Is This City DOOMED? Philadelphia's Transit Crisis and What Can be Done

Philadelphia is America's 6th largest city, largely considered to be its official birthplace, and is a cornerstone city of American history, industry and culture and has been since its founding. This has been enabled in the last near 200 years by its system of public transportation, which for the last near 60 years has been run by SEPTA, an agency that has had a mixed reputation, but incredible potential for the future of the city and the state of Pennsylvania, of which Philadelphia constitutes nearly half of the economy of. However, that strong foundation risks being lost due one of the worst budget crisis in the agency's history. Political bickering has resulted in the system being threatened with an absolute gutting, which in turn would cripple the economic strength of the city and the state.

It's time to take a reluctant step into the politics of transit funding and find out what is going on, why SEPTA and Pennsylvania's transit services are in the perilous state they are in, as well as what can we do, who is working to stop these disastrous cuts from happening, and what we have to do before the June 30th budget deadline to save the city from a fate that will see its decline restart anew. I fully expect a lively discussion in the comments on this one.

Special thanks to Bob Previdi and the Save The Train Coalition for helping with the video. Thank you all, and let's get out there to save PA's transit.

Contact your state reps and senators to tell them to fund transit to keep Pennsylvania strong for our present and future:
https://www.palegis.us/find-my-legisl...

Link List to major advocacy groups for transit in the city and state:
Transit for All PA: https://www.transitforallpa.org/
Save The Train Coalition: https://savethetrain.org/
Transit Forward Philadelphia: https://www.transitforwardphilly.org/
Save SEPTA: https://savesepta.com/
5th Square: https://www.5thsq.org/
Philly Transit Riders Union: https://phillytru.org/
Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia: https://chamberphl.com/2025/04/join-o...

Budget deadline is June 30th. Let's get out there and fight for the transit we need.

Link go my Discord Server:   / discord  

Link to GWVillager's video on the problems of Japan's railways:    • Japan's trains have some problems  

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:13 How Bad is It? Bad. Really Bad.
12:10 The Fiscal Cliff
15:56 The Ones Who Are Fighting
29:11 The Political Landscape of the Situation (and how Transit can have an advantage)
39:29 That One Guy who had a Dumb Idea
44:08 How to Find Solutions that Actually Work
51:39 How to Find Hope and Fight Back
57:14 Conclusion and What You Can Do.

Keywords: #philadelphia #pennsylvania #transit #septa #pittsburgh #harrisburg #politics #activism #train #railroad #bus #trolley #streetcar #subway #funding #democrats #republicans #crisis #tram #USA, #urbanism #urbanplanning #rise #fall #budgets #congestionpricing #urban #rural #cities #towns #worldcup #independenceday