Leslie Richards led SEPTA for 5 years as general manager. Here’s what she thinks she got right.

Oh, Leslie S. Richards had plans when she walked into SEPTA headquarters in January 2020 as CEO and general manager — lists and lists full of them.

But barely two months later, a killer virus took hold. The region shut down. Ridership on buses, trolleys, the subway, the El and Regional Rail combined plunged 92%.

“That was a crazy time, trust me. I was barely standing,” Richards said as she prepared to depart after four years and 11 months at the helm of the country’s sixth-largest transit agency. Her last day is Friday.

Survival, and then recovery, dominated SEPTA’s to-do list. The system has bounced back in some ways, with nearly 800,000 average weekday riders as of Sept. 30. That’s short of the 1 million daily passengers in 2019, but on par with other recent years.

At the same time, a number of Richards’ ambitious initiatives were realized or are in progress. But Richards, 57, abruptly announced her resignation Oct. 24 in a late afternoon statement.

She championed changes to modernize SEPTA management and reorient services to better adapt the system for riders’ changing needs. Among them: a Bus Revolution to streamline routes and make buses more frequent and reliable and a modernization of the trolley network, with new, ADA-accessible vehicles and fixed stations. Key Advantage allows employers to purchase go-anywhere rail passes at a discount and provide them free to employees. Work has begun on a Reimagining Regional Rail program.

The bus reorganization and changes to Regional Rail have been postponed as SEPTA continues to face financial uncertainty, despite a $153 million lifeline from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s flexing of federal highway funds to the transit system, announced Nov. 22.

Two long-sought vehicle procurements will proceed, however, because both are fully funded, SEPTA says: a $714 million contract to replace SEPTA’s Reagan-era trolley fleet, and up to $864 million to purchase more than 200 rail cars for the Market-Frankford Line, as replacements for a fleet prone to breakdowns. The MFL project involved winning a $317 million federal grant, SEPTA’s largest.

Richards, a former Montgomery County commissioner, chair of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and PennDot secretary, was a departure in chief executives for SEPTA, which traditionally has promoted internal candidates.

Admirers credit Richards with diversifying leadership ranks and trying to open up a top-down organization via listening sessions and consultations with employees.

Richards made some missteps. She steered about $40 million of pandemic relief funds, designed to keep transit running, toward design and engineering for the King of Prussia rail extension in 2021. Two years later, the federal government declined a capital grant needed for construction, and it was canceled. The KOP project had anemic ridership projections and costs had risen from $500 million when it was proposed in 2012 to $3 billion.

The general manager also took a hit when the Federal Transit Administration ordered the transit agency to make improvements to safety procedures, citing a “deteriorating safety record” in operations.

In a wide-ranging conversation with The Inquirer, Richards discussed her accomplishments, as well as disappointments and frustrations.

“Going to Harrisburg each year. Fighting for funding, going to our local counties as well. Always, always fighting for funding, always having to make the argument what a good investment transit is.”

Buffeted by rising costs and the disappearance of federal pandemic operating aid for transit, SEPTA faced a $240 million budget deficit going into the current fiscal year last July.

Gov. Josh Shapiro described the recently announced $153 million for SEPTA as a “bridge” to give the legislature more time to negotiate a stable way to raise new transit money, possibly including a megadeal that would also dedicate new funds for roads and bridges, as Senate Republicans want.

The move averted, for now, a 29% increase in fares and deep service cuts that SEPTA said would cripple the agency.

The funding shortfall returns in six months if nothing changes.

“I’m an optimist who worries a lot,” Richards told Philadelphia Magazine after she was selected one of the region’s 150 most-influential people of 2024 (No. 7), a quote attributed to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“We’ve been able to decrease crime rates that were out of control,” Richards said.

Violent crimes have declined 35% on SEPTA over last year, compared to a 19% decline on the Washington Metro system, 10% on Northern California’s BART, and 5.4% in New York.

SEPTA says it now has about 250 sworn transit police officers, including patrol supervisors and has added 100 new workers to clean stations, vehicles and tracks, for $72 million. Cleaning is now its own department.

“It never came under one person to oversee and measure everything,” Richards said. “They didn’t all work together.”

“My own senior leadership team has reached 55% women and 36% minority representation — compared to the first day I got here when my team consisted of 7% women and zero minorities,” she said.

At lower rungs of management, the number of women increased by 15% and minority representation grew by about 10%, per SEPTA.

Richards believes that organized efforts to consult employees more, including an effort to brainstorm money-saving ideas, have paid dividends. “It’s been wonderful to hear that employees have felt they have a voice. We’ve got a long way to go but we’re laying a groundwork.”

“When I got here, the top planning position at SEPTA — the title was assistant treasurer — was in the finance division,” Richards said.

She made planning its own division with a director in the C-suite to give planners a voice in decisions, traditionally dominated by the engineering and construction divisions.

“We’ve been able to get big, impactful projects done,” such as the new bus network and a wayfinding redo that is being implemented, using colors, letters and directional signs to make the system easier to navigate.

Planners have also worked closely with operations employees to prioritize infrastructure repairs.

“I’m a nerd at heart. I go into the weeds,” Richards said.

“I feel like we’ve put in a lot of good things, and we have a wonderful team here,” Richards said. “And now it’s time for the next group of employees to take it from here.”

She will be increasing her role as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, which includes urban and regional planning graduate degrees.

And yep, Richards, who lives in Center City, plans to commute by SEPTA.

“I’m just, you know, popping up a few stops on the Market-Frankford Line and get off at 31st or 34th Street,” she said. “I can take the 21 or the 42 bus routes up Walnut or the trolleys over to 33rd.”