SEPTA Forum Last Night

[thunda]

I'm curious if anyone else went to the Young Involved Philadelphia transit forum. Faye Moore, the Gen Manager of SEPTA, and a representative of the Center City District were the speakers.

I thought Ms Moore was very informative and friendly. She explained a little about the financial problems of SEPTA (the annual crisis, she called it) and how the tax revenue it depends on routinely fluctuates by $30-50 million per year, and hasn't kept pace with inflation or increased general state spending.

Basically, the point of her speech was that it's impossible for SEPTA to do any strategic planning with operating funds so tight, and that jurisdictional fights (the bus shelters on streets are actually owned by the city, not SEPTA) make things even more difficult. She kept quiet about union problems, though. No sense aggravating a tense situation.

I'm just curious if anyone thinks that it's not just funding problems that hold Philly transit back. Like, what could SEPTA do to change things that wouldn't cost any money?

Thunda

PS...I asked after the forum, and 15th/City Hall station is NOT up for a Walnut-Locust-type renovation. Ideas are going around, but it's a massive, $200 million capital project with no timeline at the moment.

[chrissayer]

I believe that Niel was there - he mentioned it on a different thread. Maybe he'll weigh in.

I'm sure there are lots of things that can be done without much money - sweeping out the bus at each turnaround, putting a little trashcan in the bus, teaching all drivers (some are already good) to smile and say hello.

But, I agree with Moore that real change awaits (1) real, dependable funding, and (2) a change in national leadership to stop the cutbacks in captial projects funding (proposed).

[niel]

I was indeed there, in fact moderating. I was pleased to see the turnout on what had been, earlier, a stormy early evening.

We were very grateful to Faye Moore and Laurie Actman from the Center City District for coming out to talk about this. It's true, Ms. Moore did paint a fairly grim picture of what will happen if they don't get their budget gap covered - basically everything grinds to a halt (literally) some time early next year.

I'm sure there are improvements that could be made in the system now to streamline things and increase efficiency (look at the money that Paul Vallas found figuratively "lying around" in the School District), but her point was that this crisis has been brought on at least partially by a lack of interest on the part of the state legislature in providing the kind of dependable funding that can enable the agency to engage in long-term planning. Funding increases have been erratic and, for many of the past ten years, very small (at least three years went by when there was no funding increase, not even enough to cover inflation); in addition, an attempt in 1991 to create a dedicated funding stream didn't work out because it was cobbled together out of a lot of different sources, many of which didn't provide the projected steady growth they were supposed to.

There will be plenty of work to do in the future with SEPTA to try to get them to be more responsive to the kinds of issues we've seen raised here on the blog, but right now, if they can't get this budget issue solved, we're headed in exactly the opposite direction - towards local transit that is either nonexistent or so drastically reduced in scope as to be essentially crippled.

Write your legislators!!!! Check out www.savetransit.org for more information on the House and Senate bills that need support.

[chrissayer]

Good point Niel:

If they don't get the funding thing settled, it's probably doesn't matter what sort of small things we can come up with.

So, write you legislators.

[deafmute]

Septa definitely needs more funding. It seems like the organization is neglected at almost every turn, despite being not only incredibly important to the city of Philadelphia (and it could be so much more important!) but to the region in general (same here).

However, it also desperately, DESPERATELY needs an almost complete structural overhaul. It needs these reforms very badly. Things within the company sound almost stagnant.

It just seems endemic of one of this city's, and this state's, major problems: lack of leadership.

[niel]

Step 1: Help SEPTA secure a stable, reliable funding source.

Step 2: Apply significant pressure on SEPTA to reform every aspect of their system.

But let's not get any illusions about how much can be accomplished short-term: If they get the money they're looking for, the vast majority of that will go to improving existing service, not to creating new services. All these wonderful dreams of new subway and trolley lines are not going to be part of the picture even if SEPTA does get the revenue source it's looking for. Those kinds of projects would entail very substantial extra monies above and beyond what we're talking about here. That's a whole other battle that will have to be fought down the road at both the state and federal level. I think we as citizens can play a part in that as well by making it clear that we want new services, expanded existing services, etc. But first things first.

[Rachel, really]

I had wanted to get to the YIP Septa forum; I'm sorry I missed it.

Okay, this might be a stupid question, but how can Septa afford NOT to do strategic planning? Their operating environment has clearly shifted since their primary infrastructure was laid out, and they can't even afford to maintain what they have. The trouble they have matching revenue to expenses is not just a one-year budget issue -- it is a fundamental public policy problem. If public opinion doesn't support public transport, then perhaps transport should be scaled back to match public opinion, or, they should be making serious strategies for building public support.

[Part of me wants to say: If the Republicans really don't want to support public infrastructure like transport systems -- maybe they should see what results! But then again, public transport is most an issue for people who can't move away from the problem! And Republicans tend to be those who have moved away from problems that disturb their worldview.]

The key issue is that the direct beneficiaries of the public transport system don't tend to have much political power. And those who benefit indirectly (employers, schools, regional economies) can't well measure what they get.

Regardless, Septa MUST do strategic planning now, not later. How else can they fight a strategic problem?

Rachel

[eldondre]

okay, what's with this Republican crap? Democrats control the city and yet the state pays for almost all of SEPTA. blaming it on Republicans is a cop out. I work with plenty of Democrats wh o live in the burbs and drive to work. Where's Ed Rendell championing the cause of transit? isn;t Greenleaf a R? it's always somebody else's fault. SEPTA certainly has a problem matching revenues with expenses. They have no mgmt and no funding. It's not like SEPTA is a well run underfunded agency. the two things are linked in vicious cycle.

[Walnut]

I wonder -- transit accounting is a tricky thing.

I would imagine that SEPTA, like other transport companies, say Amtrak, estimates "fully allocated costs" when assessing route performance.

As I understand it, what this means is that a portion of overhead costs, such as management, depreciation, and other fixed costs is allocated to each route based on the number route miles operated.

But the interesting thing about fixed costs is that they are more or less fixed, whereas new services relate to marginal cost -- the cost of each new increment in service. In other words, just because SEPTA says a route "loses" so much money doesn't mean that eliminating the route would "save" that money, if the loss really represents a portion of costs that cannot be avoided under any scenario.

The opposite is also true. It should be possible to operate certain routes "profitably" if you don't include the overhead charged to each route, I would expect. I could be wrong.

Anyway, at least with low cost changes, like bus lines, to say that SEPTA can't expand because more service just loses more money may not be the whole story, just as cutting service on the most profitable route might actually worsen the revenue picture.

[chrissayer]

Originally Posted by eldondre

okay, what's with this Republican crap? Democrats control the city and yet the state pays for almost all of SEPTA. blaming it on Republicans is a cop out. I work with plenty of Democrats wh o live in the burbs and drive to work. Where's Ed Rendell championing the cause of transit? isn;t Greenleaf a R? it's always somebody else's fault. SEPTA certainly has a problem matching revenues with expenses. They have no mgmt and no funding. It's not like SEPTA is a well run underfunded agency. the two things are linked in vicious cycle.

There you go again.

The Pennsylvania Repubicans have, despite your rant, constantly blocked funding for all mass transit systems in the Commonwealth.

Yes Greenleaf is a Republican - but he's a real exception. The strange thing is that many of the systems that are hurt most by Hbg. inaction are rural transit systems upon which many of their constitutents depend to get to the doctor, to get to the hospital, etc. Without the rural systems, old folks esepcially have to call 911 or the police - a rather expensive alternative. Not everyone, even in the country has a car and/or drives.

Septa is badly managed - as far as I can tell. But, without a real, dependable source of funding (and it is a public agency, afterall), it is impossible to do any real planning. And every transit agency in Pennsylvania is facing the same sort of problems that Septa faces - they can't all be totally bad!

Everyone should write their legislators demanding dependable funding for trainsit agencies across the Commonwealth.