(The following article by Dan Geringer was posted on the Philadelphia daily News website on March 10.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA’s $42.7 million deficit, which triggered threats of severe fare hikes and service cuts, vanished yesterday when the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission approved Gov. Rendell’s using federal highway funds to erase it.
But when DVRPC board member Maxine Griffith asked SEPTA General Manager Faye Moore if the transit agency would take the threat of future fare hikes “off the table” as Pittsburgh’s Port Authority did after its bailout, Moore declined.
She told Griffith, who directs the City Planning Commission, that SEPTA faces a projected $92.1 deficit in 2006.
And although Rendell promised to transfer more federal highway funds to pay that off if the Legislature fails to pass a permanent transit-funding plan, Moore said she would not feel “sure that we’re not bleeding” in 2006 until the $92.1 million is in SEPTA’s hands.
Griffith said she was troubled by Moore’s concerns about “uncertainty” in 2006.
But Moore remained cautious and noncommittal, saying she was not sure what the SEPTA board would say about possible future fare hikes and service cuts when it meets on March 24.
Attorney Lewis F. Gould Jr. said that Montgomery County, which he represents on the DVRPC board, supported yesterday’s transfer of highway funds to SEPTA, but has “very, very strong opposition to doing this again.”
Rendell recently promised to transfer up to $412 million in federal highway funds to bail out the state’s chronically underfunded and debt-riddled transit agencies through 2006.
But if the Legislature approves a permanent dedicated funding stream for mass transit, Rendell said, that $412 million in highway funds will be used for highways instead.
Moore thanked the DVRPC for approving yesterday’s $42.7 million bailout.
She expressed hope that state legislators would pass a permanent, dedicated funding stream for mass transit during their June budget deliberations, as they promised to do.
“Help us get that,” Moore told the DVRPC, smiling, “and I guarantee that you can have your [highway] money back.”