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Since the early 1830s, the city of Philadelphia has had a strong interest in public transportation. In the city's early years, the agricultural and mineral resources of the Philadelphia region encouraged investment in transportation, providing the city with the roots for what is now one of the largest public transportation systems in the country. Today, transit is recognized as a fundamental contributor to the region's economy, yielding returns through employment, population, and tax-base growth. But Bush administration budget cuts and priority changes threaten Philadelphia's vital public transportation network.
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 Bob Thomas, an architect and avid SEPTA rider, is concerned that without strong federal support for public transportation, Philadelphia communities will suffer from poorer air quality, increasing congestion, and decreased economic development. photo: Bob Thomas |
Bob Thomas, an architect, planner, and Philly resident, travels regularly throughout the region, utilizing SEPTA 3-4 times per week. "I use my bicycle for local travel, and often take it on the trains to allow me to reach destinations which are more than walking distance from the train stations to which I travel." Bob is able to visit friends and clients as well as enjoy recreational activities without spending money on fuel, losing time waiting in traffic, or contributing to air pollution. He believes that public transit is imperative to the health and vibrancy of Philadelphia, "It takes a little personal planning, but SEPTA allows me to enjoy the region, bike and walk around interesting areas, stay in shape, and fight smog."
Millions of others—roughly a third of Pennsylvania residents—join Bob in using public transportation. SEPTA takes more than 1.1 million people where they need to go everyday in an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, by operating 2,802 buses, trains, trolleys and vans which go to 16,000 bus stops and 300 rail stations. And everyday, SEPTA helps keep an estimated 151,940 cars off Philadelphia's roads. While three interstate highways and a network of surface streets combine to carry a million vehicle trips into Center City every day, without SEPTA, these roads would be severely overloaded and gridlocked by a 40 percent surge in vehicle trips, leading to a debilitating parking dilemma. Increased transportation choices have helped employers attract more workers, spurred new real estate investment, given transit-dependent workers access to jobs, made the city more inviting and accessible to tourists, and reduced negative side effects of downtown revitalization such as traffic jams and parking disasters.
SEPTA is also a major safeguard on the city's air quality. Philadelphia has the second lowest rate of car ownership in the nation, indicating that quality public transit alternatives have reduced car dependency and air pollution. The reduced car trips keep 6,327,096 pounds of carbon dioxide and 20,814.66 pounds of nitrogen oxide out of the air every day.1 Philadelphia had twelve code red or orange ozone action days in 2003 and fifteen in 2002. Without the benefits of the transit system, Philadelphia residents would be exposed to many more unhealthy air days.
Maintaining the quality of Philadelphia's public transportation choices and increasing investments to the transit system are critical to Philadelphia's economic and environmental future. The Bush administration, however, is placing public transit funding on the budget chopping block, favoring highways over cleaner public transportation. Instead of making transit a cornerstone of community revitalization for places like Philadelphia, Bush wants to put public transit further out of reach by making it a more expensive choice than roads.
Bush has proposed that public transit projects be funded at the 50 percent level while road projects will get 80 percent of their cost paid by the federal government. This would make public transit virtually unavailable to the least affluent communities that depend on it most. Bush wants to create an unlevel playing field to promote roadbuilding despite the rising demand for modern transit systems.
Bob Thomas is particularly concerned about the effect the Bush administration's plans could have on Philadelphia. "As an architect and planner, I am keenly aware that public transportation is essential to improving air quality, reducing congestion, and promoting economic development in the Philadelphia area," he states. "We have built a superb inter-modal transportation system that serves over a million people. We need to continue making real investments to take care of it if we want to keep enjoying the significant benefits to our air, economy, and traffic reduction."
1. These statistics are based upon emissions from an average sedan and do not account for the fact that 49 percent of automobiles on the roads today are light trucks, which release more pollutants than the average sedan. Also, these statistics include only the cars taken off the road by regional trains and buses. It can be assumed that these are low estimates of the overall daily pollution reduction made possible through the services of SEPTA.
For more information contact:
Marilyn Skolnick
Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter
(412) 373- 7714
emkhs@concentric.net
Clean Air Council
(215) 567-4004
www.cleanair.org
South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority
(215) 580-7930
www.septa.org
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