Local street repair funding questioned at Argall town hall
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - Potholes along the 200 block of West Columbus Street in Shenandoah on March 3, 2023.
MAHANOY CITY – State funding for street repair in small towns is lacking, a Ringtown borough councilman said Thursday.
“Have you driven through Shenandoah lately,” Leonard Kamarousky asked Argall, referring to the condition of the borough streets and receiving a crowd reaction. “When are the small boroughs going to get some money to help pave the streets?”
He said, especially for his borough, liquid fuels money does little to help keep streets in good condition.
Kamarousky said a recent street paving project in Ringtown cost $80,000 and wiped out the borough’s paving budget for nearly four years.
“Imagine what the streets that we need to repair are going to look like in four years,” Kamarousky said.
PennDOT announced the 2023 distribution of liquid fuels funds Friday, saying the allocation of $470.2 Million statewide is “approximately 3 percent higher than last year’s.” The amount a municipality receives is based on its population and miles of local roads.
Shenandoah has 15.28 miles of borough-owned roadways and will receive $125,783.77 this year. For the borough’s 2019 road program, repaving one block of Ferguson Street cost the borough nearly $50,000, and asphalt prices have skyrocketed since then.
Ringtown, with 4.93 miles of roadway, will receive significantly less than that, receiving $28,867.29.
Argall said Kline Township had applied for and received a $344,251 grant from the PennDOT Multimodal Transportation Fund last year to restore roadways. According to an April 2022 news release from Argall’s office, McAdoo also received a $182,000 grant in the same program.
“We have had some success with that, but you’ve got to apply,” Argall said. “Make sure that you apply, and make sure that we know that you apply so that we can put a good word in.”
“When you apply for a grant, you have to have a grantwriter,” Kamarousky said. “You can’t just go at it solo, so those costs are north of $2,000 plus. If we’re going to spend $2,500 for a grantwriter and not get that money, then we’re just throwing it to the wind.”
“I think we need a little bit more stability in giving grants to smaller towns,” Kamarousky added.
PennDOT said in Friday’s news release that “local officials can act on several options available to them to help improve locally owned infrastructure,” citing an example that would provide funds to the county, not the boroughs or townships.
Subsidizing SEPTA
Another attendee of Thursday’s town hall, who did not provide his name, questioned Pennsylvania’s gas tax, which ranks among the highest in the nation, going towards the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which provides bus, rail, and trolley service to Greater Philadelphia and which abandoned passenger rail service in Schuylkill County in 1981.
He spoke of a trip to Philadelphia in which he used SEPTA services.
“I was amazed how cheap it was,” the man said. “In Fort Washington, you see all these guys pulling in in Mercedes’ and Lexus’ getting on there and getting a very cheap ride downtown.”
“My question is why are we subsidizing SEPTA for the rich people in southeast Pennsylvania and pulling the money out of us and we don’t have enough money to fix our roads,” the man added.
A bus ride on the SEPTA system costs $1 more than a bus ride on the local Schuylkill Transportation System or Hazleton Public Transit buses.
Though, more than half of SEPTA’s $640.22 Million budget for 2021 was from the state government, drawing in $349.28 Million. Around 34% comes from the federal government, $219.29 Million, 9% from SEPTA Capital Financing, $60 Million, and 2% from local governments, $11.65 Million. Those local governments would be the counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery. Local funds are matching funds to receive state and federal grants.
Nearly 70% of all statewide capital funds allocated to transit authorities goes to SEPTA, the authority said in its 2021 budget report approved on June 25, 2020.
“We’ve got four votes in the house,” Argall said of Schuylkill County’s legislative delegation. “Philadelphia has 25.”
“When that issue came up, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Bucks County, Delaware County, and Montgomery County all stuck together and that was a lot of votes,” Argall added. “I got boo’ed by a very well-dressed group of architects and business leaders at the convention center in Philadelphia when they were complaining about not having enough aid for SEPTA and I explained that my constituents thought we were already giving them too much which wasn’t what they wanted to hear.”
The man questioned SEPTA’s $2 Billion plan to extend rail service from Norristown to King of Prussia.
“Who’s going to pay that,” the man asked. “It’s not the fare-payers in Philadelphia or the people going to their job in Fort Washington. It’s going to come out of our pocket.”
SEPTA was the entity that discontinued regular passenger service in Schuylkill County, ending service from Pottsville to Philadelphia in 1981 despite massive public outcry and opposition by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission, according to newspaper accounts at the time.
Schuylkill County has not had regular passenger rail service since. An Amtrak plan would restore rail service along much of the line SEPTA abandoned in 1981, but would end at Reading, not Pottsville, like when service was discontinued.
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