Few assets are as clearly regional as transportation. Our roads and transit lines are the very foundation of our region, allowing people and goods to move safely and reliably from home to work to marketplace. So it’s not surprising that it would be one of the key areas of interest and agreement of the regionally-focused Metropolitan Caucus, a convening body of County officials from the five counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania that works to build consensus around regional objectives, achieve shared priorities, and promote regional prosperity.
While infrastructure upgrade and repair needs exist statewide, the caucus would like to highlight the needs in Southeastern Pennsylvania not only because of the importance to our region, but because of the importance of our transportation infrastructure to the entire Commonwealth.
Southeastern Pennsylvania is the geographic anchor of Pennsylvania’s economy. Situated on less than 5 percent of the state’s land area, the City of Philadelphia and Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties are home to 31 percent of the state’s residents and account for 40 percent of total annual economic activity in Pennsylvania.
Communities across the commonwealth depend upon the economic wellbeing of southeastern Pennsylvania. By value, approximately 34 percent of all domestic freight in the Commonwealth originates or arrives in southeastern Pennsylvania. The region’s airports handle nearly 83 percent of the Commonwealth’s domestic airfreight by value, while ports in southeastern Pennsylvania accommodate 94 percent of domestic port shipments in the Commonwealth, by value. Freight-related industries in the five-county region provide more than 320,000 jobs.
More than 26 billion miles are traveled on southeastern Pennsylvania’s roads annually, accounting for nearly one-quarter of all miles traveled statewide each year. And those roads are less congested because 77 percent of all transit rides in the state are taken on SEPTA – providing essential transportation service to residents making over 333 million trips to and from work, school, appointments, shopping or entertainment.
For all of those reasons and more, the members of the Caucus were glad to see Governor Corbett establish transportation as an early priority of his administration and commend him and his Transportation Funding Advisory Commission for their work on this issue. The Commission met the formidable challenge of identifying revenue sources to begin closing the funding gap that jeopardizes the safety of our roads, transit systems, and bridges.
We applaud the Senate for passing Senator Rafferty’s bill to increase funding and urge the House to pass legislation this session to adequately fund transportation, using the revenue sources identified by the Governor’s Commission as a guide.
As the Transportation Funding Advisory Commission stated in its report, “The importance of our transportation system to the state’s economy cannot be overstated. Our transportation system facilitates the movement of workers to jobs, students to schools, consumers to stores, and products to their next stop in the global supply chain. As our economy becomes more integrated into the global economy, Pennsylvania requires an efficient and effective transportation system.”
Our region’s ability to provide reliable, effective, and efficient transportation options will determine our ability to remain competitive – and to ensure economic opportunity for the residents of each of our counties. We’ve waited long enough – it is time to take action and provide the funding needed to ensure that Chester County and all of Pennsylvania have a transportation system worthy of this great commonwealth.
Ryan Costello, Chair, Chester County Commissioners
Robert Loughery, Chair, Bucks County Commissioners
Joshua Shapiro, Chair, Montgomery County Commissioners
John McBlain, Delaware County Council
Michael A. Nutter, Mayor, City of Philadelphia
Members of the Metropolitan Caucus include the Mayor of Philadelphia, county commissioners from Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery counties, and county council members of Delaware County. The Caucus is staffed by the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia.
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