SEPTA board votes to raise fares July 1

SEPTA fares will increase on July 1, after approval Thursday by a divided SEPTA board.

The price of a bus or subway token will rise to $1.55 from $1.45, the cost of a weekly transit pass will go to $22 from $20.75, and a monthly Zone 3 commuter rail pass will cost $155 instead of $142.50.

Transfers for subway, bus, and trolley riders will go to $1 from the current 75 cents.

SEPTA will also eliminate off-peak train fares before 7 p.m. on weekdays, a move criticized by passenger advocates. Passengers currently pay peak fares only on trains arriving at Center City stations before 9:30 a.m. and leaving Center City between 4 and 6:30 p.m.

The base cash fare for buses, subways and trolleys will remain $2, where it's been since 2000. Only about 13 percent of transit riders pay the cash fare.

The Senior Citizen fare program is not affected by the increase, said SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney.

Delaware County's two representatives on the 15-member SEPTA board voted against the agency's $1.18 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, which contained the fare increases.

Both representatives, Daniel Kubik and Thomas Babcock, left quickly after the vote without speaking to reporters. Reached by phone after the meeting, Kubik declined to explain his vote.

Babcock last week criticized the move to hold the line on cash fares. He said at a board committee meeting that it was unwise to keep the $2 cash fare while trying to get riders to use passes or tokens.

"Why not raise it to $3, to further reduce the number of people who use it?" Babcock said last week.

The City of Philadelphia's two representatives on the board, Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler and Beverly Coleman, were both absent from the vote. Both were away for personal reasons but supported the fare increase and the SEPTA budget, said Mayor Nutter's press secretary, Doug Oliver.

Anthony DeSantis, president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, criticized the decision to do away with midday off-peak fares and the increase in the price of transfers.

He said the elimination of the midday off-peak fares, along with the increase of rail fares, amounted to a double increase for midday riders. And he said it would be better to increase the base fare to $2.25 than hike the cost of transfers.

The operating budget of $1.18 billion is an increase of nearly 5 percent from the current $1.13 billion operating budget. Among the costs contributing to the increase are higher medical costs for employees and higher costs for electricity, SEPTA officials said.

The fare increases, ranging from 6 percent for subway and bus riders to more than 8 percent for commuter rail passengers, will produce about $20.7 million more for the operating budget.

The SEPTA board also approved its capital budget for the new fiscal year, without dissent. That $300 million budget - for vehicles, facilities, and expansion projects - reflected a $110 million reduction because of cuts in state funding brought on by the federal rejection of Pennsylvania's effort to convert I-80 to a toll road to raise transportation funds.

The reduced capital budget meant postponement of 22 SEPTA projects, including new "smart card" fare technology, rehabilitation of the City Hall subway station, and extension of the Media-Elwyn Regional Rail line to Wawa in Delaware County.

Those cuts may be restored if the state legislature comes up with funding to replace the money lost by the failure of the I-80 tolling plan. The lawmakers are meeting sporadically in special session in Harrisburg to address the transportation funding crisis.