I really wish they’d figure out a way to do this without hitting the working poor:
More subtly, the TransPasses will no longer be valid for in-city trips on regional rail, in two ways. One, the North Philadelphia and North Broad stations are shifting to Zone 1; and two, the passes will simply not be good any more for trips to Eastwick and the airport.
These changes are more significant than they seem. Eastwick is an important destination for city residents with blue-collar jobs, and for airport-area residents with Center City jobs. Come July, TransPass users will have to switch to the 36 trolley (or a long, 2-stage trip using the El to 69th Street and then a bus), since the shorter, direct trip via the Airport Line will cost more. And it used to be one of SEPTA’s best-kept open secrets that a TransPass gets you to the airport for free. The airport is a destination for workers, too, of course; but this change is irritating for bourgeois professionals like myself who go on trips for business or pleasure a few times per year, or want to meet an incoming visitor and help them save a few clams by taking the train rather than a taxi into town.
My point, and I do have one, is for houseguests after July: You’re on your own, kids!
The Zone 1 shift for the North Philadelphia and North Broad stations will work similarly. Residents and workers who need to use those stations will either switch to slower City Division ground transportation, or they’ll have to buy Zone 1 passes. And the math you’ve been waiting for. Currently, a TransPass is $83.00/mo. The proposed TransPass will be $91.00/mo. But people who need to use North Philadelphia, North Broad, Eastwick, or the Airport will have to get a Zone 1 TrailPass, which is now $91.00/mo. but will be $101.00/mo. While I’m whining about a price increase of $9.00/mo., there are others in the city who will have to find $18.00 more in their monthly budgets. And, as a social worker friend of mine put it, these changes will disproportionately affect people who can least afford the changes.
Link is 404 Not Found. Any change that increases price or decreases service disproportionately affects those who can least afford. The poor and powerless are easy to exploit. That’s why they’re attacking the middle class, they’re a group that at one time could thumb their noses at the 1%. But that was before 50 years of Republican rule.