SEPTA SHOULD BE FREE FOR THOSE UNDER $25,000.00 a year.

MR. Mayor, As you know, I LOVe SEPTA. I basically think they do a wonderful job providing transit services for the City of Philadelphia.

     Recently they added the new Key Card. I think and feel this was a very, very bad idea.  I feel it takes, somehow, more money from the very poor than from the more wealthy SEPTA riders. I can't prove this, it is just a feeling, but I trust my feelings very much.  The Key Card also has a tendency to be very intrusive in that it provides, if I am not mistaken, all sorts of information on riders that local, state and federal agencies can use for whatever purposes they want. I Am officially asking for a boycott of the SEPTA Key Card.  I AM a Johnny-Come-Lately with this issue. A rebellion against the Key Card has been brewing for months.  They are very costly and they cut off at the end of the month even if you don't use it for the allotted 8 rides a day.  THIS IS, frankly, A BIG RIP OFF!  Now a days, you can't even buy a regular SEPTA Transpass from the Center City headquarters of SEPTA.  You have to go to a store like Fresh Grocer at 40th and Walnut or the one at Progress Plaza or the one at 56th & Market Street like I do to get the SEPTA tokens  { which are very much more user friendly } or the regular transpasses -- which are much better than the Key Cards and more user friendly as well.  Maybe I am an old head and anti-technology, but I know for sure that the new technologies are very unfriendly to users and also pulling apart our Black community socially. [ One only needs to watch How Black youth now walk through our Black communities and never speak to their neighbors or FAM elders because they are too busy listening to music on their headphones to speak and get to know neighborhood FAM. This has an impact on the effectiveness of gentrification efforts as well, as organizing youth can be difficult if you use traditional methods.  Us Ole heads only know traditional ways here. ]   I also want to see SEPTA for free if you make under $25,000.00 a year as I do. SEPTA takes a real bite out of everyone's pocket and this support for the poor will be and is a great help in helping poor families feed themselves, find and maintain housing, go to school and buy needed items like clothing.  The money can be found by cutting the so-called defense budget at the federal level, and more state money can kick in, as well as that $50 million missing dollars from City Council. This sounds strong and partisan, but let me remind you that I am a registered Republican, but NOT a supporter of the gentleman who occupies the White House.  I AM tired of seeing our so-called social programs fall victim to budget cuts every time we get a more conservative leader. At the same time, the Black community would not have to beg for everything if we had a stronger private Black corporate structure, such as is found in WURD Radio { 900 AM; 96.1 FM} & TV ONE.  This is why we also need strong security for our progressive Black businesses.  No one wants to see what happened in 1921 at the Black Wall Street happen again.   

Gratefully True,

MR. Tracy Charles Gibson,

Educator  -- Activist