Council member pitches plan to save free transit passes for low-income people
Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke wants to create the Philadelphia Transit Access Fund, a trust for free or reduced-fare transit passes for low-income people.
City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke announced on Thursday that he plans to introduce legislation requiring Philadelphia to permanently fund Zero Fare, the program that provides free SEPTA passes to about 25,000 people living in poverty but is due to be discontinued later this year.
“We ought to acknowledge that SEPTA is the foundation of economic mobility in Philly, and write laws that reflect it,” he said in a speech at the end of Thursday’s City Council meeting.
He is proposing “1% for the 23% of Philadelphians who we always remind ourselves are living in poverty in the poorest city in the USA.”
O’Rourke, an at-large council member from the Working Families Party, is the legislative body’s minority whip.
O’Rourke’s plan is modeled after the city’s Housing Trust Fund, his staff members said, and includes:
An ordinance establishing the Philadelphia Transit Access Fund to fund free or reduced-fare transit passes for households with incomes at or below 150% of the federal poverty level.
A proposed change to the city charter for a mandatory annual transfer of money into the transit-access fund that is at least equal to 0.5% of all spending from city government’s general fund.
The charter-change resolution, if enacted and approved by voters, would generate about $30 million a year, O’Rourke’s staff estimates, similar to the amount reserved for the Housing Trust Fund.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s proposed budget does not designate any money to continue the Zero Fare program; Administration officials say it would cost the city’s general fund $30 million in fiscal year 2026.
Former Mayor Jim Kenney started the program in 2023 using federal pandemic aid money for a two-year trial of the idea.
If successful, the intent was to continue funding it with regular city appropriations, Kenney said. He wrote an opinion article for The Inquirer urging his successor’s administration to fund Zero Fare.
As of mid-March participants had taken about 6.6 million trips on SEPTA, the transit agency said. In the last three months of 2024, passholders took an average of 100,000 trips a week.
“The irony is that there’s talk about cutting the program in the same month when the program plans to distribute 12,000 more fully loaded Key cards,” according to the remarks prepared for O’Rourke. “This program can actually serve 35,000 Philadelphians when it’s running at full capacity. ”