“SEPTA is the school bus that we use to get to where we need to be”
Jaylah Fitzgerald, a junior class of 2026 at the Academy of Palumbo, is one of the many Philadelphia high school students that use SEPTA daily to commute to school.
Fitzgerald’s 40 minute commute to school starts every morning by walking down the street to catch the 63 bus (formally known as the G bus) to the Market-Frankford Line Eastbound to 13th street. After arriving at 13th street Fitzgerald then walks over to catch the 45 bus which leaves her directly in front of her school.
Fitzgerald is an avid public transit rider depending on various SEPTA routes such as the 52, 42, 63 bus lines, the B, the L, and the M to get around the city and surrounding areas.
On June 4th 2025 Transit Forward for All PA hosted a rally in Harrisburg to advocate for public transit across the Commonwealth. Hundreds of people took the chance to travel to the state capital and showed their support for public transit. Speakers at the rally included transit riders and elected officials from all parts of the commonwealth voicing their support for transit in unison; one of the speakers at the rally was Fitzgerald.
In her speech Fitzgerald emphasized the importance of SEPTA for Philadelphia high school students such as herself who without SEPTA can not commute to school. Many students across Philadelphia use SEPTA as their main form of transportation to commute to school. To help accommodate students, SEPTA and The School District of Philadelphia provide eligible students from 7th through 12th grade who live 1.5 miles or farther from their school with student fare cards with access to all SEPTA routes to help them commute to school.
Fitzgerald shared her personal experience with SEPTA such as her commute length and the challenges that come with taking SEPTA such as delays, “me being on time for school depends on if buses come on time or not, and that if you know, SEPTA doesn’t get their proper funding, then it would take me longer to get to school.”
Fitzgerald looked back at the rally as a wonderful moment of unity between transit advocates, transit riders, transit workers coming together to highlight public transit as a lifeline for the city of Philadelphia and the Common Wealth, “I thought it was great… it was really good to see that there [were] a lot of people there to support.”
