Chris Sandvig: Administration, lawmakers must work together to keep transit rolling in Pa.
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If you’ve ever been four-wheeling and got stuck in the mud, then you know it takes everyone getting out of the vehicle and working as a team — pushing and pulling — to get rolling again. It’s also like that with transportation funding.
It’s really a fitting analogy, because that’s where we find ourselves — stuck in the mud — and the only way out is for the administration and lawmakers to work as a team to keep us all rolling. Right now, this is particularly true for transit.
Mobilify Southwestern Pennsylvania is the Pittsburgh region’s foremost leader, convener and champion of a multimodal transportation vision. We work to unify regional stakeholders who share a common goal to expand transportation options and opportunities and make them a reality. We believe that for true resilience, equitable access and economic growth, improving the availability and viability of transit is paramount. That requires adequate, predictable and growing state funding.
It’s not just a Pittsburgh or Philadelphia problem, either. The reality is that all 67 Pennsylvania counties have some form of public transit. In rural Pennsylvania, these systems really are lifelines; practically everyone who uses them needs them for crucial, basic needs. People everywhere rely on that ride to get to and from their jobs, reach crucial medical care, make it to class, visit family and friends, and meet other basic needs that are a necessary part of daily life.
Yet, fare hikes and service cuts in all these communities have been increasingly pinching riders since the pandemic. This new reality is about to get much worse without new funding.
Gov. Josh Shapiro is stepping up. His 2025-26 budget proposal raises transit’s annual state sales tax allocation, boosting overall funding by $292 million in the first year and growing to $330 million by the 2029-30 fiscal year, according to the administration. He also proposed an additional $750 million over five years for repairs to the state’s highways and bridges.
Of course, we’ve been here before. Last year, the governor proposed a plan that would have added $1.41 billion to state public transit funds over five years. The plan went nowhere, and transit systems had to settle for a stopgap measure that simply kicked the can down the road. Now, the day of reckoning is here.
We welcome the governor’s continued, assertive championing of Pennsylvania transit. But let’s also be clear: The mud is way deeper than it might seem, obscuring a very big hole.
Both funding proposals for transit and road and bridge repairs fall far short of ensuring that we all have access to safe, affordable, reliable transportation choices that lift all people of all ages, abilities and challenges. The $40 million that Pittsburgh Regional Transit alone would receive under this budget plan, for example, covers roughly one month of its operations. Clearly, there is much more that is needed.
Supporting a robust transportation system is a core function of government. Effective, reliable public transit is crucial for optimizing that system’s benefit for the most people. It helps Pennsylvania compete globally for new commerce and talent, making us a more attractive place to live, work, and conduct business. It connects people to job opportunities they otherwise couldn’t reach and boosts productivity. It connects our parents and grandparents to the communities that are so crucial to their continued wellbeing and independence.
Shapiro has shown genuine leadership. But we can’t afford to continue this stop-and-start transit funding cycle. It’s time for the administration and General Assembly to push and pull, to get unstuck and to get Pennsylvania moving again. For good this time.
We all deserve nothing less.