Allegheny's angling just for a fair share from state transit aid
Share with others:
We know the Port Authority is dependent on state money for its survival, but consider how much the state reaps from the people riding the buses.
Allegheny County workers do more than their share for the commonwealth's coffers.
Among taxes that can be tracked by county, Allegheny contributes 11.6 percent of the state's revenue. That's not bad, considering we represent less than 10 percent of the population.
The lion's share of that money we send to Harrisburg is earned Downtown and in Oakland, the second and third biggest employment centers in Pennsylvania. With about half of Downtown workers and a quarter of those in Oakland riding public transit, the state shouldn't throw a wrench in those gears.
A spokesman for Republican Gov. Tom Corbett recently described the transit crisis as a local problem, but the fact is the state is sending less money to the authority than it did in 2006. Meantime, we, the county's taxpayers, have contributed at least 12 percent more in state taxes (sales, income, inheritance and realty transfer) that can be identified by county.
PG STORE
We're getting less bang for more bucks. Those tax stats come from a Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center analysis. This county contributes 12.9 percent of the state's sales tax and 10.7 percent of its personal income tax. Throw in similarly outsized contributions from other taxes, and we're punching well above our weight class.
Allegheny has about 300,000 fewer people than Philadelphia County, but we've amassed a higher aggregate personal income than the state's biggest county every year since 1989. The only county producing more taxable personal income is the state's third most populous, Montgomery, in suburban Philadelphia.
Allegheny County can't match the suburban Philadelphia counties in average income, but what we send to Harrisburg via the state sales tax is more generous. Allegheny County sent $700 million in sales taxes in the last fiscal year. Philadelphia was second, but not particularly close, with $543 million.
What we're doing is working. Literally. Allegheny County's November unemployment rate of 7.1 percent was comfortably below the state rate of 7.9 percent and the national rate of 8.6 percent. Let's not muck that up.
If those earning and spending big money here want to continue doing so, a whole lot of other people still have to get to work for not much money. Tens of thousands of those doing the grunt work in the skyscrapers, hospitals, universities and restaurants depend on the buses to get to their paychecks. If the proposed 35 percent service cut in September ever takes effect, a lot of these people either won't get to work or would further clog the parkways and parking garages.
None of this means there isn't work for the authority to do. Its legacy costs are daunting and union concessions are needed. But with all the routes that already have been slashed, and the price of a typical one-way bus fare having risen a buck since 2001, the riders can't forever be expected to pay ever more for ever less.
This is generally the point where some politicians outside this area, and maybe a few inside it, say with a straight face that they're tired of "subsidizing'' public transit. But they never seem to tire of this region's workers subsidizing them.
Beyond Allegheny County's outsized contributions mentioned above, we've sent truckloads of additional dollars to the state's northern tier via the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Since July 2007, turnpike tolls have contributed a couple of billion dollars for roads, bridges and mass transit statewide.
Meantime, northern riders who use Interstate 80 as their east-west thoroughfare ride free. None of those rides add anything to the kitty that's supposed to repair bridges and roads, as well as fund transit.
State Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, is pushing a bill that would devote all that turnpike money to mass transit statewide. A fraction more sales tax money would also be shifted to mass transit. The money that used to go to roads could be made up by lifting the cap on the Oil Company Franchise Tax, which would add about 13 or 14 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline.
That was the recommendation of the governor's Transportation Funding Advisory Commission anyway. Maybe there is another way, but the rest of Pennsylvania has a lot riding on the people of this county getting to work.
First Published January 22, 2012 12:00 am
