Septa

I am writing in response to the Feb. 7 editorial "SEPTA sleeps as riders wait. " It is incredible and totally unacceptable that a major metropolitan newspaper's editorial writers would ignore the responsibility of a private property owner to correct a deficiency in the structural integrity of his structure and blithely condemn SEPTA because that structure happens to be adjacent to a right-of-way over which SEPTA operates. I seriously doubt whether The Inqurer would take the same position if an analogous situtation were to occur with the Inquirer-Daily News Building.

A smoking train sent into a tunnel is one thing. But to link it to allegations of surfing the Internet for porn? Well that's just too much, SEPTA says. The transit agency reacted angrily yesterday to a front-page Daily News story about a May 25 train fire in Suburban Station, calling it a "malicious misuse of journalistic ethics. " The agency acknowledges its dispatchers were wrong to send the R3 West Trenton train into the Center City tunnel, despite reports of smoke for 51 minutes.

SEPTA has agreed to pay for cab rides for its regular paratransit service users, stranded at home for the past week because of a 70 percent cutback in the system. The agreement, reached yesterday and approved by U.S. District Judge Edmund V. Ludwig, resulted from a lawsuit filed Monday against SEPTA by Disabled in Action of Pennsylvania and three handicapped riders. The suit asked Ludwig to order SEPTA to restore paratransit operations to 100 percent capacity immediately. SEPTA cut the paratransit system from 900 trips daily to 300 July 1 when two out of four independent contractors failed to secure liability insurance.

The Goode administration, in an apparent attempt to force better service out of SEPTA, has taken a step that may risk a shutdown of rail and transit service in July. Public Property Commissioner Dudley R. Sykes, who negotiates city subsidies to SEPTA, has notified the agency that the city will not renew its existing subsidy agreement after it expires at the end of June. Without an agreement, SEPTA board chairman Lewis R. Gould said today, the agency would face "a very distinct possibility" of a systemwide shutdown.

So what happens to SEPTA? Philadelphia was relying on the Legislature to plug a $45 million hole in the city budget for SEPTA. The state passed its own budget over the weekend without filling it. "We're in uncharted waters," says Philadelphia Republican state Sen. M. Joseph Rocks. "There's no $45 million. You turn off the keys, you got Buffalo. " Is SEPTA headed for the kind of shutdown that halted the transit system in Buffalo, N.Y., in the spring? Probably not, says SEPTA spokesman Rick Wooten.

For years, SEPTA has touted a long-running consultant's study of the agency's fares as an example of efforts to be efficient. So how much of a role is that consultant's report playing in plans for a fare increase? SEPTA won't say. A source familiar with the fare increase work said SEPTA is not using the report at all. SEPTA has rejected oral and written requests from the Daily News in the last week for information about the study. The agency refuses to say who conducted the study, how much it cost or what conclusions were drawn from it. "We're not releasing that to the media," SEPTA spokesman Felipe Suarez said.

SEPTA has been holding the city hostage for years now, and it's time for a change. Let's privatize public transit instead of funding the inept service we get from SEPTA. Mayor Street should take this opportunity to do something about our lousy and expensive public transit system. Eric Farrell, Philadelphia How can SEPTA have such a huge budget shortfall? Every new contract usually results in a fare increase. Where does the money go? Today I rode on a bus that had every seat slashed and taped up. The handicapped lift did not operate correctly, resulting in a busload of riders late for work.

SEPTA General Manager Louis J. Gambaccini warned yesterday that the transit agency would need another fare increase or service cuts - perhaps both - if the state and city governments fail to increase subsidies. Coming after two straight years in which SEPTA has reduced its budget by cutting service and losing more and more riders, another round of cuts would be devastating, Gambaccini told City Council. He urged Council to add at least $3.4 million to the $46 million city subsidy recommended by Mayor Rendell for the budget year starting July 1. The increase will put SEPTA in a much stronger position to bargain for more money from the state government, showing local support for the transit system, Gambaccini said.

SEPTA officials believe that unless they have underestimated the need for handicapped services, a federal judge's ruling this week will not cost the transit authority more money. "I don't see this ruling having an adverse impact on SEPTA at this time," Robert Corressel, SEPTA's manager of special services, said yesterday. "The potential problem for us is if we have miscalculated the demand for paratransit service and it turns out to be a lot more than we projected. We would be required to go back and spend more money to satisfy the demand.