(The following story by John Sullivan and Jere Downs appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on February 3.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Any legislative bailout plan for cash-strapped SEPTA is likely to require that transit riders pay higher fares, key legislators and SEPTA officials said yesterday.
Exactly how much any fare increase would be and when it would take effect remains unclear, but during the last several days lawmakers have increasingly mentioned fare increases in the same sentence as the bailout plan.
“I believe transit riders will have to pony up their share as we work out a solution and that will be part of it,” said Sen. Roger A. Madigan (R., Bradford), who is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.
SEPTA’s brass say they have heard comments like that from many lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature. And some officials concede that higher fares are likely to be part of any fix still to be fashioned in Harrisburg.
“I heard that all day… from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” Pasquale T. “Pat” Deon , SEPTA’s board chairman, said yesterday of his trip to the state capital on Tuesday. “If that is part of the condition or part of the fix, we have got to do what is right for the authority.”
Deon said the board has not ruled out anything.
SEPTA board member Thomas Babcock said, “It would not be the end of the world if we actually went ahead and implemented the first fare hike to show Harrisburg we are serious.”
City leaders in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit last month to block threatened fare increases and service cuts. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 16 in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court.
Until now the only talk of a fare increase came from SEPTA, which said it would implement higher fares if it did not receive state aid by Feb. 23 to close a multimillion-dollar budget gap. Without a bailout, SEPTA plans to raise fares on Feb. 27, cut service across the board by 20 percent, and lay off workers. SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said yesterday that about 500 employees of the agency’s 9,000-person workforce would be affected.
For months Gov. Rendell has asked the General Assembly to adopt a temporary funding plan to rescue the state’s mass-transit systems before they run out of money. SEPTA said it needed $62 million.
In January, Rendell diverted federal highway and road funding to the state’s mass-transit agencies, with $13.3 million going to SEPTA. Rendell said he was unlikely to do so again.
Transferring another round of highway dollars would be like “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Kate Philips, Rendell’s spokeswoman, said yesterday. At the same time, Philips said Rendell is opposed to any fare hikes.
“The governor is not inclined to support a rate increase.”
Although Rendell appears optimistic a solution can be found by this month’s deadline, some lawmakers said yesterday that they were increasingly resigned to the likelihood that the Feb. 23 deadline would be missed.
“The reality of getting it sooner may not happen,” said Tom Andrews, a spokesman for House Minority Leader William H. DeWeese (D., Greene).
Any coming rate hikes and cuts can always be reversed, board members said.
“There is consensus in Harrisburg to help us. I would hate to have us kick in something that will be cured in the next two or three months,” Deon added. “But we didn’t get to where we are at to do something irresponsible now.”
SEPTA made an argument for higher fares last week.
During the last 15 years, SEPTA had raised fares three times resulting in an increase of 25 percent, while corresponding consumer-price indexes have increased 43 percent, Maloney said in a presentation during fare hike hearings.
City and union officials still say SEPTA should hold off on any rate hikes until lawmakers fix transit funding.
“Raising fares punishes the riders for decisions the state legislature is refusing to make,” Lance Haver, Mayor Street’s consumer advocate, said yesterday. “It turns the riders into SEPTA’s enemies instead of SEPTA’s allies in securing the predictable tax that everyone has said they need.”
And riders cannot afford it, said Transport Workers Union Local 234 president Jeff Brooks, now in talks with SEPTA to renew the contract for 5,000 city transit employees.
But in Harrisburg, lawmakers said they may have little choice.
“I don’t see a way to avoid it,” said Craig Shuey, executive director of the Senate Transportation Committee.
“You have to pay for it somewhere,” said Robert C. Jubelirer (R., Altoona), the top Republican in the Senate.
Calls by legislators for riders to share the burden of the transit crisis amounts to needless meddling in transit agency affairs, Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.) said yesterday.
“We’ve never been in the position of dictating what SEPTA needs to do. They’ve got to make that determination,” Evans said. “A fare hike is still not going to solve the problem.”