Program providing free SEPTA rides for Philadelphia employees to continue
A program offering
free SEPTA rides
for city workers in Philadelphia will continue, and another providing free rides for lower-income residents will likely keep going as well, Mayor Cherelle Parker's administration said Wednesday, after she faced backlash over her proposed 2026 budget cutting funding for the programs.
Zero Fare, a two-year pilot program that provides free SEPTA rides to people who live near the poverty line, appeared to be on the chopping block based on Parker's
proposed $6.7 billion budget
. The program benefits 25,000 low-income residents in Philadelphia.
Parker also initially proposed cutting funding for another program, SEPTA Key Advantage, serving 15,000 city employees. The mayor says now that the program will continue through the next fiscal year.
"As I have said, the SEPTA Key Advantage Program is an important benefit which enables many city employees to stretch their paychecks," Parker said in an emailed statement. "I am pleased to announce that the SEPTA Key Advantage program will continue in its present form in fiscal year 2026, which starts July 1."
Parker's administration said the mayor and SEPTA are discussing extending the Zero Fare program through 2026.
According to the administration, the city has provided SEPTA $15 million above its match requirement in its fiscal year 2025 and will continue to do so in 2026. The administration said it is negotiating with SEPTA to use that money to extend the Zero Fare program.
"This extension would allow the city and SEPTA to review and implement findings from the William Penn Foundation-funded program evaluation expected in spring 2026," the Parker administration wrote in a press release.
The reversal comes after the Parker administration faced criticism from city councilmembers and the community.
In late March, Councilmember Nicolas O'Rourke said the program was "being zeroed out this year."
Nearly 700 people signed a
petition
urging the mayor and city council to save the program. Two SEPTA riders told CBS News Philadelphia that the decision was "really disastrous" and "doing people of low-income housing injustice."
Zero Fare participants recorded more than 6.6 million trips from its beginning through mid-March 2025 with an average of 100,000 per week, SEPTA said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
District attorney and rally organizer warn against misconduct
PARKER, Colo. (KDVR) — The 'No Kings' protest in Parker is set to go on, even after the town discouraged the event due to resources already being used for the Parker Days Festival taking place on Saturday, too. Now, law enforcement is warning protestors to keep things peaceful if they want to stay out of trouble. Organizers of the No Kings protest in Parker are expecting the best on Saturday, but prosecutors in the area want them to know they are prepared for the worst. Two dogs disappear, were found after being killed according to Larimer County family 'Seeing how some of these protests have turned into arrests in Denver, Seattle, Portland. The fact that we've already got law enforcement and public services spread extremely thin for a town of 50,000 that will over this weekend see 350,000 people come through, the risk there is for something bad to happen,' said District Attorney George Brauchler of the 23rd Judicial District. The district attorney said he welcomes peaceful protestors looking to take part in the No Kings protest in Parker on Saturday. He is warning people who may be coming from outside the community, they will be prosecuted if they break the law. 'Parker is going to do its best to make sure that they are protected and that they are safe with their thin resources. But I can promise you in the discussions that I've had, if those things turn into lawlessness, yes, law enforcement will then have to leave Parker Days, leaving that crowd to be less safe in order to come down and take care of the criminality,' said Brauchler. 'I'm serious about this part: if you put yourself in a position to come down here and do something other than peacefully protest, least don't show up in court and expect some sense of dismissal, or 'hey we understand that you're super emotional about this.' I will not. You do your best to be peaceful as a protester, and we'll have no issues at all. You step over that line, try to shut down a road, fight with the cops, fight with each other, it doesn't matter. We have plenty of room in the jail.' Many protestors may not be coming from other areas. Dozens of these protests are taking place across the state. Organizers said they are expecting a good-sized crowd, but they are not anticipating chaos. The area organizer is relieved that leaders are committed to getting bad actors. 'We have heard the same rumor. And I'm really relieved that he is aware of it because I think maybe we might be afforded some kind of police protection for our rally. What I heard was that outside, maybe like Proud Boys and groups like that, may infiltrate our rallies and perpetrate violence on the police to try to make it look like we are a violent demonstration,' said No Kings Parker Organizer Carolyn Williamson. 'I've put the fear of God into these people: we're going to dot every 'I' and cross every 'T'. We do not want to make an enemy of Parker because we want to do more peaceful rallies. It's our constitutional right, and that's what's going to happen tomorrow: a peaceful, lawful rally.' Organizers said they also have safety plans in place if bad actors do show up. They will go over the details with attendees before they get started Saturday morning. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
NY appeals court rejects bid to overturn Trump's convictions in E. Jean Carroll case
President Donald Trump has lost his latest bid to challenge a civil jury verdict holding him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the 90s and then defaming her decades later when she went public with the allegations. On Friday the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York declined Trump's request for a court's full bench to rehear his case. The decision leaves in place a December 2024 ruling by a three-judge panel upholding the 2023 jury verdict, which ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, welcomed the decision. 'E. Jean Carroll is very pleased with today's ruling,' she said. 'Although President Trump continues to try every possible maneuver to challenge the findings of two separate juries, those efforts have failed. He remains liable for sexual assault and defamation.' The case is one of two civil suits Carroll, now 81, has filed against Trump, both stemming from his public denials of her 2019 accusation that he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in 1996. In October 2022, Trump defamed Carroll on Truth Social by denying her claim as a hoax. Carroll's first lawsuit, related to Trump's 2019 statements, ended in January 2024 with an $83.3 million defamation verdict in her favor. Trump is also appealing that outcome. Oral arguments in that appeal are scheduled for June 24. The lawsuit at the center of Friday's ruling was filed in 2022 after New York temporarily lifted its statute of limitations for certain sexual assault claims. It included both defamation and battery claims related to Carroll's original allegations and Trump's more recent comments. Two judges—Steven Menashi and Michael Park, both appointed by Trump—dissented from Friday's decision, arguing the court should have reconsidered the case. Menashi accused the panel of deviating from precedent and criticized the trial judge for excluding key evidence and admitting 'stale witness testimony' from another woman who accused Trump of assault during an unrelated encounter. The majority of the appellate court rejected that view. Four judges countered the dissent, writing that the appeal did not meet the high bar required for review, which is typically reserved for cases involving significant legal questions or conflicts in appellate precedent. Judges Denny Chin and Susan Carney, who previously ruled against Trump in the December decision, issued a statement supporting the majority and directly refuting Menashi's arguments. 'Even on his own terms, our dissenting colleague fails to explain why any purported error warrants a retrial or full court review,' they wrote. Trump's final chance to overturn the verdict lies with the Supreme Court. His team has indicated that he will ask the highest court to hear his appeal, but the court is not obligated to do so. According to NBC News, in a statement Friday, a spokesperson for Trump described the lawsuit as a 'Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax' and said the former president 'will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he is focusing on his mission to Make America Great Again.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Court rules against Donald Trump in effort to retry E. Jean Carroll sex abuse case
June 13 (UPI) -- The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday rejected President Donald Trump's attempt to get a retrial of the civil sexual abuse and defamation liability verdict against him in the E. Jean Carroll case. The appeals court had already rejected an appeal of the verdict in December. The court voted 8-2 Friday to refuse Trump's effort to overturn the verdict and retry the case. Lawyers for Carroll said in a statement, "E. Jean Carroll is very pleased with today's decision. Although President Trump continues to try every possible maneuver to challenge the findings of two separate juries, those efforts have failed. He remains liable for sexual assault and defamation." Trump's lawyers then sought a retrial, petitioning to have the full appeals rule on it in what's known en banc. The court's Friday ruling written by Judge Myrna Perez said of Trump's effort, "Simply re-litigating a case is not an appropriate use of the en banc procedure." She added, "In those rare instances in which a case warrants our collective consideration, it is almost always because it involves a question of exceptional importance or a conflict between the panel's opinion and appellate precedent." Perez said of Trump's earlier rejected appeal of the verdict, "Defendant-Appellant appealed a civil judgment against him for sexual assault and defamation, challenging several of the district court's evidentiary rulings. For the reasons discussed at length in its unanimous opinion, the panel, on which I sat, found no reversible abuse of discretion." Trump denies sexually assaulting Carroll and defaming her. A statement from a spokesperson for Trump's legal team said, "The American People are supporting President Trump in historic numbers, and they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax, which will continue to be appealed." Trump-appointed Circuit Judges Steven J. Menashi and Michael Park dissented. "I would rehear the case en banc to "maintain uniformity of the court's decisions" and to resolve these important questions in line with longstanding principles," Menashi wrote. Writer Carroll won a $83.3 million defamation judgement against Trump, as well as a civil verdict, that he sexually abused her. The jury in that case found Trump liable for battery and defamation in Carroll's sexual abuse lawsuit. She alleged in that suit that Trump sexually abused her in a New York City department store. The jury found that Trump, beyond a preponderance of evidence, sexually abused Carroll.
