(The following story by Dan Hirschhorn appeared on The Bulletin website on February 1.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA’s new boss is in.
Joseph Casey takes over as general manager of the regional transit agency today, after SEPTA’s board chose him as the new chief late last year. He assumes the agency’s top position at a time of high expectations, with customers expecting newly dedicated state funding to translate into better and more efficient service.
And perhaps his biggest challenge will be overseeing SEPTA’s implementation of a modern fare collection system, a daunting project that will take years and cost more than $100 million.
SEPTA would not make Mr. Casey available for an interview this week, but when pegged for the job, he said making buses and trains cleaner while also improving service would be key goals.
“Now that we have our budget problems behind us, we’ll be able to improve things for customers,” said Mr. Casey, formerly SEPTA’s chief financial officer.
Mr. Casey, 51, will make $202,000 a year, the same as his predecessor, Faye Moore. Ms. Moore was general manager for five years, a tenure marked most memorably by the annual funding crises that came to define SEPTA in recent years.
Despite being an independent entity since 1964, the transit agency, now the fifth largest in the country, has continually confronted budget shortfalls. SEPTA hopes that is a thing of the past now, after the state legislature last summer passed a transportation funding law that, among other things, provides dedicated funding for mass transit.
Mr. Casey, a graduate of Cardinal O’Hara High School and Drexel University, has been with SEPTA since 1989. As chief financial officer, he also directed scheduling, route planning and marketing.
“[Mr. Casey] has played a central role in balancing the budget and maintaining fiscal stability even during those years when we faced the toughest financial crises in SEPTA’s history,” Pasquale Deon, the chairman of SEPTA’s board, said in a statement.