As constituents and taxpayers, we are demanding that our elected officials do their jobs and hold transit funding as an essential component of any deal that is negotiated this week!
For the third year in a row, the ball might get dropped. June 30th was the deadline for budget passage in Harrisburg, and while negotiations have been extended through this week, there are rumors that public transit funding is going to be left behind, again.
This is unacceptable. The failure to pass a transit funding measure this week will hurt working people and communities all across the Commonwealth. The failure to budget in a timely fashion is already projected to yield catastrophic service cuts and fare increases in this coming year for transit riders across Pennsylvania. Hundreds of thousands of riders in our communities will suffer, with increased cost and time barriers to access quality healthcare, sustainable jobs, and healthy food.
These harms will affect all of us: SEPTA’s budget shortfall alone will result in $254.7 million in state and local tax revenue losses. That’s money that funds education, social services, economic development and infrastructure all across the Commonwealth. Further delays will lead to similar losses in transit systems throughout the state.
It’s not too late for legislators to set this right, but it will be soon. Take action today.
Transit riders and transit workers, as well as business and community leaders across the Commonwealth are calling on our Pennsylvania elected leaders to do their job and pass a budget with Governor Shapiro’s proposed 1.75% increased allocation of the excess sales tax revenue towards public transit.
Whether you live in Harrisburg or Pittsburgh, Wilkes Barre or Erie, rural towns or Philadelphia, all Pennsylvanians deserve safe, reliable, dignified access to the places they need to go and public transportation funding is critical to making that happen. We recognize the leadership of Governor Shapiro’s administration in proposing the first public transit funding increase in over a decade, to begin to close the gap between the transit service that we have and the public transit that our communities deserve. If the PA Legislature does not act soon to fund transit, they will have made a choice that harms our seniors, our economies and all our working people across the Commonwealth.