SEPTA Sets Regional Rail Ridership Record

By Mischa Arnosky

SEPTA announced Monday that it has set a new Regional Rail ridership record for fiscal year 2013 — about 36 million trips, up about 2 percent over last year.

While total ridership was down about a half percent over last year to 337.3 million — perhaps due to the 2-day shutdown from Hurricane Sandy — SEPTA said regional rail ridership has increased 50 percent in the last 15 years.  

In fact, last week SEPTA officials held a public forum to discuss the King of Prussia Rail Project, which would increase transit service to the area by expanding upon the Norristown High Speed Line.

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At that forum, SEPTA Director of Strategic Planning Byron Comati said that the King of Prussia and Valley Forge area is growing in population and said a more efficient rail network would help quell traffic by replacing the six current bus routes. Though, he also said that SEPTA is in bad shape financially.

SEPTA said its capital budget of about $300 million is at a 15-year low, and it is less than half of that of similarly-sized transit agencies nation wide.

“These funding constraints leave SEPTA without funds for a number of vital projects, such as repairs to 1930s-era electrical substations or upgrades to aging bridges,” the SEPTA press release said.

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SEPTA’s Fiscal Year 2014 Capital Budget Proposal is available online at www.septa.org/reports

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