Council to Weigh SEPTA Student Safety
City Council will hold a joint hearing Friday on youth safety on and around SEPTA, five months after Council asked for it.
The hearing is set for Friday, November 13, at 10 a.m. in Room 400 of City Hall, according to the city’s legislative calendar. The Committees on Transportation and Public Utilities and Public Safety will examine how to prevent violence, support young people, and protect all riders on the system. It is the only item on the committee’s agenda.
The resolution behind the hearing, Resolution 260652, was introduced by 5th District Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. and adopted June 11, the day it was introduced. Fifteen of Council’s 17 members signed on as sponsors.
The hearing matters to a lot of families. About 50,000 Philadelphia students rely on SEPTA to get to school, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported. The resolution asks Council to look at coordinated strategies to keep those students safe, and to protect everyone else riding with them.
Safety is only half the question on the table. The other half is the student pass itself, and what it would cost to make it work the way students and advocates want.
Under rules in place since 2001, student passes from the School District work only on school days, up to eight rides a day between 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. They go to seventh through twelfth graders who live at least a mile and a half from school. Students and community leaders have asked Council to make the pass work every day of the year, around the clock, for every student.
Superintendent Tony Watlington put a preliminary price tag on that expansion: about $64 million to cover the full calendar year and start eligibility at fifth grade instead of seventh. That figure came out at an Oct. 6 hearing on the pass program, and WHYY reported it. SEPTA’s chief financial officer, Erik Johanson, gave his own numbers at the same hearing, about $35 million extra to expand who gets a pass within current hours, and about $60 million extra for year round access.
The money question is sharp because of how the program is paid for. The district pays SEPTA up front and is reimbursed only for rides students actually tap. The state reimburses the district’s current transportation costs, but Watlington testified it would not reimburse the expansion. “The district is unable to absorb these costs within its existing budget without taking resources away from other vital education services,” he said.
Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. has raised a different concern, saying he wants a way to pause or revoke passes for misconduct. Councilmember Jim Harrity’s newly introduced bill taxing robot deliveries and driverless rides, Bill 260927, has been pitched as one way to pay for free transit passes.
SEPTA says it has already stepped up around school travel times, with extra police staffing at arrival and dismissal, overlapping shifts, and virtual patrols using its camera network. Students can report problems through the SEPTA Transit Watch app or by texting SEPTA Transit Police at 215-234-1911. Expect SEPTA officials and the School District to be asked about those plans at the hearing.
One caution for readers planning to go: an earlier weekly roundup listed the hearing for Wednesday, November 11. The city’s legislative calendar lists Friday, November 13, and that is the date Council’s committee page shows. Check the city calendar before going.
A hearing by itself changes nothing. The resolution authorizes testimony, not a program. Any wider passes, more patrols, or new funding would need a bill or a budget action, and no bill to expand student passes has been filed. The Nov. 13 hearing is where Council starts deciding whether to write one.
