State Dems gather data to push for more transit funding

State Senate Democrats came to Pittsburgh Tuesday looking for more ammunition to push their Republican colleagues to allocate more money for public transit.

They left a two-hour hearing at the Union Trust Building in Downtown Pittsburgh with stories about how bad proposed transit cuts would be for workers, the sick and the elderly, how much economic activity transit agencies generate and how new sources of revenue could be used to sustain the current level of service.

But it’s anybody’s guess whether the Senate Democratic Caucus Policy Committee found the right message to convince the GOP that public transit largely based in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia area should be important to everyone across the state.

Nick Miller, D-Lehigh County and chairman of the committee, said after the Future of Mass Transit hearing that transit is too important across the state to let the proposed cuts happen. Gov. Josh Shapiro is recommending the same increase the GOP rejected last year, an extra $292 million a year for five years, which agencies say isn’t enough and Senate Republicans haven’t been eager to embrace.

The House passed three versions of Shapiro’s proposal last year, but it never came to a vote in the Senate, where leaders say it is a hard sell for members in rural counties because 87% of the money goes to Allegheny County and the Philadelphia area.

Miller said that has to change. Last fall, Shapiro shifted more than $150 million in federal road funds to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority to avoid cuts before the end of the year, but Miller said that is very unlikely this year.

“[More transit funds have] got to be part of the budget process,” he said. “It’s too critical to wait another year.”

The Legislature passed a 10-year program to fund transit in 2013 but hasn’t increased the allocation since then. Almost all the state’s 67 counties have some level of public transit, and the agencies have squeaked by the past couple of years using emergency funding provided by the federal government to help agencies when ridership collapsed during the pandemic.

Now, most agencies have spent that federal money and are facing huge deficits, so they are proposing service cuts, fare increases or both to keep a balanced budget. And the numbers are staggering: Pittsburgh Regional Transit is facing a $117 million deficit and proposing a 35% cut in service, a 25-cent fare hike and no service after 11 p.m. while SEPTA around Philadelphia would cover its $213 million deficit with a 45% service cut, including eliminating five rail lines and ending rail service at 9 p.m.

In addition to the toll that cuts would take on riders, PRT CEO Katharine Eagan Kelleman told the committee transit is a big part of the state’s economy. From 2020-24, PRT spent $1.8 billion buying equipment, services and supplies across the state, she said, while SEPTA claims to spend more than that almost every year.

“We are a big economic generator across the state,” she said. “We’ve been surviving, but we should be thriving.”

Kelleman also stressed the agency has done its part to cut costs by making some of its parts and equipment rather than buying them and stretching the life of railcars that have “switches you can find in the trolley museum.”

Dan Yablonsky of Pittsburghers for Public Transit outlined a “common sense proposal” put together by the statewide advocacy group Transit for All PA that would generate $540 million a year for transit. It calls for increasing the state rental car tax from $2 to $6.50 a day, raising the fee for leasing a car from 3% to 5% and allowing counties to charge up to 6% for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.

Yablonsky said that would return service levels in Allegheny County and the Philadelphia area to 2019 levels and do that plus 10% more in smaller counties. Pittsburgh, which advocates for senior citizens, said that group would have a hard time dealing with cuts to Access paratransit service and a price increase. Many would pass on needed medical care rather than pay higher fees, he said.

Dr. Mark Rubino, president of Allegheny Health Network’s Forbes Regional Hospital in Monroeville and Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison, agreed. “We’re really going to have to reassess what happens” to patient visits if the cuts happen, he said, calling transit “an essential element of the overall health ecosystem.”

About 20% of the support staff in Monroeville uses transit, many of them minority workers, Rubino said. Allegheny Valley has no transit service.

Transit cuts also would cause problems for Giant Eagle, the supermarket chain that operates 41 stores and five warehouses in the Pittsburgh area. Vic Vercammen, vice president of safety, regulatory and government affairs, said that in addition to customers, about 20% of employees use transit to get to work.

At Duolingo, the East Liberty firm that teaches foreign languages online, the company uses easy commuting around the Pittsburgh area as a selling point when it is recruiting staff from other cities, said Kendra Ross, head of social impact. She said she heard from dozens of the firm’s 450 employees when the proposed PRT cuts were announced because about half of them commute to work.

The Legislature is facing a June 30 deadline for passing a new budget, but that date can stretch months beyond when the state is facing serious financial issues. Republicans say the state already is facing looking to use reserve funds to balance the budget without an increase in transit funding.