(The following column by John Baer appeared on the Philadelphia Daily News website on July 26.)
PHILADELPHIA — Well, the SEPTA-in-crisis saga continues.
And, no, you’re not reading an old column.
And, yes, the state just signed a hard-fought “historic” deal to secure SEPTA funding for the next two decades.
But with the agency’s board scheduled to meet today to maybe consider service cuts and fare hikes you thought went away, the new deal is now in doubt and Gov. Ed is in a snit.
“This plan is in jeopardy,” says Ed at a late-afternoon news conference yesterday. “It’s totally mind-boggling to me.”
The Guv reacted to news out of Washington late Tuesday that two northern Pennsylvania GOP congressmen – Phil English of Erie and John Peterson of somewhere out there – stuck an amendment in an appropriations bill that could delay or kill Ed’s plans to toll I-80 (a federal highway) in northern PA and use the money for SEPTA.
Basically, they don’t want their folks paying for Philly folks to ride the bus. Their amendment passed by a voice vote.
There was lots of no-rural-tolls-for-city-transit sentiment during debate at the state level, but the Legislature, nonetheless, approved the toll plan earlier this month.
It also increases Turnpike tolls and would pay for huge hikes in mass-transit money, as well as highway and bridge repairs – $750 million the first year alone, more after that.
If the U.S. House amendment sticks, that money would be halved, says a Rendell aide, and SEPTA would lose a ton.
Clearly surprised, Rendell went on a mini-rant about how nobody in U.S. House leadership and none of the Democratic Philly congressmen bothered to contact him and let him know the anti-toll effort was coming or happened.
“No one called me,” he said. “Nobody responded. I was blown away.”
He noted he is especially “disappointed” since he’s raised money and helped elect many of the Congress members (including Chaka Fattah, Bob Brady and Allyson Schwartz) in question.
Ed says he found out about the killer amendment at a fundraiser for mayoral nominee Mike Nutter Tuesday night.
He says prior to that he had “no sense” of congressional opposition.
“I would have bet 100-to-one” against this happening, says Ed.
Now, since Democrats control Congress, it’s likely the amendment gets stripped when the federal budget is passed. But that (like anything in Congress) is not certain and, if it does happen, won’t happen until October, when the new federal fiscal year begins.
“We can’t wait,” says Ed. “We have to have a fallback position.”
So he plans to again seek bids to lease the Turnpike, his initial highway and transit-funding proposal that the Legislature rejected.
He says the lease plan holds the potential for bringing in more transit and highway funds than the current plan (up to $1.75 billion a year) without tolling I-80.
Asked about SEPTA short- term, long-term, Rendell paused and said, “I don’t know what I could say. . . . I couldn’t give them a guarantee.”
He says he’ll urge the SEPTA board not to increase fares or cut services in September as originally planned prior to the (now questionable) new state funding agreement.
He concedes chances are better than 50-50 the English/Peterson amendment falls and the current plan stays intact. But he also says that, just in case, he’ll push the Turnpike lease since he won’t agree to a gas-tax hike and there is “no alternative.”
This dust-up could be a doorway to Rendell’s getting what he wants.
I say this since he seems pretty playful for somebody getting the transit-funding rug pulled out from under him.
For example: Since he’s lately on a name-calling jag (budget opponents are “imbeciles,” a GOP senator is “certifiable”), I ask whether English/Peterson might be called “imbeciles.”
Ed smiles and says, “I don’t know them well enough to make an evaluation of their mental acuity.”
Perhaps that’ll come later. Along with some solution for SEPTA.