SEPTA funding fight has gotten nasty, with personal jabs and misplaced blame

This doesn’t sound like the language of a normal debate on state funding for SEPTA and other public transit:

A boil on the butt of progress.

Two [expletive] speed bumps.

Block senators’ driveways.

Those barbs toward GOP state senators came on social media from transit supporters. Senate Republicans wary of spending more have made their own tough remarks, mostly about SEPTA.

State financial support for public transit is often a divisive issue in Pennsylvania, but veterans of funding fights say the rhetoric this year has sometimes run nastier and more personal than usual.

“It’s just the way politics is done anymore. Each side beats the other up,” said Barry Schoch, who was transportation commissioner under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett.

The state budget is nearly two weeks late, with no deal in sight. House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery), Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), and Gov. Josh Shapiro are meeting in closed-door negotiations to try to narrow a projected $5.5 billion budget gap.

They have yet to find a solution to the mass transit issue, according to a source close to negotiations, and it could be weeks before a budget agreement is reached.

Though the debate is about new money for 32 fixed-route transit services across the state, as the largest of them, SEPTA dominates the discussion.

» READ MORE: Not just SEPTA: Public transit is in trouble all across Pennsylvania, including in GOP districts.

State Republicans say SEPTA is always asking for a handout, ineptly run, struggles to keep people safe from crime, and needs to do more to help itself, including by stopping fare evaders.

The debate seems to have devolved over the last several months, as transit service cuts and fare hikes draw closer to reality.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes, a Philadelphia Democrat, is the one who hurled the “boil on the butt of progress” comment in early April at Senate Republicans for opposing more funding for SEPTA.

“I don’t even know what that means,” GOP leader Pittman, who has previously opposed funding increases for mass transit, said on a government affairs show a few days later. ”People back home probably would view that as a compliment by and large, but that’s the kind of rhetoric that doesn’t advance the ball."

The dustup between Hughes and Pittman came right after SEPTA had unveiled a proposed budget that would cut nearly half its service if new state money for transit was not forthcoming — and frustration was running high in Philadelphia.

Around the same time, social media influencer and shock comedian Alex Pearlman attacked Republican State Sens. Frank Farry of Bucks County and Joe Picozzi of Northeast Philadelphia, saying they were the obstacles to SEPTA getting the funding fix it needs.

Pearlman told his followers to blame the two “f— speed bumps” for a Philadelphia commute that was going to become intolerable as former SEPTA riders begin driving to work.

» READ MORE: SEPTA’s planned cuts could add 70,000 hours to the region’s morning commute

The only problem? Picozzi, who is in his first term, supports more transit funding. And Farry has been a SEPTA advocate in Harrisburg for years.

Commenters on the comedian’s post suggested driving to the senators’ homes and blocking their driveways, along with other confrontational tactics.

“They have publicly called for my members to be, quote, ‘punched in the face’ if they don’t get the SEPTA situation resolved,” Pittman said on PCN, the public-access channel. “SEPTA and their acolytes have to come up with a better way of delivering a message.”

SEPTA, of course, has not attacked lawmakers. Its government relations team and contract lobbyists have been making their case in the Capitol. General manager Scott Sauer has met several times in Harrisburg with Pittman and other leaders. He is also talking with Picozzi, the Philadelphia Republican, about a proposal.

But as the funding debate has dragged on, so has the divisive rhetoric.

Last month, Sen. Cris Dush (R., Jefferson) emailed a form-letter response to people who had reached out asking him to support mass transit. Dush was blunt. His message was: We don’t have the money, and even if we did, SEPTA doesn’t deserve it.

And now, he said, residents in Southeastern Pennsylvania will experience a feeling those in rural parts of the state know well: devalued by their state government.

“You are now stuck dealing with what the rest of the Commonwealth has been facing for years,” Dush wrote. “You are taking money from an area made poor by the decisions to pull our tax dollars to your area while you have the luxury of being able to sit on a bus or train catching up on work or social media, while our folks must pay attention to the road ahead to avoid deer and other drivers.”

A constituent of Dush, Alex Casper of Bradford, took a 14-hour Greyhound trip from the McKean County seat to Harrisburg, changing buses three times, for a rally organized by Transit For All PA!, a coalition of groups advocating for funding.

He had hoped to meet with Dush along with a few other advocates to talk about the need for a state subsidy for ATA transit, which provides services in McKean and five other north-central Pennsylvania counties. It didn’t happen.

So Casper, 28, wrote to his senator when he got home, arguing for more robust state transit funding for rural and urban areas alike. He was outraged to get a letter all about SEPTA, seemingly addressed to people in the Southeast.

“Dush essentially says ATA money is being taken away by SEPTA,” said Casper, a former social services worker who moved from Philadelphia to McKean County after he was disabled in a traffic crash and needed subsidized housing.

The state’s third-most-used transit system is in Dush’s district: the Centre Area Transportation Authority. CATA has already cut some of its lines outside State College, including in Bellefonte and surrounding towns.

Dush said in an interview he has seen his community “become good neighbors again,” with churches and residents helping people get around after the service cuts.

Dush’s broader argument is that policies pushed by urban and suburban Democrats have limited growth in rural parts of Pennsylvania on which the cities depend for energy and other resources.

“I know there are going to be a lot of people that will never … want to see what’s going on outside of Philadelphia,” Dush said. “The people I work for, they definitely are supportive of what I’m doing. They’re also tired of the decline, and they want to see our area prosper again.”

Not everyone in the Senate Republican caucus sees the issue as a zero-sum game. At least three GOP state senators whose districts rely heavily on mass transit have said they would support more funding: Picozzi, Farry, and Sen. Devlin Robinson (R., Allegheny).

Just before the June 30 state budget deadline, SEPTA adopted the first stage of a 45% cut in service to prepare for no new state money. Shapiro has proposed spending about $300 million a year for five years to support transit operations statewide. SEPTA’s share would be about $168 million.

Picozzi said he has been working behind the scenes to try to get GOP support for some level of transit funding with a package of bills that would hold SEPTA more accountable on issues like public safety and reducing fare evasion.

He plans to introduce the proposals as early as this week. Picozzi has given few details, except that he wants to see more public-private partnerships, like a recent one in Conshohocken, in addition to the “goalposts.”

“We need to have a focus on safer, reliable, and accountable public transit,” Picozzi said in an interview, adding that he is approaching the bills as a SEPTA rider.

He has a much brighter view of the debate: “We don’t want to bail anybody out. What we want to do is invest in the future,” Picozzi added.