Festering and growing financial problems at the Port Authority have been put off until yet another day.

For the fourth time since November 2003, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, the transportation planning agency for the 10-county region, has approved Gov. Ed Rendell's request to "flex" federal highway funds to the transit agency as a stopgap measure.

Members of the commission yesterday voted 37-10 to authorize up to $113.4 million for the Port Authority to balance its books through Dec. 31, 2006. The board had approved a total of $38.8 million previously.

For riders threatened with record fare increases and devastating service cuts for the past two years, the emergency money puts the agency in position to retain the status quo for light-rail service, buses, the Monongahela Incline and ACCESS paratransit program for another 18 months. The authority provides 240,000 rides on a typical weekday.

The SPC also approved flexing $2.3 million to the Beaver County Transit Authority for preventive maintenance and new buses and $145,000 to the Charleroi-based Mid Mon Valley Transit Authority.

The money is in addition to regular state subsidies and will be distributed by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation on an "as needed" basis, with the funding halted if the General Assembly and Rendell agree on a long-term and predictable source of funding for transit statewide.

Transit riders and some commission members expressed anger and frustration with state lawmakers. They agreed there's not much political hope for a long-term solution.

"The problem was created in Harrisburg but not fixed in Harrisburg," said Commissioner Jim Kennedy of Butler County. "They passed a 16 percent pay raise in the middle of the night, and here we are, fixing their problem."

"We've got a problem that the Legislature should have solved in the 20th century," said Richard LeGrande, a former Allegheny County Transit Council president. "We're here today to put on another Band-Aid."

The 10 "no" votes came from commission members from Armstrong (four), Indiana (three), Butler (two) and Fayette (one) counties.

Armstrong County Commissioner Jim Scahill, who previously voted against switching funds intended for roads and bridges to transit, claimed the SPC is "just letting the Legislature off the hook."

"We're throwing out money and not getting a solution," he said. "We're buying 18 months of time. The irony is the people [lawmakers] who should be in the room today aren't here. We asked for a solution last year, but we voted [for flex funding] again, again and again."

Twenty-five people, a number of them in wheelchairs, with no other way to get to work but by transit, converged on the 31st floor of the SPC's Renaissance Tower yesterday to urge approval of transferring the funds.

Stephen Donahue, a co-founder of Save Our Transit, an activist group, said the organization does not intend to stop a campaign that has included trips to Harrisburg, public rallies, letter-writing, a sleep-in and fasting.

"We will not accept stopgap funding as an excuse or to lessen our effort to fight for adequate, dedicated funding," he said.

Larry King, PennDOT deputy secretary for planning, called it the "last and only option" to keep a vibrant public transit presence in Pennsylvania.

Statewide, Rendell has offered a total of $344 million to be flexed for transit, with about 70 percent of it earmarked for the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which is in a financial fix similar to the Port Authority.

The money is part of $942 million, most of which will come from the Federal Highway Administration, money not previously counted on because, as PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick put it, "We budgeted conservatively."

The Port Authority is supplementing $73 million in regular state subsidies with $45 million of flex highway funds to balance a $319.8 million operating budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year that started Jan. 1.