So, let me get this straight. SEPTA, the transit agency that runs on a diet of rider fares and perpetual crisis, jacks up prices by over 21%, and now SEPTA faces class-action lawsuit over fare increases. And the core of the lawsuit isn't just that the hike is steep—it's that the whole financial emergency is a complete, manufactured sham.
You have to almost admire the sheer audacity of it all. It's like watching two heavyweight fighters, both with glass jaws, stumbling around the ring throwing haymakers. In one corner, you have a massive public utility that claims it's teetering on the edge of oblivion. In the other, you have a consumer advocate and his lawyer calling bullshit so loudly that they're dragging everyone into court.
And who’s stuck outside the ropes, paying for the tickets and getting splattered with sweat and blood? Us. The regular schmucks just trying to get to work without selling a kidney to afford the El.
This isn't just a lawsuit; it's an accusation of a massive institutional bluff, and I’m here for every second of it.
The Magic Money Pot
Let’s talk about the heart of this mess: the "service stabilization fund." According to the lawsuit filed by George Bochetto, SEPTA is sitting on a pile of cash specifically designed for rainy days. Well, folks, look outside. It's a damn hurricane. Yet SEPTA’s leadership is treating that fund like it’s a sacred relic in a museum, sealed behind six inches of glass. Don't touch. For emergencies only.
This is the equivalent of a guy telling his family he can't afford groceries this week while he's got a safe full of cash in the basement labeled "For Real Emergencies." What, exactly, is more of a real emergency than the system entering what the lawsuit calls a "death spiral"?
During a court hearing back in August, SEPTA's General Manager Scott Sauer claimed that using the fund would "accelerate SEPTA’s path to fiscal insolvency." Let me translate that for you from corporate-speak into English: "If we use our savings to solve the problem now, we can't use the crisis to go crying to state lawmakers for a bigger bailout later."
It's a hostage situation, plain and simple. They're making the ride worse and more expensive to create a political pressure cooker, hoping the state legislature caves before the ridership revolts. The lawsuit alleges they're inflicting over half a million dollars in damages on riders every week as a negotiating tactic. This is a bad idea. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of public trust. How can an agency that exists solely to serve the public justify actively harming them as a bargaining chip?
Déjà Vu on the Broad Street Line
If any of this feels familiar, it’s because we just did this dance a month ago. The same lawyer, Bochetto, was in court forcing SEPTA to reverse 20% service cuts that were disproportionately hammering low-income riders and people of color. The judge agreed, ordering them to restore service, but let the fare hikes go through. Now, they're back to finish the job.
It’s a pattern of disrespect. No, ‘disrespect’ is too polite—it’s institutional malpractice. It’s the same energy I feel standing on a platform staring at a ghost train on the app that never arrives. You feel completely powerless.
The complaint even details an incident where the plaintiff, Lance Haver, was physically removed from the podium at a public hearing, describing it as "gestapo-like conduct." I wasn't there, so I can't vouch for the exact comparison, but the image it paints is ugly. It's the picture of an organization that has stopped listening, that sees public feedback not as a vital part of the process but as an annoying obstacle to be removed. They hold these "public hearings," and for what? To check a box on a form? It's a joke.
And they have the nerve to complain about fare evasion while treating their paying customers like an ATM they can smack whenever they're short on cash. It's a cycle of contempt. They provide worse service, charge more for it, and then act shocked when people lose faith in the system...
Playing by 1989 Rules
SEPTA’s defense seems to be leaning on a dusty old court opinion from 1989. Their argument, in essence, is that a court can’t step in and overrule an agency's decisions unless there's a "flagrant abuse of discretion." It's their legal get-out-of-jail-free card. They can do almost anything, and as long as it's not cartoonishly evil, the courts are supposed to look the other way.
But here's the question Bochetto is forcing the court to answer: What does "flagrant abuse" actually look like? Does it look like manufacturing a crisis? Does it look like sitting on an emergency fund during an emergency? Does it look like silencing public dissent?
The entire premise of this lawsuit is to argue that, yes, this is exactly what a flagrant abuse of discretion looks like in 2024. It's definately a high bar to clear. Judges don’t like meddling in the operations of massive public agencies. But when the agency itself seems to be actively sabotaging its own mission—to provide affordable, reliable public transportation—at what point does a court have to step in and say "enough"?
Maybe the rules from 1989 don't quite cut it for the mess we're in today. Maybe, just maybe, telling hundreds of thousands of people to pay more for less while you hoard their emergency cash is the very definition of a flagrant abuse. We’re about to find out.
A Game of Chicken We're All Losing
Let's be real. There are no heroes here. This is a bare-knuckle brawl between a calcified public bureaucracy playing politics with people's lives and a bulldog lawyer who knows how to weaponize public outrage. SEPTA is holding a gun to its own head, demanding more money from the state while picking the pockets of its riders. Haver and Bochetto are throwing legal bombs into the mix, hoping to force their hand. And we're all just caught in the crossfire, hoping we can still afford the train next week. Win or lose, the public's trust in the system is already bleeding out on the courtroom floor. Enjoy your commute.
