Three hours before a pitch was thrown in the Phillies’ Sunday afternoon matchup against the Washington Nationals, a handful of fans were already idling in cars outside Citizens Bank Park, waiting for parking lot gates to open.
Partially sunny skies and mild August temperatures served as a sharp contrast to a transportation doomsday scenario that was beginning to take effect across the city, as SEPTA implemented the first day of steep service cuts to its bus, trolley, and subway lines.
Confronted with a $213 million operating deficit for the 2026 fiscal year — which began July 1 — the agency determined that it had to eliminate 32 bus lines, shorten 16 other routes, and reduce the overall number of trips it offers, guaranteeing longer commutes for workers, school students, and fans who regularly flock to South Philly’s stadium complex.
Bill Small, of Ambler, ordinarily prefers to take the Broad Street subway line to Phillies games, riding south from Fern Rock to the NRG Station at Broad Street and Pattison Avenue.
But grim predictions about the effect that the SEPTA cutbacks will have on highways and bridges spooked Small, 66. The Phillies, too, warned ticket holders in an email to allow extra time to get to and from the ballpark.
So Small drove his Honda Ridgeline truck on Sunday morning to Citizens Bank Park. The trip took about 30 minutes, similar to a Broad Street Line express train ride from Fern Rock.
Small hoped the Phillies would beat the Nationals, to balance the negative energy surrounding the SEPTA reductions.
“That’s how this stuff always works,” he said. (Fortunately, the home team obliged, with a 3-2 victory over the Nationals.)
Future trips might not be as smooth.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission has estimated that the transit cuts could lead Philadelphia-area roadways to be filled with an additional 275,000 cars, while average commute times on I-95 South between Northeast Philly and Center City would increase by 18%. The planning commission expects the traffic surge will spill into local neighborhoods, too, impacting safety and air quality.
There seems to be little hope that state lawmakers will soon come to SEPTA’s rescue.
A divided legislature — a Democratic House and a Republican-majority Senate — has failed to agree on a transit-funding plan, or even a full-year state budget.
But a clearer sense of the day-to-day fallout from the SEPTA cuts might emerge on Monday, when the School District of Philadelphia’s academic year begins.
District officials have said that about 52,000 students rely on public transportation to get to school each day.
“I think in the short term, we’ll see people not being able to get to doctor’s appointments, and students missing days of school, or really valuable after-school enrichment activities and jobs,” said Megan Ryerson, chair of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design.
“We’ll see a sharper divide between people who can afford to take alternative modes of transportation, and those who can’t.”
Flowers for a ride?
Jimmy Pittman and Katie Minnich emerged from SEPTA’s NRG Station before Sunday’s Phillies game all smiles.
The young couple had an easy time getting from Pittman’s Francisville apartment to Citizens Bank Park. “We’re expecting it to be a lot worse on the way home,” Pittman said. “More people, less trains, more drama.”
Before the game, Pittman bought Minnich’s mother a bouquet of purple flowers — and hoped that the thoughtful gesture could persuade her to drive the couple back to his apartment, later in the day.
He fretted, though, about the three days a week when he drives to King of Prussia, where he works as a certified public accountant. On a good day, Pittman can reach his destination in just 45 minutes. But that number will likely swell as more commuters have to resort to driving.
“If it gets really bad,” Pittman said, “I might have to sneak extra work-from-home days.”
Ryerson noted the critical — but sometimes overlooked — role that public transportation plays in everyday life.
“If you really think about how you’ve made some big choices — where you live, where your children go to school, where you work, even the frequency at which you go to a Phillies game — all of these choices are shaped around your income, the makeup of your family, and your transportation accessibility,” she said.
The elimination of certain bus routes might force some parents to rethink where their children attend school, Ryerson said, while teenagers could lose a pillar of their independence. Transit cuts can also lead to an increase in people skipping health screenings and vaccinations.
“There’s a huge negative impact on public health from not providing that connectivity,” Ryerson said.
State lawmakers have offered competing visions for helping to resolve SEPTA’s financial woes.
Senate Republicans have proposed offering $1.2 billion, over two years, to Pennsylvania’s mass transit agencies and rural roads, with much of the money coming from the Public Transportation Trust Fund, which was created to serve as a capital and emergency fund for the state’s transit systems. A small additional portion would come from interactive gaming revenues.
House Democrats, meanwhile, have argued for increasing by 1.75% the share of sales-tax revenue that’s allocated to public transit, giving SEPTA a dedicated, recurring revenue stream — an idea Gov. Josh Shapiro included in his state budget proposal.
‘Not leaving early’
Phillies fans didn’t seem ready to let more difficult commutes get between them and their team.
Andrew McGee, 67, recounted the transit routine that he follows from his home in Glenolden to Citizens Bank Park: He boards the Route 102 trolley in Sharon Hill, then transfers to the Market-Frankford Line at the 69th Street Transportation Center, and finally switches to the Broad Street Line at City Hall.
McGee attends between 12 and 20 Phillies games each season.
He said he was shocked when his commute Sunday took only an hour.
“I literally said, ‘Damn,’” McGee recalled from Lot T.
He was less optimistic about his chances of having an easy commute home from a 6:45 p.m. game Thursday between the Phillies and the Atlanta Braves.
“I might have to take the ticket as a loss if there’s problems with the El. I don’t want to be stranded,” McGee said.
He was reluctant to consider heading home before a game ended to avoid shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on platforms or in trains.
“I’m not leaving early to make my life easier, McGee said. “I pay top dollar for these seats.”
As part of its service reductions, SEPTA will no longer run extra express trains to accommodate crowds on game days.
And without additional funding, the agency will cease all train service after 9 p.m., beginning on Jan. 1. Sports teams also won’t be allowed to sponsor postgame train service.
Sept. 4 looms as a formidable test of SEPTA’s slimmed-down operations.
The Philadelphia Eagles will host their home opener that night, an 8:20 p.m. matchup against the Dallas Cowboys.
In the first hour after games at the stadium complex, SEPTA typically ran nine or 10 trains from NRG Station. That will likely drop to four, the agency has said, which means potentially more than 10,000 fans will have to seek alternate routes or wait considerably longer to catch a train.
As he waited Sunday morning to get into a Phillies parking lot, Bill Small explained that he would be at the Eagles’ home opener, too, with his wife and friends. The group was already thinking about their trip to and from Lincoln Financial Field, a plan that would require Small to forgo any beers after halftime.
“We’re all retired, so we’ll probably drive over extra early,” Small said with a laugh from the driver’s seat of his Honda. “And I’ll unfortunately have to be responsible.”
