Philadelphia Daily News (PA)   March 1, 2005 Section: LOCAL Edition: 4STAR Page: 03 Memo:RETHINKING PHILADELPHIA   FIX MASS TRANSIT ... DAMMIT!  Kudos to transit protesters But the real work is starting now CARLA ANDERSON, URBAN WARRIOR   THIS IS for all the many hundreds of Philadelphia-area activists who worked so hard in recent months to keep SEPTA up and running:   CONGRATULATIONS! See what can happen when you get politically organized?   After many long months of bickering with state legislative leaders, Gov. Rendell yesterday moved to solve the funding crisis for the state's mass-transit systems with federal highway money, staving off fare boosts and service cuts in this region for the next two years.   State legislators such as Dwight Evans, who led an effort to get Philadelphia's government, civic and business leaders thinking about the needs of our region's mass-transit system, deserve our heartfelt thanks. And we should never dismiss the potential of an old-fashioned backroom deal - some version of which may very well lie behind this announcement.   But I say a good part of the credit goes to grass-roots groups like the Pennsylvania Transit Campaign, which started out as a Philly-based group of activist riders but grew to include a large regional membership that numbered into the thousands.   "People should realize that it was because of them, because everyone who had an interest in our public-transit system rallied together and got the word out," said Mark Stier, lead organizer of the Pennsylvania Transit Campaign.   "They were willing to get on buses and come out to Harrisburg to make their voices heard, and they deserve to feel really good about that."   But after the well-deserved shoulder-patting is over, take a deep breath and get ready for more. Because this fight isn't over.   There are 850,000 people who ride a SEPTA train or bus every day. And every one of them knows that our system of bus, train, subway and trolley service could use more than money.   It needs real reform.   Imagine a system that makes it easy to buy whatever ticket you want, whenever you want. Clean buses and trains, with frequent, reliable schedules and inviting atmosphere. And how about ditching that endless waiting at some god-forsaken bus stop? We need real-time information about exactly when that ride is coming, and where it is going.   Without changes like these, we can forget ever having the kind of world-class transit system that really helps a region prosper.   Stier and his group say they are already working on it.   "Now's the time, because we don't want to lose momentum," Stier told me yesterday.   But we have only two years to lobby for these improvements, and the money that's required to fund them.   Remember what it used to be like in Manhattan, before riders banded together to form the politically potent "straphangers" campaign? And then they got $30 billion for their mass-transit system, playing a major role in the ultimate rescue of a system that had become so unsafe, and so unpopular, that businesses were saying it had driven them out of the city.   So keep your chin up, transit riders, and keep right on working.   Your biggest job has just begun. *   Send e-mail to urbanwarrior@philly news.com