PRINTER'S NO. 2580
No. 2076 Session of 1981
INTRODUCED BY MILLER, NOVEMBER 18, 1981
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION, NOVEMBER 18, 1981
AN ACT
1 Amending the act of January 22, 1968 (P.L.42, No.8), entitled,
2 as amended, "An act empowering and authorizing the Department
3 of Transportation to establish and administer certain grant
4 programs for the betterment of mass transportation systems
5 and facilities throughout the Commonwealth; providing for
6 State grants to transportation companies, municipalities,
7 counties, or their instrumentalities and to agencies and
8 instrumentalities of the Commonwealth for studies, research,
9 demonstration programs, promotion programs, purchase of
10 service projects, and capital improvement projects under
11 certain conditions; authorizing grants by counties or
12 municipalities in metropolitan areas to local transportation
13 organizations, authorizing the creation of a transportation
14 authority to function in each metropolitan area consisting of
15 any county of the first class and all nearby counties within
16 a radius of twenty miles of any such first class county, as a
17 body corporate and politic for the purpose of establishing an
18 integrated mass transportation system with all pertinent
19 powers including, but not limited to, leasing, acquiring,
20 owning, operating and maintaining a system for, or otherwise
21 providing for, the transportation of persons, authorizing the
22 borrowing of money and issuance of bonds therefor, conferring
23 the right of eminent domain on the authority; altering the
24 jurisdiction of the Public Utility Commission, authorizing
25 the acceptance of grants from Federal, State and local
26 governments, limiting actions against the authority and
27 exempting it from taxation, authorizing counties and
28 municipalities to enter into compacts for the financing of
29 each authority and to make appropriations in accordance with
30 such compacts, creating a citizen advisory committee,
31 conferring exclusive jurisdiction upon certain courts with
32 respect to matters relating to such authority, empowering
33 each authority to function outside of the metropolitan area
1 under certain terms and conditions," authorizing local
2 options for certain fares; establishing a different
3 reimbursement base and removing certain reimbursement
4 limitations.
5 The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
6 hereby enacts as follows:
7 Section 1. Subclauses (i), (iv) and (v) of clause (5) of
8 section 203, act of January 22, 1968 (P.L.42, No.8), known as
9 the "Pennsylvania Urban Mass Transportation Law," added July 10,
10 1980 (P.L.427, No.101), are amended to read:
11 Section 203. Program Authorizations.--The department is
12 hereby authorized, within the limitations hereinafter provided
13 and is required where the provisions of section 204 apply:
14 * * *
15 (5) To make grants from the State Lottery Fund to
16 transportation companies, county transportation systems and
17 local transportation organizations to pay estimated transit
18 losses resulting from providing:
19 (i) Free service or local common carrier mass transportation
20 systems to persons sixty-five years or older when such passage
21 is on fixed route public transportation services during nonpeak
22 riding hours and on holidays and weekends. The losses resulting
23 from granting service on mass transportation systems shall be
24 reimbursable at seventy-five percent of such system's average
25 fare multiplied by the number of trips made by senior citizens
26 participating in such free transit program. A local common
27 carrier mass transportation system may have the option of
28 charging a fare up to the unreimbursed twenty-five percent of
29 such system's average fare for trips made by senior citizens
30 participating in such free transit program. Transit systems that
31 currently receive a program reimbursement based upon a
19810H2076B2580 - 2 -
1 percentage of average fare greater than seventy-five percent
2 shall receive their current amount of senior citizen program
3 reimbursement until such time as the amount of reimbursement for
4 these systems equals seventy-five percent of the average fare
5 times the number of senior citizens trips: Provided, however,
6 That reimbursement for [the fiscal year 1980-1981 shall be
7 calculated using the average fares as of January 1, 1980] any
8 fiscal year shall be calculated using the average fares for the
9 period July through June preceding that fiscal year. If a fare
10 increase was implemented during the prior fiscal year, then the
11 average fare will be calculated from the time of the increase to
12 the end of the fiscal year.
13 * * *
14 (iv) [In no case shall the reimbursements for each
15 succeeding year exceed the prior year's reimbursements increased
16 by a percentage equal to the percentage increase in granting
17 costs for all local transportation organizations, county
18 transportation systems and transportation companies for the most
19 recently completed State fiscal year as compared to the fiscal
20 year immediately preceding such year.
21 (v)] The department shall promulgate such rules and
22 regulations as are necessary to carry out the purposes of this
23 subparagraph. In accordance with section 2203-A(27) of the act
24 of April 9, 1929 (P.L.177, No.175), known as "The Administrative
25 Code of 1929," no such regulation shall take effect until they
26 are submitted to the Department of Aging for comment.
27 * * *
28 Section 2. This act shall take effect immediately and shall
29 be retroactive to July 10, 1980.
K9L74RZ/19810H2076B2580 - 3 -