(The Philadelphia Inquirer posted the following story by Matthew P. Blanchard and Jere Downs on its website on April 3.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA’s latest proposal to make deep cuts in service sounds like such a mistake that rider John Walsh can scarcely believe the transit agency will go through with it.
“Where’s the logic?” Walsh asked on the Route 123 bus to King of Prussia yesterday. “It was a godsend when they created this route, and now they want to cut it?”
SEPTA announced on Tuesday that it might eliminate four regional rail lines and merge or shut down dozens of bus routes because of a projected $55 million deficit exacerbated by state budget cutbacks.
Slated for October, the proposed cuts include the elimination of major lines: R2 Warminster, R6 Cynwyd, R8 Chestnut Hill West and R1 Airport. Add in the bus routes eliminated, and 12 percent of SEPTA’s 430,000 daily riders would be affected.
Hearing that their bus or train might vanish, SEPTA riders warned that the pain could spread beyond them to a city trying to keep its downtown vibrant, match urban workers with suburban jobs, and reduce congestion on its highways.
Others figured the threatened cutbacks were a negotiating ploy to prod Harrisburg to restore SEPTA funding.
“Sometimes they’ll say certain things just to get what they really want,” said Starr Forbes, 49, of Mount Airy, a rider on the R2 Warminster line.
Another thing SEPTA might “really want” is the 10-cent hike in token prices and transfers it proposed along with the service cuts. The $2 cash fare would not change.
According to SEPTA, the authority needs to come up with $40 million to scrape through the fiscal year that begins July 1. Abandoning the four regional rail lines for a year would save SEPTA $7.9 million. The R2 Warminster line from Center City to Bucks County would be the biggest single chunk of the saving – about $2.9 million.
Part of the crisis traces to the state budget gap, which prompted Gov. Rendell to cut SEPTA’s state funding by 6 percent, or $15 million.
Another reason is the state’s disappointing Public Transit Assistance Fund, established in 1997 to funnel rental car and utility tax revenue to agencies like SEPTA. Insufficient and unpredictable are two words used to describe this funding source.
SEPTA has fought earlier funding cuts with giant games of political chicken, threatening to slash service to get the attention of the state legislature. The R2, R1 and R8 and dozens of bus lines were all rescued from the chopping block in the 1980s. Similar threats in 1996 were never carried out. Instead, the agency laid off employees and delayed major projects.
But if this isn’t a ploy, the budget ax may hit workers who are already struggling.
Consider the Route 123 bus. Started four years ago, the route carries mostly lower-income workers from the 69th Street Terminal to the King of Prussia mall. It is a lifeline for many of its 450 daily riders who commute from neighborhoods with high unemployment to the suburbs, where workers are needed.
Dawn Royster, 37, leaves West Philadelphia every day for a Lockheed Martin office in King of Prussia, where she works the 1-to-9:30 p.m. janitorial shift. A single mother of six, Royster said losing the bus route would make life that much harder.
“They can’t shut it down. There’s only two ways to get to the King of Prussia mall, and this is one of them,” Royster said. The alternative route, the 124/125 bus from Center City, doubles the 42-minute commuting time, she said.
“These are just people trying to get to work and back home again,” said driver Julius Major, shaking his head as he spun the steering wheel. “And this is a busy route. Why don’t they cut the 111 [to Chadds Ford]? There’s nobody on it.”
The trouble is reversed in Center City, which takes in thousands of suburban office workers each day.
While cars jammed the streets at rush hour yesterday, commuters at Suburban Station waited for the R2 Warminster.
News of the cuts had spread, and many were calculating alternative routes.
“Driving is just not an option,” said Hank Bein, 42, whose commute from Willow Grove would strand him either on the Schuylkill Expressway or Interstate 95. The father of a 6-year-old, Bein finds the R2 eats up less of his time than any other option.
“Despite all the criticism, the train is on time 98 percent of the time,” said Bein, whose contingency plan would be to go to a more distant station and catch another line.
“It’s not the cleanest thing in the world,” he said of the train, “but I like it.”