They Mind the Gap

If it seems like SEPTA cries poor every year, there's good reason.


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Published: Mar 6, 2007

transportation

'ROUND AND 'ROUND IT GOES: District Council 47 President Thomas Cronin has grown tired of the one-year Band-Aid fixes for transit funding.

: michael m. koehler

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There is a quick way to piss off activists protesting mass-transit service cuts: Just ask if they work for SEPTA.

Last week, one woman, toting armfuls of shopping bags and an "I'm going to miss my train" look, did just that. She brushed by three men handing out bright yellow fliers ("SEPTA is proposing to raise fares by 31 percent! But you can put transit back on track!") inside Suburban Station at rush hour.

"You guys want more money?" she asked. "You must be from SEPTA."

"God, no!" answered health-care-worker union rep Paul Grobb, as if he'd been shot.

"We hate SEPTA," declared Marc Stier. He paused to consider this for a minute, so the woman was long gone when he added, "And SEPTA hates us."

Stier, an at-large City Council candidate and SEPTA gadfly, was out with members of the Pennsylvania Transit Coalition (PTC), one of a small number of groups that get riled up this time of year, when SEPTA declares it doesn't have enough money to operate and the state government starts scrambling to close its massive funding gap.

From there, transit watchdogs like Thomas Cronin, president of the District Council 47 AFL-CIO, are set loose in the city, aggravated that poor state planning threatens everyday riders, and even more aggravated when the fixes are no more than a Band-Aid with a one-year expiration date. That's the message groups like PTC try to spread, but riders don't always listen.

"Right now, SEPTA's funding stream is quietly clotting up like blood in an aorta — and before anyone realizes, it's going to have a massive, deadly heart attack," Stier told an elderly commuter who politely nodded and walked to the platform.

It's not Stier's first time pitching those words and, considering SEPTA's newest budget, it won't be his last. SEPTA has written an all-too-common ransom note to lawmakers: give us $150 million by July 1, or fares will shoot up 31 percent (it would be $2.50 for a subway ride), service will be cut and 1,000 jobs will be lost. That echoes similar threats from the past five years, like in 2005, when Rendell borrowed federal highway dollars to stop the carnage.

Riders pay about half of SEPTA's $1 billion budget; the rest comes from city and state dollars, although the state hasn't been putting in its share, SEPTA officials said.

This year, Gov. Rendell wants to close a $760 million funding gap by taxing oil company profits. This week, state House and Senate committees held hearings to question state Department of Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler about the plan. They're trying to determine if it's solid enough to pass on to a vote in the full legislature, which could eventually make it law.

But while politicians hold formal debates in Harrisburg, people like Cronin are back in Philly trying to rile up rider support. He tried his pitch on Rich Bompadre, but most of his words were drowned out by a traveling acoustic band doing "House of the Rising Sun."

"That's too much hassle," said Bompadre, a Drexel Hill resident who commutes on the 101 trolley, waving off a leaflet. "I've been riding these trains for nearly 43 years. I'm told every year my service is going to vanish. I say as long as there's change in the fare box, SEPTA will run."

Not so, said Richard Maloney, SEPTA's spokesman. "The cuts are real, very real, absolutely real," he said. "Gov. Rendell's proposal for a tax on oil company profits is a fairly new concept, so there are questions about whether this will be challenged in the courts. It will generate sufficient funds for a few years, but from an accountant or tax expert's standpoint, there may still be a question of what the future funding sources will be."

Cronin, the AFL-CIO worker, said about 20,000 leaflets were handed out. Dozens of people stopped to talk to the PTC activists and dozens waved them off. As foot traffic died down, a short man dressed all in black got close to Cronin and pointed to his "Union, Yes!" pin.

"Here's how to fix mass transit," he said. Cronin's eyes perked up. "Make all those union workers at SEPTA pay for their own benefits and health insurance."

After going back and forth for 10 minutes, Cronin sighed and shook his head, realizing he can't win them all over. "Look," he said, "I'm not convincing you and you're not convincing me, so let's disagree so you can leave me alone."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)