(The following article by Paul Nussbaum was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on March 7.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — As SEPTA heads toward another financial crisis, the Rendell administration said yesterday that it would not provide the stopgap financial aid used in recent years.
The administration won’t divert federal highway funding to SEPTA or other transit agencies, Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler told the House Appropriations Committee.
“It’s sink-or-swim time,” Biehler said. He said the use of federal highway funding “was putting a patch” on the problem. “Now it’s time to do something about it.”
Gov. Rendell has proposed a tax on oil companies’ gross profits to help fund mass transit.
SEPTA, which faces a $130 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that will begin July 1, today will specify service cuts and fare hikes it says will be necessary if it does not get more state aid. On average, SEPTA says, fares would rise 31 percent and service would be cut 20 percent.
SEPTA general manager Faye Moore said yesterday that she remained “guardedly optimistic” that Rendell and the legislature would provide $100 million in time to avoid such serious measures. SEPTA hopes to cover the remaining $30 million of the deficit through revenue enhancements and cost savings.
Moore told legislators that even with $100 million in additional state funding, SEPTA planned to raise fares an average of 11 percent, but that the base cash fare would remain $2 and service would be largely unaffected.
Legislators at the hearing were sympathetic to the transit agencies’ financial plight, but lukewarm about Rendell’s proposed solution.
“I’m keeping my options open on the oil tax,” said Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “Something needs to be done… and something will absolutely happen. But not necessarily by July 1.”
“I think it could be a long summer,” said Rep. Joseph Markosek (D., Allegheny), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “I think it’s going to take various funding sources to find the revenue to keep the systems viable. Everything has to be on the table.”
“The problem is so immense that it hasn’t sunk in yet to a lot of members, or the public,” Markosek said.
Lawmakers are looking for money not only for transit agencies, but also to fix or replace deteriorating bridges and highways across the state. A committee on transportation funding reform, chaired by Biehler, recommended in November that $1.7 billion more each year was required.
So Rendell proposed in his budget address last month to raise $760 million for transit agencies with the oil-profits tax and $965 million for roads and bridges with interest from leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
“My assessment is that the transit situation is more acute,” Biehler said. “They have to have balanced budgets by July 1. But in terms of severity, bridges and roads are also very, very severe. We have to get at that problem.”
Pennsylvania has 5,913 structurally deficient bridges, the most of any state, Biehler said. And he said about 8,500 of the 40,000 miles of state-maintained roads are in poor condition.
Legislators suggested other ways to raise money, including placing tolls on the Schuylkill Expressway and I-95, I-80 and other interstate highways and increasing fees for parking, car rentals, drivers’ licenses and traffic tickets.
Pennsylvania transit agencies get much less of their money from local sources (11 percent) than do those in neighboring states (39 percent, on average), according to data presented by the Pennsylvania Economy League. That’s largely because Pennsylvania, unlike the other states, does not permit regional authorities to levy taxes for transit.
Legislators representing rural areas of the state, such as Rep. Fred McIlhattan (R., Clarion), said their constituents were reluctant to contribute more money for mass transit, which they saw as benefiting only metropolitan areas.
But Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny) said that while “a regional tax appeals from an intellectual level, is this really a viable position politically? I think it has to be done at a state level.”