Transit-fund brigade rolls to Harrisburg

Public-transit straphangers, management suits and union stalwarts from all over Pennsylvania converge on Harrisburg today to plead their state-funding-or-bust case to legislators.

Buses packed with wannabe SEPTA-saviors were scheduled to depart JFK Plaza early this morning for today's rally for reliable public-transit funding through a larger slice of the state sales-tax pie.

SEPTA needs $62 million to plug its budget hole, or it threatens to cut weekend service and raise fares this winter.

SEPTA's kissing cousin in Pittsburgh, the Allegheny County Port Authority, threatens to raise base fares from $1.75 to $2.50, eliminate weekend service and slash weekday commuter routes if it doesn't get a $30 million fix and dedicated funding.

Nobody predicts a permanent solution before Election Day.

But public transitistas like West Mount Airy activist Marc Stier of the Philadelphia Transit Campaign hope for relief after all the hanging chads are counted.

Expecting a modest turnout today in Harrisburg, Stier said it's hard to rally riders until the trains stop running, but he is hopeful of bigger numbers as SEPTA's doomsday nears.

One good sign, he said, is that the House and Senate bills calling for dedicated public-transit funding are supported by Republicans, who control the Legislature.

Another plus, Stier said, is that Gov. Rendell, "who has never been a great fan of SEPTA," is "starting to say the right things."

Before today's rally, Rendell is expected to tell a Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions breakfast that "he thinks there is a real need for a dedicated funding stream for public transportation," said press secretary Kate Phillips.

Stier said he had an epiphany "when I was lobbying in Harrisburg and one legislator said to me, 'SEPTA has a terrible reputation.' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because you're always yelling at them in Philadelphia.' I realized that yelling at SEPTA is counterproductive."

The enemy, he said, is not SEPTA but its chronic cash crises.

During the current one, Stier credits SEPTA's "newfound maturity" in reaching out to - instead of screeching at - riders, activists, even the Transport Workers Union (contracts will be negotiated this winter).

SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said that approach is just common sense.

"[SEPTA] management gets the same increases and decreases as the union," Maloney said. "If the union gets 3 percent, we get 3 percent. If they get dental benefits, we get them.

"When we are negotiating the contract with the union, we know we're negotiating our own increases or decreases. In other words, if you screw the union, you screw yourself."