(The following editorial appeared on the Philadelphia Daily News website on January 10.)
PHILADELPHIA — In the SEPTA crisis, those with the most to lose have made the least amount of noise.
It’s not the 850,000 weary riders who have become almost passive in accepting fare increases and service cuts. In fact, a new grass-roots movement called the Philadelphia Transit Campaign (www.phillytransit.com ) is coalescing to unite riders, give them a voice that can be heard in Harrisburg, and push for sufficient and stable dedicated funding for mass transit.
No. The frustrating silence is from our region’s business leaders. They stand to lose employees and shoppers should SEPTA’s fares continue to soar out of control. They could also see business shrink as the cash-starved mass-transit system shrivels.
Mayor Street recently described the SEPTA crisis as a crucial regional issue, but it was not “uncommon for people concerned about these things to work below the radar screen, so to speak.”
Well, at least one business leader has made his company’s concern about SEPTA a big blip on the public radar screen. But we need more to do so.
In a letter to the Daily News, Hugh Long, state CEO for Pennsylvania and Delaware Wachovia, wrote “a healthy public transit system is essential to our ability to open our doors every morning.”
Can’t get more straightforward than that. The banking company employs about 7,000 in its eight-county greater Philadelphia area (which includes three counties in New Jersey). About 4,500 work in Philadelphia county. Thousands of them ride SEPTA.
Left unresolved, the funding crisis “will cut deeply into our region’s long-term ability to compete,” he wrote.
Mark Schweiker, president and chief executive of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, recently said his group has been lobbying legislators since September on the issue.
Individual businesses, especially major ones with clout such as Comcast, the University of Pennsylvania, the King of Prussia Mall, should step up publicly and claim a sense of ownership in what happens to SEPTA and Pennsylvania’s other mass-transit systems.
Their voices and economic muscle would give much needed strength to the funding fight.