Union leaders and SEPTA officials were back at the negotiating table, trying to resolve the issues that led to the current mass transit strike.
But after only two and a half hours of talks on Tuesday, however, the two sides emerged reporting no progress.
Since 12:01 Monday morning, more than 5,000 members of Transport Workers Union Local 234 and United Transportation Union Local 1594 have been on strike after failing to negotiate new contracts. The strike has caused SEPTA's bus, subway and trolley systems to shut down, displacing nearly half a million commuters every day.
Local 234 spokesman Bob Bedard said talks will continue to stall "until SEPTA changes its views."
No future meetings are scheduled at this time.
"At the end of these strikes, SEPTA has lost, unions have lost, the public has lost and the city has lost," Transportation Engineering professor Vukan Vuchic said. "It's a lose-lose-lose position."
Although both sides point to medical insurance and pay as the key sticking points, the crisis facing SEPTA runs deeper than that.
"This situation shows that we have deep underlying problems with respect to SEPTA and transportation in our region," Vuchic said. "SEPTA, the way it is organized and operated, needs revising."
In other cities around the world, he said, public transit systems have implemented more efficient organizational structures and have shown greater sensitivity to the public.
"Very few in Philadelphia even talk about [improving the system's structure], so we are very behind the times," Vuchic said.
The strike also highlights the deeper issue of securing long-term financial sources for SEPTA, says Peter Javsicas, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Transportation Solutions.
"I think the strike should be reminding us all that we need to come up with adequate, dedicated funding and a plan of how we're going to get that funding," he said.
For the 2006 fiscal year, SEPTA expects expenses to total $951.8 million, an increase of about $32 million over its budget this year.
Earlier in the year, SEPTA had projected a deficit of more than $60 million. However, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was able to come up with $412 million originally earmarked as federal highway funds. SEPTA is expected to run into the red again this year.
Rendell "created a temporary fix, and that fix is running out," Javsicas said.
Since the union contracts expired in June after three extensions, negotiations have stalled primarily over health care. SEPTA offered that workers pay 5 percent of health-care premiums, but union officials have so far refused to accept the plan. They say the workers have taken lower pay over the last 20 years with the expectation of receiving good healthcare benefits.
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