The Port Authority board surprised its own administration yesterday with a proposal to maintain present fares and service levels until the cash-strapped agency goes broke, probably in March, betting that someone in Harrisburg will come to the rescue fast enough to avert a shutdown.

At stake is $30 million that the Port Authority needs for the present fiscal year that's already 6 months old and an estimated $45 million for the 2005-06 budget year that begins July 1.

The outcome will affect people who account for 225,000 daily rides on buses, trolleys, the Mon Incline and ACCESS paratransit system.

The proposal by some members of the nine-member board came after the authority staff presented a new plan to cut weekday service further in order to retain a modest amount of transit service on weeknights and weekends.

The staff alternative included raising the base fare to $2.50, the same as it proposed in October. But it dropped the prospect of eliminating all service after 9 p.m. weekdays, and all day Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Instead, the authority would offer vastly scaled-back service at those times.

A majority on the board now seems to favor putting the onus on the General Assembly to pass special transit assistance legislation when it returns next month, or on Gov. Ed Rendell to provide stopgap funding.

The board is to vote at its monthly meeting Thursday, a milestone day for mass transit in the state. It's the same day that the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is to decide on a base fare increase to $2.50 and eliminating weekend service to solve a larger, $62 million budget shortfall.

Coincidentally, Rendell is sending a delegation, including Transportation Secretary Al Biehler, to Washington, D.C., on Thursday to discuss the possibility of using traditional highway funds for mass transit.

"It's a very big decision," Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas said of Thursday's board vote, one that could change the future of the 40-year-old agency.

Board member James Dodaro, of White Oak, made the motion to keep the status quo "with the hope and belief that the administration or General Assembly will intervene with stop-gap and/or long-term, dedicated funding."

Member Catherine Armstrong, of North Braddock, seconded Dodaro.

"The rhetoric I've heard out of Harrisburg has been positive," said member Jim Burn, mayor of Millvale.

"I can't believe [Harrisburg] would abandon us now," said member Guy Mattola, who chaired yesterday's joint meeting of the board's Administration-Finance and Operations Committee.

Authority Finance Director Claudia Allen predicted that continuing to operate and spend at current levels would cause the transit system to experience "a serious cash flow problem by spring, in the March-April time frame."

If the state fails to come through, key administrators said privately, the authority would, in effect, go bankrupt. All transit service would come to a halt; vehicles and garages would be mothballed.

They also said that the authority would face such further problems as paying unemployment compensation and utilities, providing security to protect equipment and facilities, and maintaining a skeleton staff to handle basic obligations and functions that accompany a shutdown.

It's a gamble that received the support of some people who testified at November public hearings and continues to be supported by Save Our Transit, an ad hoc group of riders who have been lobbying lawmakers for two years now to solve transit funding once and for all.

"If the Port Authority cuts expenses by cutting service, the state will say that we don't really need the money," said Jonathan Robison, of Oakland, the group's co-founder. "The more we cut, the less we'll get."

Save Our Transit wants Rendell to exchange unexpected new revenue from a gasoline tax increase that automatically kicks in Jan. 1 for federal highway funds, which could be "flexed" to bail out transit in the same way that the state provided $10 million in last-minute help to the Port Authority last year.

Transit advocates claim Rendell has another option by using savings from a new state purchasing program.

The General Assembly knew of transit funding problems early this year. But it ended its two-year legislative session without raising a cap on sales taxes that support transit and taking action on another bill that would have increased feeds and taxes on car rental, tire sales, emissions stickers and vehicle registration records.

Here are the three scenarios that Port Authority board members face prior to Thursday morning's meeting:

Scenario 1 -- Raise the base fare by 75 cents, to $2.50, and all tickets and passes proportionately. Eliminate 70 of 210 weekday routes, but restructure the routes to be eliminated in order to provide service for affected riders. Eliminate all service after 9 p.m. weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday and on holidays. Close the Harmar bus garage. Lay off 525 employees.

Scenario 2 -- Raise the base fare by 75 cents, to $2.50, and all tickets and passes proportionately. Eliminate 68 weekday bus-rail routes and restructure 92 of them, providing less frequent service (four buses instead of six for morning rush hours, for example). Eliminate 67 of 101 Saturday routes; 52 of 75 Saturday routes; and 77 of 100 routes after 9 p.m. weekdays. Close the Harmar bus garage. Lay off 500 employees.

Scenario 3 -- Maintain all current fares and all current service. When funds run out, probably in March, close the doors. Meanwhile, lobby the Legislature and the administration in Harrisburg for stop-gap and/or dedicated funding to prevent such a calamity here, for SEPTA's five-county service area and at 40 smaller transit systems around the state.

Scenario 2, outlined by Skoutelas for the first time yesterday, would generate $45.6 million in annual savings and reduce annual ridership by 5.4 million. Combined with revenue from a fare increase, the authority could dig itself out of a deep financial hole by June 30, 2006, he predicted.

He said the scenario was drawn up because "long-pursued efforts for long-term, dedicated funding did not materialize" in Harrisburg.

Skoutelas also is not as optimistic about stop-gap funding as most board members appear to be.

"We have not heard anything definitive from the administration, so we have to categorize all that as rhetoric," he said. "There is some activity but nothing coming that we can see."

He said the modified plan that saves some off-peak service is designed to preserve a critical core of service at all times for people who use transit as a convenience and for those who have no other means of getting around.

"It's a better proposal [than Scenario 1] albeit still a pretty draconian one," Skoutelas said. "Service may not be as frequent, it may not be as convenient, but we've retained as much service as possible."