The SEPTA funding debate digs up Pennsylvania’s perennial rural-vs.-urban divide

HARRISBURG — As major service cuts to SEPTA draw nearer with Pennsylvania’s state budget entering its eighth week overdue, the battle lines in Harrisburg are becoming clear: It’s the Philadelphia region vs. everybody.

It was a chord evident in Republican Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman’s John Mellencamp lyric-infused speech Tuesday evening, in which he quoted the song “Small Town” to recall his upbringing in rural Western Pennsylvania in a one-stoplight town.

Pittman, of Indiana County, went on to rail against policies put into place by Philadelphia-area Democrats that he and other rural Republicans see as stifling their communities’ economic growth — plus the vitriol he said he has received from those in Southeastern Pennsylvania over the funding of SEPTA and other mass transit.

“Human nature suggests, why should I do anything to help? I don’t ever get any help for my region,” Pittman said, noting threats he said he has received from transit advocates during the mass transit debate. “Why should I do anything to help the southeast part of the state?”

The flip side of that sentiment was sounded by State Rep. Melissa Shusterman (D., Chester) on Friday, when she announced she was preparing legislation to split Pennsylvania’s tax collection into three categories so that Philadelphia and its collar counties keep their own earnings to pay for their schools, law enforcement, mass transit, and more. The same arrangement would apply to the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg metropolitan areas, which are home to denser and more Democratic populations that generate much of the state’s revenue.

A frequent and increasingly loud refrain from Democratic legislators, as SEPTA service cuts are slated to go into effect next week without additional funding from Harrisburg, is that Philadelphia and the surrounding region — the state’s main economic hub — generate more revenue than rural parts of the state, and get only a fraction of state funding in return.

“We’re paving, policing, and plowing those roads and bridges in Crawford County and every other rural county here. We’re paying for it,” Rep. Ed Neilson (D., Philadelphia) said on the House floor last week. “And we’re not asking you to bail us out, because frankly, Potter, Crawford … you can’t help us. … You don’t have enough.”

Shusterman’s proposal raised the core question Philadelphians and suburbanites are increasingly asking as their region’s mass transit system faces dire cuts: Why is the region pouring money into a state government that won’t help the area in return?

“Our people are going to get hurt, and you’re going to get hurt, too. I think that’s the part you’re not grasping,” Neilson said, addressing his GOP colleagues. “You will get hurt, everybody in this commonwealth is going to get hurt. If we shut down the economic engine by not getting people to jobs in Philadelphia and Southeast Pa., there are no taxes being paid to this commonwealth.”

SEPTA faces a $213 million operating deficit for the 2026 fiscal year, which began July 1. As a result, and without additional funds from Harrisburg, the nation’s sixth-largest transit agency plans to enact a 20% cut in all service on Aug. 24 and a major fare increase on Sept. 1.

Pennsylvania’s mass transit funding crisis has been long in the making. Legislators have known for years they needed to secure a new recurring funding source for mass transit, after earlier mass transit funding was amended to allow the Pennsylvania Turnpike to contribute only $50 million annually, down from the $450 million annually it had contributed for decades.

Democrats in Harrisburg, from Gov. Josh Shapiro to rank-and-file state representatives, have said finding a recurring funding stream for Pennsylvania’s mass transit is a priority for them but have been unable to agree on an option for generating revenue.

Many Republican lawmakers, including Pittman, have acknowledged that mass transit is in need across the state, not just in Southeastern Pennsylvania. But the impending service cuts SEPTA says it will be forced to implement beginning Aug. 24 have surfaced the bad blood between rural Republicans and Southeastern Pennsylvania Democrats yet again.

On Friday, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said she had faith that GOP leaders in Harrisburg will try to come to a compromise and “not believe that SEPTA is in a box, that it is just an urban, Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania thing.”

The rural-urban divide is not a new tension in Pennsylvania state government.

It’s in “Pennsylvania’s DNA,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College.

Philadelphia is home to Pennsylvania’s original statehouse, Independence Hall, where Pennsylvania’s colonial legislature and the early U.S. Congress both met from 1753 through 1800. Members of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly then chose to move westward, in part due to Philadelphia’s population growth.

The state capitol first moved to Lancaster before it finally found its home in Harrisburg in 1812 in south-central Pennsylvania. Other states, such as Illinois and Kansas, have chosen to place their capitols in centralized locations outside their major cities to ensure a more even distribution of power.

In the decades that followed, there have been many rural-vs.-urban issues in the Pennsylvania statehouse, or, more specifically, rural-vs.-the Philadelphia region.

Pennsylvania’s divide has only steepened, as national politics continue to become more polarized — and is exemplified by the state’s General Assembly on the transit issue, Borick said.

In the state’s divided legislature, Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the 203-member state House, in large part due to the Philadelphia collar counties’ swing to the left. With this, the racially and economically diverse Philadelphia region has amassed more power since 2022, when Democrats flipped the House, with its top leaders hailing from Philadelphia and Montgomery County, and many members from the city or suburbs serving as committee chairs. Shapiro, too, is a former state representative from Montgomery County, lives in Abington Township, and remains a champion of the Philadelphia region.

By contrast, in the 50-person Senate, the GOP majority is led by senators from Western Pennsylvania. Many of the GOP members represent large swaths of rural Pennsylvania.

And mass transit is not the only politically regional issue in the 283-mile-wide, geographically diverse state that features expansive mountain ranges, nearly 60% covered by forests, a Great Lake, and more. Other issues like public school funding, for example, long favored declining parts of Western Pennsylvania over the booming population growth in Southeastern Pennsylvania, dividing lawmakers based on their home district instead of their party.

Former State Sen. Vince Fumo, a South Philadelphia Democrat who served as a powerful force in Harrisburg for 31 years before being convicted of fraud and other offenses, became a master of navigating the rural-urban divide, even while in the minority during most of his career.

“That is nothing new,” Fumo said of the mass transit funding divide. “That’s been around for as long as the commonwealth’s been around. We’ve always had rural vs. urban.”

Among the most notable points in Pennsylvania political history was former Gov. Ed Rendell’s election as top executive, Borick said. In a state that has long viewed its largest city as overcome with (often Democratic) corruption, the election of a former Philadelphia mayor to the higher office was “pretty symbolic.”

“A Philadelphia mayor? Being governor?” Borick said. “It was almost seen as impossible, due to the distrust of Philadelphia.”

Fumo on Friday said he believes the legislative leaders should have figured out a solution by now, and Shapiro should keep the top leaders in a room until a deal is hammered out.

Shapiro, Pittman, and House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) continued to meet in closed-door negotiations through the weekend, as they have done for more than two months, to try to reach an overall budget deal, as well as a deal on mass transit.

But Fumo suggested that, in the absence of a deal, perhaps the forthcoming service cuts will force an agreement.

“Out of chaos, you might be able to get something,” Fumo added. “Now, everybody’s playing hardball. But the s— hasn’t hit the fan yet, and maybe you gotta let it.”

Pittman, for his part, said his two-year, $1.2 billion mass transit funding proposal, which includes $412 million in funds for road and bridge repairs and has since been killed by Democrats in the state House, was an effort to recognize the needs of Philly and Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Bradford and Democrats lambasted the Senate GOP’s plan as a bad-faith effort that would rip necessary capital funds from the transit agency. House Democrats have passed mass transit funding five times over the last two legislative sessions, including as recently as last week, all of which have not been considered by the Senate because the Senate GOP rejects the Democratic plan to use more of the state’s sales tax to fund transit.

“Despite the way that our rural communities are viewed and treated, we are here to support Southeastern Pennsylvania,” Pittman added. “Now, you might not like the recipe of the soup we’ve made, but we made a recipe of soup that addresses the issues at hand.”