The final hearing on SEPTA’s “Bus Revolution” will be this Wednesday from 5 – 8 at SEPTA headquarters, 1234 Market St. While the record will stay open, and people will be able to address the SEPTA Board when it votes on the proposal, this is the last public session in Philadelphia.
It will be the fifth Philadelphia Hearing. There have been hearings in the other counties. Still, as almost all of the changes are in Philadelphia, almost all the riders live in Philadelphia, and nearly all of the riders being threatened with eliminating their bus routes are Philadelphians, it makes sense to hold five hearings in the city.
The problem is they are not evidentiary hearings. Hundreds of people have gotten up and asked questions. No one has received an on-the-record answer. The Hearing Examiner, who is supposed to be independent, sits at the same table as SEPTA’s representatives and allows the SEPTA representatives to tell her what to do.
The hearings are all advertised from a beginning time to an end time. But the hearing examiner has ended every Philadelphia hearing at least an hour before it’s advertised ending. If a rider decided to come at 7, after reading the hearing would last until 8, the rider would find the hearing examiner gone, the room closed, and no way to ask questions or speak. While the SEPTA representatives are given unlimited time to speak, the riders are limited to two minutes. SEPTA has lawyers, experts, and graphic artists to make their case. Riders have nothing.
The contempt the hearing examiner has for the riders and the process can best be understood by the methods used to stop riders from participating.
The hearing examiner has ruled that everyone must “pre-register” to speak. But the advertisements for the hearing don’t say that.
The tactics to stop riders’ voices from being heard were displayed at the hearing in North Philadelphia.
Without public notice, SEPTA ruled it would not allow anyone to register to speak if they arrived at the hearing at 6 p.m. or after.
It’s no secret that SEPTA’s buses run late (after all, that is why they say we need a bus revolution to get the buses to run on time). And it’s no secret that a driver shortage causes SEPTA to cancel buses that were on the schedule. Many of the people attending the public hearings ride SEPTA to get there.
I road SEPTA to the hearing.
The bus I was trying to take would have gotten me there 15 minutes early was “canceled.” I got to the hearing at 6:03, and the SEPTA workers would not let me register to speak. When I objected, that it wasn’t stated in the advertisements that if I was 2 minutes late, I would not be allowed to participate, the staff told me they would let me speak. They lied.
The Hearing Examiner told me I was not on the list and could not speak. I spoke anyway, but most people would not after being told they would be removed.
Because the hearing examiner doesn’t require SEPTA to answer questions and limits every speaker to two minutes, there is time left before the hearing is scheduled to end. Despite repeated requests by riders, myself included, to have more time to ask questions and get answers, the hearing examiner has concluded all the hearings. No questions were answered, no one’s concerns were addressed, and no one was allowed to cross-examine any SEPTA witness.
Why is the hearing examiner making it so difficult for riders to participate? The overwhelming majority of speakers oppose the changes, have questions to ask, and state that their community is unaware of what is happening.
At the four hearings I have attended, only a few people spoke in favor of the changes. Hundreds spoke against them.
The decision to convert the hearings from evidentiary hearings, where riders are represented, SEPTA would have to answer questions, and discovery would be allowed, to legislative hearings is another example of how SEPTA is stopping the riders from making their case. It also shows the lengths the hearing examiner will go to protect SEPTA’s management.
There is no cross-examination in legislative hearings because the people elect legislators.
People give testimony and then, if they want, work to unseat an elected official who voted against them.
In evidentiary hearings, where something of value is at risk, in this case, one’s bus route will be taken; both sides, the one that wants to take the bus route and the one that wants to save it, have equal resources. But of course, if the riders had the resources to put on a case, it would be clear that the Bus Revolution will not fix SEPTA’s significant problems; the riders oppose the top-down directed changes. Do we need to ask why the Hearing Examiner ended the hearings before the advertised time, refused to tell SEPTA’s employees to answer questions, tried to stop riders from speaking, and limited riders to 2 minutes?
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