Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions

The blue and white buses in Chester County represent a trip off the welfare rolls for hundreds of lower income workers. Thanks to a new transportation funding law, Act 44, signed by Governor Rendell last July, they will stay off.

We’ve been waiting years to say that. The dreams and hard work of local business and civic leaders got the blue and white SCCOOT buses rolling in the mid-1990s by taking advantage of a federal welfare-to-work program. The program, though, relies as well on state matching funds. Having no dedicated, reliable funding source has threatened the line since the beginning. (The line runs between points in the southern part of Chester County and West Chester.) Act 44 actually writes SCCOOT and other JARC (Job Access and Reverse Commute services) lines across Pennsylvania into the state funding scheme. That’s good news not just for the low income workers, but for the elderly, the infirm, students…anyone who has no other way to travel.

That’s why rumblings in Harrisburg and other parts of the state over Act 44 worry us. Some political and community leaders in other regions of the state looking to repeal Act 44 have incorrectly tied SCCOOT and other needed mass transit services in the Philadelphia area with a plan to toll Interstate 80. Sadly, the debate is pitting region against region. The facts should help to end the divisions. Funding for SCCOOT and over 70 mass transit systems in Pennsylvania comes from a fund established under the new law and administered by the Turnpike Commission. Revenue from I-80 tolls rather will maintain the Interstate, and other roads and bridges across the state.

Some argue that we should replace Act 44 with a lease of the Turnpike to a private business. Others offer no alternative funding solutions; a prospect that throws us back to the dark ages of emergency stop-gap measures that typically involved using funds designed for other needed services.

For example, a few years ago Governor Rendell had to “flex” millions in federal highway dollars to ensure that SEPTA could avoid cuts in services, higher fares, and layoffs. Without Act 44, we’ll be back to the same year-to-year grab of funds never intended for mass transit in the first place.

The alternative funding idea, leasing the Turnpike, might even be worse. A new study out of Harrisburg shows that toll increases would be much higher if the Turnpike is leased. As a public institution, the Turnpike can borrow money more cheaply than a private firm, which will help it maintain a limit on tolls. Overall, the report values the Turnpike at $14.8 billion if leased to a private operator and at $26.5 billion if the Turnpike Commission continues to operate the road.

We would like to thank our local lawmakers for approving Act 44, and we urge them to ensure that it remains the transportation funding law of the land.

Jack Weber, Chairman of SCCOOT

Thoughtful "PenTrans Update" reader Andy Singer writes:
The problem with

America

's infrastructure isn't taxes. It's the lack of an imposed "Fix it first" policy for state DOTs, the FHA and the Army Corps of Engineers. All three agencies have lots of brand new projects that they are building even as they ignore maintenance on their existing infrastructure. The Minnesota DOT had at least a dozen brand new highway and bridge projects under construction in the state even as they let existing bridges and roads rot and collapse. This is because there's more money and jobs (long term) in expansion than there is in maintenance-- so big agencies will always focus on expansion even if it means deferring much needed maintenance.

The only solution is for states and the Feds to impose a "Fix it first" policy on DOTs, the Corps and other big infrastructure agencies. This is what has been advocated by the Washington lobby organization "Surface Transport Policy Project" for years ...but Government officials in both parties have ignored them because there's so much pork in new expansion mega-projects.

The Army Corps was trying to do a totally unnecessary billion dollar lock and dam expansion on the upper Mississippi as far back as 2002 (which local Minnesota environmental groups were fighting) ...even as they ignored the crumbling New Orleans Levees. The saddest part is the politicians in both parties then REWARD these agencies for their failure by giving them even more money to fix problems they should have fixed to begin with (instead of expanding). The FHA and MnDOT will probably get huge gas tax increases (dedicated exclusively to highway spending), which these agencies will use for more expansion or to free up other money for expansion. The result will be more cars, more driving, more sprawl, more oil consumption, more greenhouse gas emissions and more dependence on foreign oil.

So the issue isn't taxes ...it's how the taxes are spent. Already MnDOT plans to replace the collapsed 8 lane span with a 10 lane span, on a highway that they were in the process of expanding this very summer (over community opposition), in a project dubbed "The 35 Cross-town Project."

If we are serious about energy conservation and global warming and the safety of

infrastructure, we should impose a "Fix it first" policy on our highway agencies. Any money beyond what is required for maintenance should be spent on public transit, urban revitalization and efforts to get people OUT of their cars. This is the only solution. New taxes (if they are dedicated to highway spending) will only make the problem worse.

Andy Singer Author, Alternative Transportation Activist. andy@andysinger.com

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