HARRISBURG — With the June 30 budget deadline fast approaching, public transit funding is emerging as one of the biggest points of contention in negotiations.
Arguments over sending more money to large agencies in crisis, like SEPTA in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh Regional Transit, have taken up much of the oxygen in a divided Harrisburg, with supporters warning of fare hikes and service cuts that will lead to greater revenue collapse.
But largely overlooked has been the impact of similar funding shortfalls on the commonwealth’s rural, shared-ride transit program, which has already shown signs of entering the death spiral.
Unlike traditional fixed bus or train routes, this sprawling service provides on-demand rides via a van or small bus to specific locations. Older Pennsylvanians and people with disabilities across the commonwealth use it to get to places like doctors’ offices and grocery stores.
These riders have seen fares, based on distance traveled, rise in recent years, and operators warn that the trend will continue without more support.
Established in the 1970s, shared-rides were designed to consolidate multiple individual trips into a single vehicle, reducing the cost for each passenger. The program took just under 5 million rural, suburban, and urban passengers to their destinations in 2024, according to a March report from PennDOT. But much like traditional transit, use cratered during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been slow to recover.
Shared-ride trips are also getting longer and costlier, leading to higher fares, PennDOT’s report said. That reduces ridership, raising fares for the remaining passengers.
The state needs to do something, PennDOT concluded in its report: "The overall service is in crisis now due to ridership losses, decreasing productivity, and rising costs. Now is the time to adapt the program to ensure its long-term viability."
While shared-rides affect people in every county, the services are tied up in Pennsylvania’s regionalized transit politics. Many lawmakers argue state money given to urban counties to sustain large public transit systems should instead go to rural areas in need of road and bridge maintenance.
Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Democrats who control the state House have consistently pushed for funding increases for public transit, including for shared-rides. Shapiro’s budget proposal would earmark $38 million in new transit funding specifically for the program.
Republicans who control the state Senate say they won’t approve a deal that bumps transit funding unless it also includes more money for road maintenance, as well as a dedicated funding source.
They have also suggested that agencies need to better manage their existing resources, and that some transit services should be privatized, including certain shared-rides.
A complicated funding cocktail
Shared-ride trips are administered by a mix of transit authorities, county-based agencies, and nonprofits, which deliver them either directly or through private contractors. The providers are then reimbursed from a hodgepodge of sources, including various state and federal programs, as well as fares.
PennDOT spent nearly $1.6 billion on transit from its primary fund last year, according to the Shapiro administration’s budget estimate. According to PennDOT, about $1.4 billion went toward buoying fixed-route transit agencies’ operating expenses. Some of these agencies also run shared-rides.
Shared-ride operators also get funding from state and federal social safety net programs such as the Pennsylvania Lottery and Medicaid. While these rides are open to anyone, most of the people who use them are older or have disabilities and qualify for subsidized trips.
Much like bigger agencies in Pennsylvania’s cities, rural ones are feeling the pinch from inflation and the expiration of federal pandemic aid.
But shared-rides also face some specific challenges, such as more older people driving and health care consolidation. As local hospitals and specialty units shutter, riders have to go farther to get to their appointments, meaning higher operating costs and fares.
All of this has added up. Shared-ride programs operated at a $60 million loss in the 2020-21 fiscal year, the most recent year PennDOT’s report on the programs looked at.
‘Stuck in my downtown’
The stakes are high for the program’s users, like Alex Casper, a 28-year-old former human services worker. He moved to Bradford in McKean County to live in public housing after he was hit by a driver, injured, and lost his job and home in Philadelphia.
Unable to drive due to seizures, he relies on shared-rides from a small multicounty transit agency, the ATA, to get around. That includes trips to the grocery store and medical specialists spread across the region, from Pittsburgh to DuBois to Olean, across the border in New York.
At current service levels, Casper must schedule those out-of-county doctor trips at least two-and-a-half days in advance, and they can occur only on the specific weekdays when the agency offers trips to his destination.
The area doesn’t have Uber or Lyft, so if service is cut, “I would be stuck in my downtown,” Casper told Spotlight PA, and forced to further limit when he schedules his doctor’s visits.
Sheila Gombita is the executive director of Washington County’s FreedomTransit, which provides both shared-ride and fixed public transit services. She told Spotlight PA she doesn’t think the funding challenges facing shared-ride programs are insurmountable.
The agency raised fares for shared-rides in 2023, which still isn’t enough to cover its costs. But with some more state dollars, Gombita said that she thinks there’s “a lot of opportunity” to keep fares affordable and pick up new passengers.
“We need to do something to kind of stabilize [the shared-ride program], so that we don't price ourselves out and that passengers can continue to rely on us,” she said.
PennDOT’s report on shared-rides suggested increasing coordination between transit agencies to make it easier for the programs to buy the pricey accessible vehicles they need, plus adopting new routing software across all agencies to create more efficient trips.
What’s on the table in Harrisburg?
On Tuesday, the state House advanced a more expansive version of Shapiro’s transit budget pitch in a 107-94 vote.
The governor’s original proposal would increase the amount of sales tax revenue transferred to transit by 1.75 percentage points this year. The new dollars, totaling almost $300 million, would be distributed to agencies across the state, with $38 million earmarked for shared-rides.
The state House bill would essentially do the same thing, but would also approve $500 million in bonds to fund road and bridge projects, addressing a key Republican priority, and would convene a commission to develop a new infrastructure spending model.
Barring a subsequent transportation funding law, the bill would then increase tax transfers to transit by another 1.75 percentage points in 2028.
State Rep. Ed Neilson (D., Philadelphia), chair of his chamber’s Transportation Committee, said the bill is meant to “send a message” to the Senate that “we are ready to do business.”
“We want to make sure we come up with a comprehensive, fair plan for everybody across all 67 counties,” Neilson said. “We want to fix the roads. We want to fix the bridges. We want to invest in our airports, our ports, and public transit.”
Addressing reporters Wednesday, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) said that he was glad House Democrats brought roads and bridges into the conversation, but his sense was that “they are still putting out numbers that we can't meet under our current fiscal constraints.”
“Funding transit,” Pittman added, “is something that we can live without in our caucus.”