The Wave of Transit “Fiscal Cliffs” Explained – Planetizen
- GVF TMA
- Oct 7
- 1 min read
It’s a difficult time to be a big city transit agency. Many transit providers across the country are facing huge deficits in the coming years leaving them with stark options: Find new revenue sources, or massively cut service.
Philadelphia’s SEPTA is facing a $200 million annual shortfall. TriMet, in the Portland, Oregon, area, is looking at a $300 million deficit. Chicago area transit agencies are staring down a deficit of nearly $800 million that could result in up to 40 percent of service to be cut. The list goes on.
The question is: why is this happening right now, everywhere, all at once?
A perfect storm, long brewing
Covid, and its attendant inflation, are the main forces behind the transit industry’s fiscal cliff. But they are far from the only ones. In many ways, they simply worsened existing challenges. “It’s not like we didn’t have these problems before Covid,” said Jeffrey Tumlin, who led the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency from 2019 to 2024. “Covid accelerated them.”
