OUR OPINION: Rural Pa. Needs Urban Transportation

As we went to press and began delivering this paper all across the city, the State Senate was deliberating the final passage of a transportation bill that took three votes in the State House to pass, and then with an amendment. Hence, the need for the state’s Senators to deliberate its future, which we understand, had enough votes in that Chamber of the General Assembly to pass.

What made this transportation bill so important is the fact SEPTA, the key public transportation authority providing easy transportation for our working school populations, was in dire need of state funding, the kind this bill would provide.

Though much will go to repairing roadways and bridges, key to such public transportation, SEPTA would benefit and be able to make its needed repairs.

Too often in the last three years, Southeastern Pennsylvania – even though its large, diverse economy drives the rest of the state and generates more than its share of tax revenue to be shared with Midstate and Western Pennsylvania, much of which is languishing in a long-term decline.

But Southeastern Pennsylvania is densely settled. This goose cannot deliver its golden eggs without a public-transit network that is suitable to a major metropolitan area. Rural and exurban areas which are utterly dependent on highways for survival would actually lose, not gain, if their representatives in the General Assembly were allowed to sabotage the economic locomotive that enables them to afford those highways. Anti-urban prejudice may animate their voters, but their lawmakers must be wise enough to ignore it and face reality: The country needs the city.

As this was typed, we crossed our fingers hoping the Senate would finally join the House and deliver to this long neglected region of the Commonwealth, the relief it sorely needs.

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