Community leaders decry R-8 cuts

BY TOM NAMAKO

Momentum was against Marc Stier and the Northwest Campaign for Public Transportation at this month’s SEPTA board meeting. Stier, a member of the NCPT steering committee and president of the West Mount Airy Neighbors, had only three minutes to present five points to a group that had recently initiated cuts to midday service on the R8 regional rail line. His arguments followed the woeful Don Nigro, president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers, who was interrupted mid-sentence by the board chairman due to a logical inconsistency.

The board meeting came after the November announcement that over 120 trains a week — allowing lines to run only once an hour at midday and every 90 minutes on Sundays — would be eliminated due to continuing budget problems, regardless of the transportation authority tapping into $15 million from highway construction funds in early October to help fill the deficit.

Stier’s comments primarily described the economic and convenience ramifications of reducing the rail line’s schedule and noted that the consequences would only tilt the slippery slope steeper for R8 cuts.

“In a year or two, when [the board] is faced with continuing budget problems, you will say that the R8 needs to be cut again because of a decline in ridership, a decline you have created with your current reductions,” Stier said.

Cuts to the R8 are likely to save SEPTA a maximum of $500,000 and will affect anywhere from 13 to 25 percent of its ridership during the week.

Although SEPTA approved these cuts last spring, they remain controversial because the transit authority pledged not to implement them until Harrisburg responded to the state budget situation, which may allocate enough money to cure SEPTA’s cash crisis. Stier added that the cuts were also initiated after Governor Rendell’s office offered a way for SEPTA to eliminate this year’s deficit though a “three-prong approach:” the transfer of highway funds described above, access to $10 million in a formerly restricted account and a reversal of the six percent cut in state transit aid, which allots SEPTA another $15 million.

If SEPTA follows the governor’s suggestions, the transit agency can restore $40 million of the fiscal year’s $41 million deficit and avoid fare increases and service cuts this year.

“There should be an allotment for SEPTA in federal money as well as money from the state and city,” Derek Green, chief legislative aide for City Council and executive committee member of East Mount Airy Neighbors, said. “I don’t know why SEPTA isn’t looking to Washington, D.C.”

Although financial momentum is building to fight the deficit, Northwest Philadelphia residents are wondering when vocal momentum on the SEPTA board will be a factor.

Riders and community associations are leaning on Jettie Newkirk and Christian DiCicco, both lawyers representing Philadelphia on the SEPTA board, to give alternative plans a chance.

Newkirk voted against the cuts last spring, whereas DiCicco — son of City Councilman Frank DiCicco — hasn’t been as vocal, noted Stier.

Stier’s presentation noted that SEPTA failed to inform elected officials, community groups, or schools about the cuts, and said that students were stranded on the Suburban Station platform the day the rail services were inactivated. Pasquale Deon, chairman of the SEPTA board, later rebutted Stier’s allegations.

“We didn’t try to hide the information,” Deon said. “We printed a full page advertisement in the Metro, sent notices to each elected official, distributed a press release, and had it reported in the Inquirer.”

Stier attacked the frequently used argument that the R8 and R7 lines parallel and therefore can supplement riders. He noted that the rails are only close by at Chestnut Hill, and that farther down the line, where most passengers board, some stations are a mile apart.

“Some people think that because only the R8 is affected, only West Mount Airy has to worry,” Green said. “These cuts affect the interplay between both East and West Mount Airy. The lines help unite the communities economically and also cuts down pollution and traffic for both.”

Stier also made some political notes to the board. He claimed that implementing service cuts now, SEPTA is making themselves, and not the state, the people’s enemy.

“It is time for SEPTA to be reaching out to community groups to build a coalition of support for mass transit,” Stier said. “In order to do that, you have to stop pitting city against suburbs, busses against railroads and Democrats against Republicans.”

Community groups are now beginning the uphill battle to restore the R8. The West Mount Airy Neighbors currently have an e-mail list of over 800 members, and will soon launch a post card campaign — already 3,000 are printed — in the upcoming weeks.