(The following editorial appeared on the Delaware County Times website on April 25.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA is crying “doomsday” once more. Every year at this time, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority holds public meetings to detail the fiscal calamity facing it and its riders. This year “Plan B” is the guillotine hung over the heads of low-income wage earners, the elderly and the handicapped who primarily depend on public transportation.
Now $129 million in debt, SEPTA officials claim without a $100 million bailout from the state, it will raise fares by 31 percent, cut service by 20 percent and lay off up to 1,000 employees.
If the state finds the funds, SEPTA could raise the remaining $29 million through 11 percent fare hikes, with no service cuts.
Sound familiar?
And SEPTA is just one division of the state’s transit authorities. The Allegheny County Port Authority, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority — all need help from Pennsylvania’s tax coffers.
SEPTA has a $1 billion operating budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year that starts July 1, but according to board members, they will not wait for a final state budget to roll out its doomsday plan.
The SEPTA board will meet with Gov. Ed Rendell Thursday to discuss how the state plans to come up with the money to bail it out once again. But, unlike 2005, Rendell cannot wrest another $412 million in federal highway funds to avoid a SEPTA catastrophe.
This time the governor’s proposals to come up with transit funds are getting a mixed reaction among legislators in Harrisburg. Rendell has asked for a gross profits tax on oil companies and the possibility of leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Neither proposal appears to have enough support to pass.
The funding issue is complicated by legislators from rural section of Pennsylvania who have a hard time selling funds for a transit authority who already gets 70 percent of its operating costs from the state.
So, once again, everything depends on last-minute maneuvering in the state capital. Once again arm-twisting and hand-wringing and promises among politicians will determine the fate of SEPTA and other state transit authorities.
That scenario is not the way to run the state or to jeopardize the transportation needs of a significant portion of the public.
Harrisburg politicians must decide on a dedicated source of funding for public transportation. The time has long passed for this yearly threat-and-succumb tactic.
Once elected officials come up with a dedicated stream of funds, it will be up to the leadership of the transit authorities to make the funding work. If that means cuts in service or cuts in benefits or fewer executives making big salaries, so be it. But the days of the dance between Philly and Harrisburg holding the riding public hostage are long overdue to end.
Only a dedicated funding stream will do it.