My piece for Next City on the problems, and potential, of SEPTA’s regional rail network. There’s a lot of fun history and weird bits about contemporary labor relations. And there’s 
no doubt that the system is more oriented towards suburban riders than it used to be.
“When SEPTA took over commuter rail traffic in 1983, the vast majority of riders were making very short trips,” said John Hepp, assistant professor of history at Wilkes University. “SEPTA deliberately raised short-haul fares and closed most of the commuter rail stations in the city. Both Chestnut Hill locals [which only travel within city limits] used to run half an hour all day long, even in the off hours. SEPTA cut that with the idea that they wanted to take service away from those areas and assign them to long-haul services.”
Until 1976, a jumble of competing private operators ran the Philly metro’s regional rail. Fares were charged by station, as opposed to by fare zones today that encompass numerous stations. In 1960 Pennsylvania established the (Philly-funded) Passenger Service Improvement Corporation (PSIC) to help the two principal companies run their stations, which had been hemorrhaging money. Stations covered by the deal were almost all within city limits, and their prices were lowered to match city transit fares. The Merion stop on the Paoli line is equidistant from downtown as, say, Tulpehocken station in northwest Philly, but its prices were higher (the Paoli stop itself, 20 miles away from Suburban Station, is pricier still). In 1975 PSIC station prices were 20 percent lower than counterpart suburban stations at similar distances. But the next year the federally controlled Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) took over the private commuter lines. Prices went up 67 percent at the PSIC stations and 33 percent elsewhere between 1975 and 1980.
In 1980 the fare zone structure was implemented and remained in place when SEPTA took over in 1983. Price hikes continued apace, hitting city stations particularly hard. Between 1975 and 2013, prices at the Tulpehocken station, in Zone Two, have increased 650 percent, Merion by 500 percent and Paoli by 346 percent. In 1980 a peak-hours ride from Tulpehocken station cost $1 ($2.82 in 2013 dollars), while a ride to Paoli cost $2.10 ($5.92 in 2013). Today a ticket to Tulpehocken is $4.50, while a peak fare to Paoli is $6.25.
