want to invite Philly to expand its understanding on what it means to do its part to contribute locally. My team crunched some numbers recently from the U.S. Department of Transportation and realized that although the city recently increased our SEPTA subsidy contribution significantly, which we did. SEPTA still receives far less in local funding than most of its peer cities. Not just the state, but even the cities themselves. Local funding represents about 9 to 10% of SEPTA's operating budget. You said 8% earlier from Philly and the rest, I believe from collar counties. But other cities contribute significantly more. New York contributes about 23%, Seattle contributes about 27%, Chicago contributes about, 40% LA is a big town, they contribute about 50%, about half their budget of its transits operating budget. Does this align with your understanding of our peer cities? MANAGING DIRECTOR CARROLL: I'm going to say yes for both of us.
Okay. MANAGING DIRECTOR CARROLL: Yeah, we've been looking at this research for a few years now and under a previous board some work went into identifying some ideas what we might do about it. And so those ideas culminated in a variety of revenue generating options for the five county region so that we could essentially provide more revenue for SEPTA, as these competing metropolitan areas do. And that's basically what it boils down to. The reason why most of our peers are funding more at the local level is because they have revenue generation options at the metropolitan or county or city level that we don't have. Unfortunately that is another issue which we've had a challenge working with the state legislature on. And so we would need authorization from the state in order to explore these revenue generation options. You know, whether we wanted to do them or not even having the opportunity to do that requires state authorization. And we were not able to uh get a bill in front of the legislature, much less passed in order to do that. So that's a question that we're interested in exploring further just to understand what that might look like. Just explore what that might look like.
I heard the bell so I'll let it go. I just -- it's just the longer I'm in here and it's only -- it's been a short amount of time and recognizing the times within which we live, I almost feel like we as a city got to got to fail proof ourselves. They won't even give it for education funding and that's -- how many times we had that conversation. So certainly something like transit, I just don't like the feeling of being at the mercy of people who are telling us to our face that they refuse to do the thing that makes the most sense for the widest spread of people. That having been said, thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. And wrapping us up will be Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you, Mr. President. Do we have that data? SEPTA GM
I do. MADAM CHAIR BASS: Super. Can you let us know what -- what you got? SEPTA GM
So there were -- there have been three FASOs That are either uh completed or underway. One that we've discussed. One is in Ambler had to do with station joint development. That RFP is about to be released, that hasn't been executed yet. Conshohocken station joint development opportunity which was just awarded by the board in March, but a contract hasn't been executed yet. Prior to that there were two unsuccessful FASOs. One was the five station lease that we spoke about earlier was competitively bid in 2023, but it didn't get any bids. And then a 69th Street joint development opportunity back in 2018 that was not executed.
For the -- okay. So do you have the information in terms of the demographic breakdown? SEPTA GM
As far as -- right, as far as who was being considered, who was applying, who was awarded. SEPTA GM
So Ambler and Conshohocken haven't been executed yet, so there's no cost to speak of at this point.
The demographic information, too. Thank you. SEPTA GM
Oh, I'm sorry, the demographic information. So the demographic information I'll have to come back to you on. All I have is the FASOs themselves. I'd have to break out the demographics. Both are regional rail stations I might add, Councilmember. They are Ambler and Conshohocken.
Because to make decisions and to have this level of discomfort with decisions, past decisions that have been made, I think that it really is something very important. Not just to myself, but to other members of the Council so. SEPTA GM
I understand. I also have the cost of the bus revolution, if you'd like that.
So we've spent $3.7 million and we've changed some bus routes, but we aren't able to finish executing the projects? SEPTA GM
Yes. The bulk of that -- of that dollar amount was geared towards the bus -- the bus network redesign that is waiting to be executed. MADAM CHAIR BASS: What is the bus network redesign? What does that mean? SEPTA GM
So that's changing the numbers, changing the letters to numbers. SEPTA GM
Well, that's part of it, but it's also changing all the routes themselves. The frequency, high frequency network, the reliability, the transfers. The things that -- all the outreach that we did for a couple years til --
-- on this. Okay. I'm not sure that it's -- it's the best use of resources especially at a critical time like this. Actually I don't -- let me just put it this way, I don't think it's the best use of resources. Maybe you -- I'm assuming that there was some kind of discussion that had -- that had to explain why internally you all felt that this was something that you had to do, that was important to do. I'm still not hearing that, but I don't want to belabor the point. The other thing I wanted to hear, just really briefly, it's been touched on here and there. But I wanted to go back on just sort of like quality of life in terms of riding SEPTA. Because if you want to get your fares up, if you want to generate more revenue, one of the first things you have to do is collect revenue. And so fare evasion is just a huge problem. The last time I rode SEPTA I was getting on the Broad Street line and the person in front of me just hopped right over, like it was nothing to it. And, you know, and it wasn't one person, it was like maybe two or three young men, but they just hopped right on over, like there was nothing to it. And also, smoking on -- smoking weed on the Market-Frankfort and also the Broad Street line, which is a problem. I've had staff come in and said, you know, like that they had to tell people who were near them smoking first thing in the morning, you know, can you go somewhere else because I have to go to work and I can't -- you know, I don't want to have that, carry that smell all day. SEPTA GM
And so, you know, this shouldn't be a conversation that people have to have with other commuters on the -- on the Broad Street line. SEPTA GM
Agreed. You want to take that? CHIEF LAWSON: Yeah. So some of the progress we made with recruitment and retention has certainly contributed to, you know, things like our enforcement level. Enforcement level across the board in all the categories of the crimes that we enforce is up dramatically. I can -- fare evasion specifically I'll address. I can assure you fare evasion for the entire organization from the GM down is essentially our No. 1 priority right now. It has exploded after COVID. Some of the policies that we implemented hurt us coming out of COVID. But as we have scaled up in law enforcement, enforcement is through the roof. We have put together a work group within SEPTA comprised of a number of staff departments and operating departments addressing fare evasion specifically. Some of the -- some of the changes we made in that, I mean Councils familiar with the fact that we have -- we have returned -- we've gotten away from an administrative model of enforcement, came back to a criminal justice model. Increasing fines for fare evasion on the system. We've implemented much better tracking capability across SEPTA, so we have better data now to help deploy police officers and figure out ways to get our hands around this. We have coordinated with media outlets. We got to do a much better job with that in terms of educating our customers, letting them know we are cracking down on fare evasion. It's necessary and what it does to our customers when people don't pay a fare, how it harms our customers. We coordinated with the courts to make sure that they're aware how important this is for us. That -- that all of the citations that we write for fare evasion, we need them to be enforced at a high level. We are seeing that and so we're -- we're happy about that. Fare evasion, specifically I'll just talk about the police department enforcement level for fare evasion was up 167% last year. So essentially, three times the level of enforcement from the year before through the first quarter of '25, we've increased on top of that another 171%. I mean, pretty soon we're going to be doing nothing at the police department, but enforcing fares on the system. We are throwing really a lot at it right now. Smoking, I agree smoking is the No. 1 complaint from our customers. Much more than fare evasion. The authority contributed to -- worked with it closely with the city on a smoke free ad campaign last year. We got some traction with that. We saw a reduction on the system, and then customer service scores started to improve. We are going to translate that same exact model to fare evasion now because we saw some success with it. But smoking enforcement across the system for us there were more than 3,000 tickets issued last year. That was up 136% from the year before.
Okay. If you could put the information we requested earlier -- I requested earlier, if you could put that in writing and provide it to the Chair, we would appreciate it so that we can circle back and have more conversation on it, just because I didn't get all the facts down, but we would like to have that in writing. And I think that's it for right now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Member Bass. Scott Sauer, I want to thank you and your team for being here for this budget hearing. And welcome. It's part of the process. SEPTA GM
Welcome and wish you the best as you continue to advocate. But just know that these members will make sure everything in our body possibly that we can do, from an advocacy standpoint, partnership standpoint that we will figure out a way to save SEPTA. We will have funding going into '26, whatever that looks like. And I also say, for the record, for those who are documenting. It can't be on the city of Philadelphia. We're doing our part. There's a 12 billion surplus in Harrisburg, $12 billion. The governor has a proposal for $300 million that could significantly support our efforts of making sure SEPTA has funding. And so we will advocate, work and partner to make sure that this happens. As I say, not on my watch. With that being said, thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Majority Whip Councilmember Isaiah Thomas for a motion to adjourn.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and the meeting on the bills and resolutions before the committee today stand in recess until Tuesday, April 22nd at 10:00 a.m, room 400, City Hall. All those in favor signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
Those opposed? The ayes have it. The motion carries. We stand in recess to April 22nd at 10:00 a.m. Happy Easter, everyone, and happy Passover, if you celebrate. (Public hearing and meeting on bills and resolutions concluded at 3:55 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me of the above case, and this copy is a correct transcript of the same. _______________ Samanda J. Rios