COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BUDGET HEARING
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA ROOM 140, MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017 3:00 P.M.
BEFORE: HONORABLE STANLEY SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE JOSEPH MARKOSEK, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE KAREN BOBACK HONORABLE JIM CHRISTIANA HONORABLE SHERYL DELOZIER HONORABLE GEORGE DUNBAR HONORABLE GARTH EVERETT HONORABLE KEITH GREINER HONORABLE SETH GROVE HONORABLE MARCIA HAHN HONORABLE SUE HELM HONORABLE WARREN KAMPF HONORABLE FRED KELLER HONORABLE JERRY KNOWLES HONORABLE NICK MICCARELLI HONORABLE JASON ORTITAY HONORABLE MIKE PEIFER HONORABLE JEFF PYLE HONORABLE MARGUERITE QUINN HONORABLE BRAD ROAE HONORABLE JAMIE SANTORA HONORABLE CURT SONNEY HONORABLE KEVIN BOYLE HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE DONNA BULLOCK HONORABLE MARY JO DALEY HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN HONORABLE MARIA DONATUCCI HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN HONORABLE EDWARD GAINEY 2
1 (CONT'D.)
2 HONORABLE PATTY KIM HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY 3 HONORABLE LEANNE KRUEGER-BRANEKY HONORABLE MIKE O'BRIEN 4 HONORABLE MARK ROZZI HONORABLE PETER SCHWEYER 5
6 MAJORITY NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
7 HONORABLE DARYL METCALFE HONORABLE CRIS DUSH 8 HONORABLE KRISTIN PHILLIPS-HILL HONORABLE TOMMY SANKEY 9 HONORABLE JEFF WHEELAND HONORABLE BRETT MILLER 10 HONORABLE ERIC NELSON HONORABLE BOB GODSHALL 11 HONORABLE CRAIG STAATS HONORABLE TOM MURT 12 HONORABLE ROB KAUFFMAN HONORABLE ED NEILSON 13 HONORABLE KATE HARPER HONORABLE JOHN TAYLOR 14 MINORITY NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS: 15 HONORABLE ISABELLA FITZGERALD 16 HONORABLE MARK LONGIETTI HONORABLE DAN FRANKEL 17 HONORABLE MORGAN CEPHAS HONORABLE MATT BRADFORD 18 HONORABLE JASON DAWKINS HONORABLE JOHN GALLOWAY 19 HONORABLE MIKE SCHLOSSBERG HONORABLE BILL KELLER 20 HONORABLE PERRY WARREN
21 COMMITTEE STAFF:
22 DAVID DONLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) RITCHIE LAFAVER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) 23 MIRIAM FOX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (D) TARA TREES, CHIEF COUNSEL (D) 24
25 TRACY L. MARKLE, COURT REPORTER/NOTARY PUBLIC 3
1 INDEX TO TESTIFIERS
2 NAME PAGE
3 LESLIE RICHARDS, SECRETARY 4 DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 4 DAVID MARGOLIS, DIRECTOR 66 5 BUREAU OF FISCAL MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 6
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1 ---oOo---
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Madam
3 Secretary, I'm going to ask you -- and Dave, if
4 you are going to testify, as well, if you would
5 rise and raise your right hand.
6 (THE TESTIFIERS WERE DULY SWORN.)
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you.
8 I'm going to turn it over to Chairman Markosek
9 to start with any comments.
10 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
11 Chairman. Just a couple of short comments: I
12 just wanted to chat about one item and get it
13 started. I'm sure it will come up anyway.
14 First of all, you know, you're lucky
15 this year. I guess your salt budget is in
16 pretty good shape this year, right?
17 MS. RICHARDS: Actually, if you have 30
18 seconds -- and I promised Chairman Saylor I
19 would answer everything as fairly and as quickly
20 as possible.
21 But as a surprise to a lot of people,
22 we're actually over our five-year average, as
23 far as cost this winter. While we've had a nice
24 and mild winter here in the Harrisburg area, as
25 well as southeastern Pennsylvania, I know those 5
1 of you from Erie and central and northern
2 Pennsylvania, we've had a tough winter.
3 Lake Erie did not freeze this year.
4 We've had lake-effect snows. And, of course, we
5 had multiple snow events happen on weekends,
6 which costs overtime. So we're slightly over
7 the five-year average as far as costs, but we're
8 slightly under the five-year -- a little under
9 the five-year on salt, so we are good on salt.
10 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Okay. I
11 might as well get into, you know, one of the
12 800-pound gorillas here, and that's with the
13 Motor License Fund relative to the State Police.
14 And I know the Governor has made a proposal, one
15 that I've been for or, you know, a strategy that
16 I think is only fair to try to put some
17 additional money into the State Police so that
18 we don't have to continue taking money out of
19 the Motor License Fund for that purpose.
20 I know I have a community -- my
21 hometown, Monroeville, we spend about $12
22 million a year on our local police and, you
23 know, it's taxpayers like myself that have to
24 not only pay for that, but also pay for the
25 State Police coverage in about two-thirds of the 6
1 land mass of our Commonwealth. So I just really
2 wanted to throw it out to you to get some
3 comments about that, whether that -- how you
4 feel about that particular proposal in the
5 Governor's budget and what, if anything, else
6 you are looking at to take care of the Motor
7 License Fund in such a way that, you know, we
8 would have either additional funds coming into
9 it or that we would be less dependent or the
10 State Police would be less dependent on it, and
11 any kind of strategies you have for that.
12 We raised significant revenues a few
13 years ago with Act 89. They go into the Motor
14 License Fund. And we have Act 44 still in
15 place, which raises significant revenue; but we
16 certainly need to do something to make sure that
17 the Motor License Fund is secure for
18 transportation needs.
19 MS. RICHARDS: Uh-huh. Sure. Thank
20 you, Chairman. Happy to talk about that. As I
21 have before when I've come before this important
22 body, as well as others, first of all and
23 foremost, PennDOT believes the State Police
24 provide a very important public safety function,
25 and in no way do we want to impact them in any 7
1 way that is not positive. We know that everyone
2 in the Commonwealth depends on the State Police,
3 and so we want to make sure that they can do
4 what they need to do. But we also have, you
5 know -- we have a core function here at PennDOT,
6 and that is to make sure that our transportation
7 networks are as safe as possible, as efficient
8 as possible, and that people have the mobility
9 choices that they need here for the economy to
10 function, as well as all the transportation
11 needs.
12 So what has been proposed in the
13 Governor's budget, which is the $25 per capita
14 fee for those who are receiving law enforcement
15 only through the State Police, anything that
16 keeps the State Police with a dedicated line
17 item so that they can function forward, we would
18 be interested in helping come up with ideas.
19 We did have our Technical Advisory
20 Committee, our TAC Committee, look at a variety
21 of ideas. Again, none of those ideas were
22 presented to give the idea and solve the problem
23 solely, but to add to a good, productive,
24 meaningful conversation so people understood all
25 the different options and that we're all on the 8
1 same page to get dedicated funding so that the
2 State Police can provide the function that they
3 need to.
4 I'm a former local elected official.
5 One quarter of my budget was our law
6 enforcement. And if I had been offered free law
7 enforcement, I would have taken it. And so I do
8 think there is a big incentive for that, and so
9 we need to take a look, and again, make sure
10 that people are getting the law enforcement that
11 they need, making sure that their constituents
12 and that their residents are safe, and that the
13 police and State Police can do it. And PennDOT,
14 again, stands next to the State Police in full
15 support of that.
16 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Okay.
17 Thank you.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I did want to
19 recognize that we were joined by Representative
20 Michael Schlossberg. Michael, welcome. Madam
21 Secretary, I didn't give you a chance to make
22 any opening statement. If you want, you may do
23 that now.
24 MS. RICHARDS: I'm happy to continue
25 answering questions. I know there's a lot of 9
1 questions here. And if there's anything anyone
2 else wants me to discuss, I'm happy to at the
3 end.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
5 The first thing from me, and the only thing
6 really from me at this point, I join with the
7 Chairman with the concern over the draining of
8 our highway fund by the State Police being taken
9 out of there. I have some legislation that
10 changes that a little bit, but we'll talk about
11 that in the future.
12 One of the concerns I've had as being
13 past president of the Municipal Planning
14 Organization in York County is -- and we've had
15 some discussions with some people at PennDOT,
16 has been the issue -- we just had a discussion
17 about this a few weeks ago -- a major accident
18 on the bridge coming into Harrisburg of 83 and
19 581 there. And what I took notice to, is I've
20 seen down on 83 south, down through York County
21 and has probably happened on 81 and many other
22 major interstates, is many of these
23 municipalities off of these major highways are
24 heavily burdened and put at serious dangerous
25 risk. New Cumberland that day, Camp Hill, as 10
1 well as Lemoyne were, I mean, just gridlock.
2 These were kids walking to school, these were
3 kids going on the bus, you know, nobody really
4 activated; and that's been my concern over the
5 years, that we do not activate our Emergency
6 Services System by getting fire police out there
7 to assist.
8 Many of these towns, these red lights,
9 stop signs, whatever it may be, are not able to
10 accommodate interstate traffic, the
11 tractor-trailers, and everything else that go
12 through.
13 Is there any plans at PennDOT to try and
14 start utilizing that to benefit local
15 municipalities? These townships and small
16 boroughs just cannot handle, and I think risks
17 the lives of a lot of citizens when our
18 interstates are shut down for a period of time.
19 That day, it was probably shut down for
20 half the day. And there's been numerous times
21 that has happened in the past, but a real
22 concern I have for people living in and along
23 interstates.
24 MS. RICHARDS: Absolutely. I have good
25 news for you. So on two fronts we are dealing 11
1 with this issue: Number one, our regional
2 traffic management centers are taking a look and
3 seeing how our arterial roads and our side roads
4 to our interstates are impacted, not just after
5 an accident but during peak times, and what we
6 can do.
7 And the best piece of news is that for
8 the first time ever, PennDOT has offered to
9 municipalities to maintain and operate their
10 signals. Every signal in Pennsylvania is
11 operated and maintained by the local
12 jurisdiction, which you can image when you have
13 a long roadway having 11 or more jurisdictions
14 within a few miles of each other, as you know,
15 Pennsylvania has many municipalities and
16 boroughs; it's confusing.
17 And even at the Regional Transportation
18 Management Center, if we can look at it all; but
19 if we can't control it together, it's a problem.
20 So for the first time ever, we have proposed a
21 project. It's starting in southeastern
22 Pennsylvania. We're looking at the I-76
23 corridor, which is the most congested corridor
24 here in the state. And in addition to some ITS
25 solutions where we're doing hard shoulder, 12
1 running variable speeds; we're doing dynamic
2 lane changes; we are working with the Transit
3 Agency getting people over, letting them know
4 how many parking spaces there are at the transit
5 station, as well as when the next train is.
6 We are also looking at the corridors
7 that run parallel and making sure that all of
8 their lights are now being managed by one
9 entity, which is PennDOT, and that's out of
10 Region 6.
11 And we plan -- it's going to be
12 successful. I assure you it is going to make a
13 big improvement. And then we'd like to take
14 that and use it in other areas across the state,
15 and I-81 and I-83 would definitely be the first
16 ones, after this initial pilot, that we would
17 take a look at.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: And I would
19 suggest, you know, activating the fire police in
20 these municipalities who would help keep traffic
21 moving. Again, I just could not believe what I
22 saw that day. And other times when I've been on
23 Interstate 83 and that was shut down, like
24 what's been happening in, like, Loganville and
25 Shrewsbury and along different places along 13
1 Interstate 83. And I know it's not just 83,
2 because many of our other highways, as you
3 mentioned, 76; so I just think we need to use
4 the tools we have out there with volunteer
5 firefighters and fire police, to help us protect
6 the safety of our citizens in these individual
7 townships and boroughs.
8 So with that, I'll turn it over to
9 Representative Ortitay.
10 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Thank you, Mr.
11 Chairman. Good afternoon. Madam Secretary, Act
12 89 increased Turnpike funding from about 90
13 million in 2012 to a projected -- about 170
14 million for this coming year.
15 These funding items support the debt
16 service for capital costs for them on Fayette
17 expressway and the southern beltway, which runs
18 through my district -- or will run through my
19 district.
20 Can you provide the Committee with an
21 update on these projects?
22 MS. RICHARDS: As you know, we are -- we
23 took another look at our capital projects at the
24 Turnpikes, and we're also dealing with some
25 interesting issues right now with the bridge 14
1 being down between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
2 We're always monitoring, but we did not see a
3 need to stop anything; so everything is moving
4 forward right now in a healthy financial
5 progression, and so all of the projects are
6 still moving forward.
7 I know the phases, the environmental
8 phases, as well as, the design and construction
9 phases are still on track.
10 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: For the
11 southeastern beltway, are they still on pace for
12 their completion date? I think they said the
13 end of 2019.
14 MS. RICHARDS: It's still on the books,
15 and obviously I can have the engineer from the
16 Turnpike follow up with you with all the
17 details. While I do sit on the Turnpike
18 Commission, I'm not in charge of the maintenance
19 and operation; but I can tell you that
20 everything is on schedule.
21 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: All right.
22 That's good, because I know we're looking at a
23 couple different industrial developments along
24 that road. So if it's still on pace, we're in
25 good shape. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. 15
1 Chairman.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I did want to
3 recognize that we've been joined also and will
4 be asking questions later, by Chairman John
5 Taylor of the Transportation Committee and
6 Representative Mr. Keller.
7 So with that, I recognize Representative
8 Bullock.
9 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman. Good afternoon, Madam Secretary.
11 MS. MANDERINO: Good afternoon.
12 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I have three
13 unrelated questions for you, so I'll try to jump
14 right into it and hopefully you can keep your
15 answers as brief as possible.
16 MS. RICHARDS: Sure.
17 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: The first is in
18 regards to REAL ID, and I'm sure there will be
19 plenty of other questions following mine. But I
20 was wondering if you had taken a look at what
21 the cost would be to become compliant, should we
22 find ourselves facing a situation of having to
23 become REAL ID compliant here?
24 MS. MANDERINO: Sure. The first step
25 in REAL ID is, we have to repeal Act 38 and then 16
1 we can start to have those conversations with
2 the US Department of Homeland Security. Right
3 now, it's unclear as to exactly what we would
4 have to do to become compliant. There has been
5 flexibility in other states, and we would hope
6 that we would get flexibility. So we can't come
7 up with a cost right now. But as soon as that
8 repeal happens and, of course, while that Act is
9 in place, we are not allowed to have that
10 conversation yet.
11 But as soon as that repeal takes place,
12 those are exactly the conversations we will
13 have. You know, best case scenario, we may not
14 have to do that much. Of course, it's not up to
15 us. Worst case scenario is, there will be a lot
16 of steps that we have to take and then we would,
17 you know, attach costs to each of those steps.
18 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you. My
19 second question is in regards to Amtrack, and I
20 think I asked you a similar question last year.
21 I've mentioned that I have 30th Street Station
22 in my district, and I'm sure many of my
23 colleagues have other Amtrak stations in their
24 district.
25 And I was hoping you could share with me 17
1 the current funding levels in regard to making
2 those stations accessible and what steps have
3 been taken in the last year to do that.
4 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. So, right now, we
5 subsidize Amtrak for the two lines: the one
6 that goes from Harrisburg to New York and from
7 Philadelphia through Pittsburgh, and so we give
8 them $15 million for that service.
9 And we have a P3 program right now that
10 is aimed at getting the Middletown Township -- I
11 mean the Middletown station ADA compliant. We
12 have four other stations that we've been able to
13 bring into compliance.
14 You know, they are dealt with on a
15 project-by-project level; but I am very
16 optimistic now that we have figured out a P3
17 mechanism on moving forward into getting ADA
18 compliant, as well as doing it in a
19 cost-effective way. We will continue to
20 subsidize those lines; they're very important to
21 us.
22 We're looking at ways to get more
23 frequency; we're looking at ways to make them
24 more efficient and, of course, reliable. We do
25 have a benefit that a former PennDOT employee, 18
1 Rina Cutler, is in charge of, with many of the
2 stations, including 30th Street; so she's been a
3 great ally to have as we discuss that moving
4 forward. But it is a goal of ours and one that
5 we continue to work on.
6 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Great. Thank
7 you for that response. And my last question is
8 in regards to you staffing and the diversity of
9 your staff and the efforts that you have taken
10 to be a diverse staff that is reflective of the
11 Commonwealth.
12 So the total number of staff members
13 that you have and any breakdowns that you can
14 share; and, if possible, if you have breakdowns
15 in regards to management level, as far as their
16 diversity.
17 MS. RICHARDS: Okay. So our complement
18 currently is 11,525. The breakdown of that is
19 19 percent are management; 81 percent are
20 contract covered; civil service, 37 percent;
21 non-civil service, 63 percent. As far as
22 diversity, we have -- 91 percent are white and
23 9.13 percent are minority. Male, 82 percent;
24 female, 18 percent. Management, we have -- we
25 have females at 23 percent of our managers and 19
1 minorities at 7.3 percent of our management.
2 These are numbers that are getting my attention
3 and my priority. There are, if -- going through
4 all of PennDOT priorities, I have four main
5 priorities of which this is one of them and will
6 be getting a large part of my focus over the
7 next year and a half and something that we take
8 seriously.
9 Obviously, the transportation industry
10 is very male oriented. I'm only one of six
11 secretaries across the country who are female
12 right now. There's only one African-American.
13 I'm the president of NASTO, which are
14 the northeastern states from DC through Maine;
15 four out of the six are located within that
16 area, so it's really very strategic for us.
17 And we have taken the lead; we have our
18 annual conference in Philadelphia this July and
19 we are doing an entire day that is devoted to
20 diversity, where we will be organizing with
21 COMTO, the Conference on Minority Transportation
22 Officials, with WTS, the Women's Transportation
23 Seminar, with the National Black Engineering
24 Society, to make sure that we are reaching out
25 to everyone. Also, that they fully understand 20
1 what jobs are available in transportation. It's
2 not just engineers; it's accountants; it's
3 numbers people; it's legal team; it's
4 communications; a lot of different areas that
5 will allow us to reach out toward diverse
6 groups.
7 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you,
8 Madam Secretary. If you can share the
9 information about that conference with us, I'd
10 appreciate that.
11 MS. RICHARDS: I would love it --
12 everyone is welcome. We would love to have you
13 there, as well as anybody else who would like to
14 be there. It should be a great conference.
15 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Okay. Great.
16 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no further
17 questions.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
19 Representative Helm.
20 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you, Mr.
21 Chairman. Secretary Richards, Act 89 of 2013
22 eliminated the vehicle registration sticker that
23 is currently required to be displayed on
24 registration plates effective January 1, 2017,
25 as a measure to reduce costs. 21
1 I just wondered, how have the police
2 responded to the elimination of the registration
3 stickers thus far?
4 MS. RICHARDS: So it's been one month so
5 far. What I can tell you is, 160,000 people
6 have registered online so far and about ten
7 percent have chosen -- there's also a biannual
8 option and so they can register now for two
9 years. That's the first time they've had that
10 option as well.
11 And so it's very soon. We haven't heard
12 -- no negative impact so far. It is very early,
13 and we have so far heard extremely positive
14 feedback, in that it's very -- it's easier for
15 constituents. You know, we always say they can
16 register in their pajamas now. They just have
17 to get on their computer and they don't have to
18 make an extra trip. And we anticipate on saving
19 $2 million in mailing fees alone throughout this
20 year.
21 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Yeah, my next
22 question was about the biannual. And we just
23 wondered if you feel a lot of people will do
24 this and a lot of money will come in right now.
25 And I guess you've already pretty much seen it's 22
1 going to happen that way.
2 MS. RICHARDS: We have. And we're
3 looking at what the impact of that will be. As
4 you know, there are a lot of fees that people
5 have the option of donating to veterans, for
6 example, or making other donations when they
7 register; so we're looking at that carefully and
8 we obviously will be working with the
9 Legislature to make sure that any fees that are
10 being counted on by these organizations, that
11 they are taken into consideration as we move
12 forward.
13 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Well, thank you.
14 I think next year you'll have a more clear
15 answer on that, after we go through a year of
16 this; but I appreciate your answer.
17 MS. RICHARDS: Yes. One month in and
18 things are going very well.
19 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thanks. Thank
20 you, Mr. Chairman.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We have
22 Representative Dean.
23 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman. Welcome, Madam Secretary. Good
25 afternoon. You know me and you know my 23
1 community. And one of the things I have cared
2 about from the time I ran for office was, how do
3 I make my community, an older suburban
4 Philadelphia ring suburb, safer; more walkable,
5 bikeable, drivable, ease of getting to mass
6 transit, pedestrian ways, all of those kinds of
7 things?
8 So I was delighted to be part of Act 89
9 where we added in not just a focus on cars and
10 trucks, but we recognize that there are other
11 users of our roadways and pedestrian ways.
12 So I wanted to ask you, and I think
13 you're particularly well suited to talk about
14 this because you come from decades of a planning
15 background. Could you give us an update on
16 multimodal and the investments that we're making
17 under Act 89 and elsewhere? And I sadly have to
18 connect this to a tragedy in my own area. You
19 know that recently, in recent months, we had a
20 small child struck and killed, a pedestrian on
21 roadways in my district, and a couple of years
22 ago, another child. Again, I think they were
23 investigated. I think they were terrible tragic
24 accidents, but certainly there are things we can
25 do to make our roadways safer for all those who 24
1 use it.
2 So with that lens, tell me about what we
3 can do retroactively, of course, but
4 proactively, to make our community safer. And
5 maybe with that, you could talk about PA
6 Connect.
7 MS. RICHARDS: That would be great. And
8 how many minutes do I have for that?
9 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And you have at
10 least three and a half minutes for that.
11 MS. RICHARDS: Okay. I'll do it
12 quickly. First of all, with Act 89, prior to
13 Act 89, we had 45 million going toward
14 multimodal grants and now we have 180 million
15 going to multimodal grants. That's broken up 78
16 million by PennDOT, the Multimodal Fund and
17 then, of course, we have 57 million going
18 through the CFA.
19 So there's money available, and we
20 actually have one grant period that just closed.
21 We have over 200 applications that came in for
22 over $200 million worth, and we have 40 million
23 to give out; so we have to really prioritize.
24 And it will be a very difficult decision for us
25 to go through all of those applications. 25
1 The pedestrian death, I remember it
2 very, very clearly. And, of course, whenever we
3 have fatality in any of our communities, it is
4 bad news and it's a tragedy. Safety comes first
5 in every single thing that we do. And so we
6 take a look at it. And I know we sent district
7 representatives out to Abington right away to
8 see what we could do, very quickly, and how we
9 could work -- because often, it is a township
10 responsibility; but obviously we want to be as
11 supportive as possible.
12 And whether it's more clearly delineated
13 crosswalks, whether it's raised pavements,
14 whatever it is, we want to be there. And so I
15 thank you for engaging us in your community, and
16 we had a great conversation and I know that
17 we're moving on things in the short-term but
18 also in the long-term, which makes me want to
19 get to PennDOT Connects very quickly.
20 I am the first planner to be in the lead
21 at PennDOT. And so really looking at things and
22 seeing how we can better create a combination of
23 planning and engineering. And we know that when
24 planning and engineering have clear
25 communication, our communities benefit; and 26
1 that's really what's at the heart of PennDOT
2 Connects.
3 We are investing in communities so that
4 they see their assets as true assets. So
5 starting right now and, in fact, tomorrow is the
6 official announcement of our PennDOT Connects
7 initiative, every single project moving forward
8 at PennDOT will engage, in a collaborative
9 effort, with their communities. We'll look at
10 township managers; we'll connect with borough
11 managers; we'll look at their long-term
12 comprehensive plans. Where do they see economic
13 development now; where do they see it in the
14 future? What do their needs look like, whether
15 they're transit connections or do they want
16 future transit connections; what are their
17 stormwater issues; how can we work with
18 municipalities; what are their pedestrian
19 corridors; what are their bicycling corridors;
20 how can we offer more mobility options; and
21 really how can we impact, in a positive way, the
22 quality of life of those who live near our asset
23 and in that community and how can we invest and
24 help those communities become the communities
25 they want to be? And we want to be part of 27
1 their community vision. I'm very optimistic,
2 and I know that all of our projects are going to
3 be consistently looked at through this lens and
4 be better for it; and I know that our
5 relationships with our communities will also be
6 strengthened.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And I thank you
8 for that. And in my community, you're already
9 making a difference. I like your focus on the
10 use of the word invest, because all of these
11 things are not just repairs of roadways or
12 repairs of cracked sidewalks; they are an
13 investment; they grow the community; they grow
14 the economic development there; and they add
15 value to property owners.
16 So thanks for all you're doing.
17 MS. RICHARDS: And that's exactly how we
18 want our communities to feel about our
19 investments and our projects.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you. Thank
21 you, Mr. Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
23 Representative Roae.
24 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you, Mr.
25 Chairman; and thank you, Madam Secretary. I'm 28
1 going to have a follow-up question about REAL
2 ID. Somebody else mentioned that a few minutes
3 ago. As everyone knows, that's been around
4 since 2005 in the US Congress, then we passed
5 the law here in Pennsylvania that we were not
6 going to comply.
7 Back at that time, PennDOT had told us
8 it would be 120 to $140 million to comply with
9 the REAL ID Act. Do you have an up-to-date
10 accurate estimate of what it would cost to
11 comply now?
12 MS. RICHARDS: I don't. Because as I
13 said, some states have been given flexibility.
14 We would hope that we would be given that
15 flexibility. Back then, we also hadn't already
16 gone forward with a lot of the security features
17 that we now have, so those numbers are obsolete
18 now. They really don't have relevance for us
19 moving forward.
20 But as soon as Act 38, which was passed
21 here in 2012, is repealed, we can then begin
22 those conversations with US Homeland Security
23 and get those numbers. We will get them in
24 front of you as soon as possible, as soon as we
25 know exactly what we have to do to become 29
1 compliant.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. And then my
3 next question is, I assume that Pennsylvania
4 only gives driver's licenses to people that are
5 in the United States legally. Some states are
6 giving driver's licenses to people that are in
7 the country illegally. But we're not doing
8 that, are we?
9 MS. RICHARDS: We have a Legal Presence
10 Law --
11 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay.
12 MS. RICHARDS: -- where we have to have
13 them show proof that they are here legally
14 before they can get an ID.
15 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. Good.
16 MS. RICHARDS: So that is part of our
17 process.
18 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Good. Because one
19 of the requirements of REAL ID is people have to
20 prove they're in the United States legally, but
21 some states are giving driver's licenses to
22 people that they know are here illegally; so
23 it's kind of contradictory.
24 So I think it's kind of crazy if we
25 comply with REAL ID, because it defeats the 30
1 whole purpose of the thing. But as far as our
2 licenses, I was looking through the federal law,
3 to comply with REAL ID, it seems like we already
4 comply.
5 I mean, you have to have the full legal
6 name, date of birth, gender, digital photo,
7 address, signature. There has to be like a
8 security strip with, you know, information on it
9 you can scan. There has to be security at the
10 location of where they make the driver's
11 licenses, I assume we have that, you know,
12 background checks on employees that make the
13 driver's licenses.
14 I'm not going to go through all this
15 stuff, but it just seems like most of the things
16 -- so have the federal officials told you why
17 our licenses don't comply?
18 MS. RICHARDS: Well, that's the
19 conversation we want to have. We haven't been
20 able to have it, because we are forbidden with
21 Act 38. But your questions are the reason why
22 we're not sure exactly what we have to do. We
23 already have a very secure driver's license.
24 I'm very proud of the product we produce here in
25 Pennsylvania. And we're hoping that we will get 31
1 credit for that and it will be counted toward
2 REAL ID compliance. But again, we just don't
3 know that.
4 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Now, that was ten
5 years ago we passed that, so I can't remember
6 exactly how it was worded. But did we say that
7 you're not allowed to even mail them a sample
8 driver's license and say, Hey, what's wrong with
9 it; or you're just not allowed to implement
10 actually putting REAL ID in place and spending
11 the $140 million?
12 MS. RICHARDS: I only know since 2012 --
13 I've only been here since 2015, and I can only
14 respond as the 2012 legislation allows me to,
15 which is we really can't move forward with
16 detailed conversations until that gets repealed.
17 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: So you can't mail
18 them a sample driver's license and say --
19 MS. RICHARDS: I mean, they can take a
20 look at it; but we can't have any real
21 productive conversations nor attach any pricing
22 to it yet. And I'm looking forward to having
23 those conversations and giving you more
24 information, as soon as we can do that.
25 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. And then 32
1 one other real quick unrelated topic: What's
2 the current status on the issue of shadow
3 vehicles? A lot of our small municipalities
4 were just devastated that instead of having one
5 guy go out on a tractor and mow, they now have
6 to have -- some townships only have a two-person
7 road crew, so it takes two people: one driving
8 the truck behind the mower, one driving the
9 mower. Then cars don't know what to do. They
10 swerve around the truck and almost swerve back
11 into the tractor. So is PennDOT still insisting
12 on the shadow vehicles?
13 MS. RICHARDS: Safety is always
14 important, of those who are traveling on our
15 roads, as well as those who are working
16 alongside in our right-of-way; so the shadow
17 vehicles have shown to protect those drivers on
18 the mowers. Sometimes it's very hard to see
19 them. Sometimes vehicles pass too close to them
20 and we have accidents. So the shadows have
21 proven to be a safer option.
22 We're happy to take another look and,
23 you know, we're always happy to further that
24 conversation. But again, the safety of those
25 who work alongside our roads, as well as travel, 33
1 are at the forefront of everything we do.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: All right. Thank
3 you so much.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
5 Representative Kinsey.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr.
7 Chairman. Madam Secretary, how are you?
8 MS. RICHARDS: Good. How are you?
9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Great. I
10 represent portions of Philadelphia County, and
11 so I was glad to hear you talk about I-76;
12 because, you know, it gets pretty congested.
13 But I want to switch over to safety,
14 public safety. For the State of Pennsylvania, I
15 understand we are one of 17 states that do not
16 have a primary seatbelt law. And that comes up,
17 because I just had some friends over from Jersey
18 and, of course, Jersey has, I believe, that type
19 of law.
20 So I guess my question is, Does PennDOT
21 keep data or statistics in regard to fatalities
22 that do not involve a seatbelt or a person
23 wearing a seatbelt? Do we keep any type of
24 statistics or data on that?
25 MS. RICHARDS: I know as part of our 34
1 safety plan, and I just signed off on our new
2 one, we take a look at all of our fatalities and
3 the causes of those fatalities. I will have to
4 go back to see if seatbelt is one of the
5 elements that they measure.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay.
7 MS. RICHARDS: But I would think it is.
8 And in all of the things that we can do, if I
9 can say one thing, especially if I speak to new
10 teen drivers, it's wear your seatbelt. There is
11 nothing more that anyone could do to increase
12 their chances of surviving an accident than
13 wearing a seatbelt.
14 So anything we can do to improve and get
15 more people to wear their seatbelt, PennDOT
16 would be for; and we'll get you all that
17 information.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Great. I
19 appreciate that. I mean, sitting here and
20 hearing you and, you know, I'm quite sure with
21 the members here, it seems like a no-brainer.
22 I've not been in this legislative body but for
23 so long, maybe just the past four years, but --
24 it's interesting, because at one point I
25 actually thought we had a seatbelt law; but now 35
1 I'm getting reports that we don't have the same
2 type of law as maybe our neighbors do.
3 MS. RICHARDS: It's not primary; it's
4 secondary.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Not primary.
6 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. But it's
8 something you think can help save lives in
9 regards to --
10 MS. RICHARDS: Absolutely. And all the
11 data shows that. Every single state shows that
12 the dramatic impact of wearing your seatbelt and
13 how that really reduces fatalities, as well as
14 serious accidents.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Great. Well,
16 thank you for sharing that. Maybe that's
17 something that we can collectively work on
18 regarding saving lives here in Pennsylvania.
19 Thank you very much.
20 MS. RICHARDS: Thank you.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr.
22 Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
24 Did want to announce that we are joined by
25 Representative Ed Neilson, Representative 36
1 Christen Phillips-Hill, and Representative Perry
2 Warren.
3 The next testifier is Representative
4 Pyle.
5 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Thank you,
6 Chairman. Hi, Secretary. Great to see you
7 again.
8 MS. RICHARDS: Nice to see you, too.
9 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: How are you doing?
10 MS. RICHARDS: Pretty good.
11 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Mr. Chairman,
12 before we start, I want to get the Secretary out
13 of trouble. Last time I was here interrogating
14 her, I offered her a cup of coffee, which I was
15 told violated the gift ban from the Governor.
16 And I just wanted to report she never did accept
17 that cup of coffee.
18 MS. RICHARDS: Thank you.
19 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: She's way good.
20 Madam Secretary, as I said, good to see you.
21 This may come as out of character, but I have
22 some mass transit questions for you. Don't
23 laugh, Sheryl.
24 As you know, my county is a sixth-class
25 county, which qualifies on everybody's scale as 37
1 a smaller one. Many of our smaller counties
2 depend on Federal 5311 funding for their
3 operating costs. And I wanted to know, do small
4 operations like my little wee bus line, Town and
5 Country Transit, do they have the ability to
6 draw down 5311 funds, independently?
7 MS. RICHARDS: Well, 5311, our Federal
8 Transit Funds -- I do just want to say,
9 Representative Pyle, you have surprised me. I
10 was not anticipating this question coming from
11 you. However, --
12 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Normally you guys
13 call ahead and ask what I'm going to ask you,
14 but you didn't do it this year.
15 MS. RICHARDS: No, I like this question.
16 I like this question. So, in total,
17 Pennsylvania receives $27 million of 5311 funds
18 every year. But this amount, you know, when we
19 take a look at it, we have to look at the
20 components of it and their own restrictions. So
21 there's an RTAP components inner city bus
22 component, Appalachian component, and in
23 general. So RTAP has to be spent on training
24 activities for transit agencies; inner city must
25 be spent on services that connect rural parts of 38
1 the state with other locations; and Appalachian
2 can only be spent in counties that the Federal
3 Transit Administration designates as being part
4 of the Appalachian region. So certain of those
5 categories, obviously, would be able to be spent
6 in your area, obviously, if you have any other
7 questions. And then there's also a general,
8 which can be spent on any.
9 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: That's kind of
10 where we're leading, Secretary. With 5311, up
11 to 50 percent of the federal funding can be used
12 for operating costs by the small county transit
13 systems. And I'm wondering, is this a common
14 practice in our state? Do our rural transit
15 systems use up to the limit, 50 percent, as
16 allowed by law in 5311?
17 MS. RICHARDS: Right. Well, we spread
18 it as much as we can. Obviously, we look at the
19 need. I will have to get back to you to give
20 you direct percentages of every single transit,
21 whether they use the maximum amount; but I do
22 know they do get used and obviously they're
23 needed.
24 I know up in Erie, the whole new transit
25 facility is very exciting up there, as well, and 39
1 moving forward. We had a few bumps in the road
2 this year, but things are looking really good.
3 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Well, you just
4 said something that kind of created another
5 question. This is rural transit funding. Does
6 all of this 5311 money go to rural agencies, or
7 what is the cutoff in the county code? Will you
8 fund down from class one, class two, class
9 three; or do you pick it up at class four and go
10 lower to qualify for the rural status? Who
11 receives this, is the question?
12 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. I will have to get
13 back to you on that, but I do know that they do
14 go into the rural parts of the state; and I do
15 know that there is, as I said before, the 27
16 million going across; but we can get you the
17 breakdown as far as which rural transit agencies
18 are utilizing which percentage of funds.
19 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Well, what got me
20 going is when you used that word urban.
21 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah.
22 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: You've been to my
23 neighborhood, Madam Secretary. There is nothing
24 urban about it.
25 MS. RICHARDS: I have. 40
1 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: But I know these
2 funds are supposed to be ear-marked. And,
3 hence, the question, do they kick in at class
4 four county, class five county, class six
5 county? Urban's none of those.
6 MS. RICHARDS: I get it.
7 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: So I'm curious as
8 to where this money intended for rural areas is
9 going.
10 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. And that was my
11 error in mentioning Erie. As I was going
12 through all of my transit things, Erie has been
13 a special place this year for transit; and so
14 that was my mistake to bring it into this
15 conversation.
16 But we'll get back to you with the
17 details on that. All I have in front of me is
18 the breakdown, and I know that it gets used and
19 it is, you know, well needed throughout the
20 entire state.
21 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Well, that kind of
22 goes to where I'm heading with this. Yeah,
23 we've got a lot of small systems, Indigo, Butler
24 TransACT, that are kind of looking for that
25 funding and it's their expectation that being 41
1 within the parameters of the 5311 language, they
2 think they're going to get some money out of
3 that; and I told them I'd ask, so --
4 MS. RICHARDS: We'd be happy, obviously,
5 to meet with them. I know we already do meet
6 with them, and I know we're talking with Butler
7 right now --
8 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Very good.
9 MS. RICHARDS: -- over some federal
10 funds. And the question right now is where the
11 local matches are coming from. There seems to
12 be a little misunderstanding whether they were
13 coming from --
14 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: You mean, they're
15 not putting up their share, right?
16 MS. RICHARDS: -- the localities or
17 coming from PennDOT. And so we will work
18 through with that. And we have been in touch
19 with Senator Toomey's office, as well as Senator
20 Casey's office on that very issue.
21 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Okay.
22 MS. RICHARDS: In fact, I signed letters
23 this morning regarding that issue.
24 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Very cool. Thank
25 you. One last thing, Chairman, or am I out of 42
1 time?
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You're out of
3 time.
4 MS. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chairman.
5 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: I still got that
6 cup of coffee, Secretary.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
8 Representative Daley.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman. Madam Secretary, it's good to see
11 you. I just wanted to -- this is not what my
12 question's going to be, but I wanted to just
13 comment on the Governor's proposal for funding
14 for the State Police; and I'm really glad to see
15 that in this year's budget.
16 But I wanted to ask you about -- it
17 looks like you set up an autonomous vehicles
18 testing policy task force. Can you give us an
19 update on that? And if -- I also saw that there
20 was Senate -- legislation in the Senate that it
21 stalled. Is that something that you see moving
22 forward? But if you can just give us an update
23 on the autonomous vehicles.
24 MS. RICHARDS: Sure, sure. So I'm very
25 excited to give you an update. It's been one of 43
1 my priorities to establish PennDOT in
2 Pennsylvania as a national leader with automated
3 vehicles.
4 Because just as I answered an earlier
5 question regarding seatbelts, I truly see
6 automated vehicles and connected vehicles in
7 allowing us to get that next leap in decreasing
8 the number of fatalities and serious accidents
9 on our roadways.
10 Ninety-four percent of fatalities
11 nationwide have been attributed to distracted
12 driving. And automated and connected vehicles
13 allows to reduce that number, if not to zero, to
14 a very small number; and so this is extremely
15 important in keeping people safe on our
16 highways.
17 I'm very proud. We had a policy task
18 force, one of the only ones in the nation that
19 took this proactive measure. We didn't even
20 wait for NHTSA, the national organization, to
21 come out with their guidelines. We went ahead;
22 and it worked perfectly, because we were in
23 tandem. We were working along with each other
24 and complimenting each other when we came out
25 with our reports. 44
1 So the draft report, final report, came
2 across my desk in November; and we shared it and
3 it is to help support and give information to
4 the Legislature so they can move forward with
5 the legislation, which will allow for safe
6 testing on our roadways here in Pennsylvania.
7 And Pennsylvania's seen as a great place, and I
8 want to make sure it still is, to test these
9 vehicles.
10 We have all four different seasons. We
11 have hilly; we have flat conditions; we have
12 academic institutions who have been working on
13 this technology. We have Carnegie Mellon, which
14 has had their own autonomous vehicle; and I know
15 all the representatives had a chance to drive in
16 that.
17 We're going to bring that back again for
18 anyone who didn't get a chance, to show them
19 firsthand what this technology is like. I was
20 honored to be part of the World Congress. There
21 were only six secretaries nationwide that were
22 invited to present last October and showing them
23 what we're doing here in the United States.
24 I'm working closely with our colleagues
25 in Ohio and Michigan. We want to be the first 45
1 multi-state autonomous corridor, and I think we
2 are going to get there. And so it's very
3 exciting technology. We're working with the
4 Legislature to make sure that the legislation is
5 strict enough, yet flexible enough to allow the
6 industry to work, and the private sector to
7 formulate and develop this technology in a way
8 that gives them what they need in order to move
9 it forward.
10 But again, it's our responsibility to
11 make sure it's done safely. And I feel very
12 confident that both of those goals can be
13 reached.
14 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you. I am
15 truly looking forward to the day. I hope I'm
16 still around when autonomous vehicles are, you
17 know, ruling the road. And I think at some
18 point, they're going to look back and say, human
19 beings actually drove cars? So it's exciting.
20 And thank you for the update.
21 MS. RICHARDS: That day is coming. It's
22 coming.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
24 Representative Peifer.
25 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Thank you, 46
1 Chairman. Thank you, Secretary, for being here.
2 I can't tell you how excited I was when I was
3 reading your written testimony. Right at the
4 end, you talk about PennDOT's Road MaP Program,
5 where you're going to use some of your recycled,
6 reclaimed materials for some of your low-volume
7 roads. Do you want to talk a little bit about
8 that initiative?
9 MS. RICHARDS: I would love to talk
10 about it. I'm hoping that's the only question
11 you ask, so I can use it for a full answer.
12 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: Bridges is
13 number two.
14 MS. RICHARDS: So PennDOT Connects,
15 diversity, innovative technology, and Road MaP,
16 those are the four priorities that I have set
17 forth for PennDOT; so I'm very happy you asked
18 this question.
19 Road MaP is allowing us to invest $2.1
20 billion over the next ten years into our
21 interstates, and so 1 billion is being allocated
22 to county maintenance; and then 1.1 billion is
23 being allocated to interstate preservation and
24 reconstruction.
25 And just to give you a background on why 47
1 this is needed, of the nearly 40,000 miles that
2 PennDOT maintains, nearly half of those miles
3 are low-volume routes; so they are not getting
4 the attention that they've needed, especially
5 while we've been holding maintenance funding
6 flat, before Act 89, before we had the resources
7 to deal with them.
8 Of these, more than 16,000 are in rural
9 areas with a population of less than 5,000. And
10 so this initiative is really allowing us, from
11 the ground up, to take care of these very
12 important roadways.
13 We have the interstates. As I
14 mentioned, 59 percent are out of cycle for
15 reconstruction. Our roadways, you know, we have
16 an aging infrastructure, and Pennsylvania gets
17 bad marks for very good reasons, because of the
18 age of everything.
19 We should be doing reconstruction every
20 40 years, and here we have nearly 60 percent of
21 our interstate, that's 1600 segment miles of
22 interstate, that have not been touched in more
23 than 40 years; and so it's very important that
24 we take this money and we dedicate it there.
25 And then we also have lower-volume 48
1 roads. And just to put this into perspective,
2 we treat 18,000 miles of our lower-volume roads
3 with seal coating and resurfacing. They should
4 be treated with a seal coat every four to seven
5 years, and here we have 18 percent of our roads
6 that are out of cycle there. And then we should
7 be treating with structural resurfacing every 15
8 to 20 years, and we have 24 percent of our
9 roadways that need to be structurally resurfaced
10 behind and not on cycle.
11 So it's much-needed money. Road MaP,
12 the MaP stands for Maintenance and Preservation.
13 It is a strong focus of what we're doing. Our
14 county maintenance, our county facilities, are
15 really working together, sharing best management
16 practices, making use of RAP, which is recycled
17 asphalt materials.
18 This is allowing us to pave more miles
19 than we ever have been able to before, at lower
20 costs. So communities across Pennsylvania will
21 see activity, will see pavement work being done
22 where they have not seen it in quite some time.
23 And again, it is part of the core
24 function of PennDOT, which is to make sure that
25 snow is cleared, that our roads are passable all 49
1 times of year, not just in the winter, but in
2 summer and spring and fall as well; and to make
3 sure that our low-volume roads, as well as our
4 rural communities get onto cycle and get the
5 pavement needs that they require.
6 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: You know, Act 89
7 really helps some of our two-digit and
8 three-digit roads; but it seems -- you know,
9 there are so many -- like you said, so many
10 roads that are low-digit with low traffic count,
11 out there in rural PA.
12 You did extensive work with the RAP
13 program and literally we were ripping out parts
14 of the interstate and just taking it a couple
15 miles and putting it down on a low-traffic rural
16 road. So thank you for that. And the roads
17 seem to be holding up well and the people are
18 just really pleased with it, so it was a great
19 initiative; and I want to thank you.
20 The second question had to do with
21 bridges. Back in 2014, we entered into a Rapid
22 Bridge Replacement Contract. Are you happy with
23 that project as it stands now?
24 MS. RICHARDS: Look, I'll be honest,
25 we've had a lot of -- and I don't mean to be 50
1 cute here -- but we've hit a lot of road bumps
2 on the Rapid Bridge Replacement Initiative. I'm
3 pleased to say that after a lot of renegotiation
4 and working with our partners on this, we're
5 moving forward in a positive way right now. But
6 we are at a point now where we are getting 558
7 bridges; and they should be completed over about
8 the next two years.
9 We had to look at the schedule again and
10 make sure that they were working on realistic
11 terms here. We had to see how they were
12 reaching out to our communities and we had to
13 tell them at PennDOT we demand more of a
14 community involvement in what we do.
15 But right now, as I said, we will get
16 those 558 bridges done. We will work closely
17 and we will be monitoring it very closely, and
18 it will be helping us reduce the number of
19 structurally deficient bridges here in the
20 Commonwealth.
21 There will be lessons learned. And once
22 we get through having these bridges built, of
23 course, there's a 25-year maintenance process
24 that is part of this program, as well, before
25 they get handed back to us; and we will be happy 51
1 again to share those lessons learned and how we
2 will approach P3 in the future.
3 This is the largest P3 of its kind in
4 the nation; and we know when you're the first
5 person, there are going to be certain, as I
6 said, bumps in the road; but we feel real good
7 and I'm real proud of our team and how they've
8 been able to manage this program.
9 REPRESENTATIVE PEIFER: All right.
10 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
12 Representative Boyle.
13 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you,
14 Secretary Richards for being here; and you might
15 have a similar interest in the question that I'm
16 about to pose, being from Montgomery County,
17 where I, of course, know you.
18 Probably the most interesting to me, and
19 also what I believe could offer the greatest
20 chance at increased prosperity in the
21 Philadelphia area, relates to transportation,
22 specifically, high-speed rail coming from
23 Philadelphia.
24 I've seen different studies where it is
25 possible that we could replicate the Asian style 52
1 or some of the European-style transit, where we
2 would be able to go from downtown Philadelphia
3 to Manhattan in roughly half an hour using
4 bullet trains, and also going from Philadelphia,
5 downtown Philadelphia, to Washington, DC in
6 about 45 minutes. That excites me. I think it
7 excites many business owners in the City of
8 Philadelphia. I can't really think of anything
9 that would generate wealth and job creation in
10 the southeast more than that.
11 I notice that the current Administration
12 talked about the prospect of high-speed rail in
13 the United States, and I was curious if there's
14 been any indication from the federal government
15 about any direction that they might be going?
16 And, also, I was curious, I think this
17 is probably a technical question, engineering
18 question, just how realistic you think
19 high-speed rail in the Philadelphia area is for
20 us. Thank you.
21 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. Well, I'm pleased
22 to say, and actually I have to thank Chairman
23 Saylor; initially, I was scheduled to address
24 this group next week. However, all of the
25 secretaries across the country are meeting in DC 53
1 to meet the new US DOT Secretary and to discuss
2 what is on their transportation agenda. So I
3 will be able to come back with more information,
4 and high-speed rail is high on my list.
5 I think rail, in general, is something
6 that the federal government can help us in, in
7 big ways; and I hope that it is on their agenda.
8 I don't know.
9 All of my colleagues across the country,
10 we're all guessing. There hasn't been a lot of
11 information, and we're hoping starting next week
12 we'll be able to know.
13 Of course, I am a huge high-speed rail
14 advocate. It's always been a dream of mine.
15 But I have to say since I've sat in this seat, I
16 do think it's feasible and I think it could now
17 happen. A lot of things have to fall into
18 place, a good funding mechanism, first of all;
19 this is not inexpensive.
20 But looking at China and how they have
21 built high-speed rail on elevated platforms,
22 kind of like monorail in Disney World, I do
23 think we could reduce environmental impacts. I
24 do think that the way that design and building
25 technology has advanced, that even if we went 54
1 out to Pittsburgh, that we could go through
2 things instead of around things, like we do now.
3 I'm not saying that right-of-way is
4 going to be easy. I'm not saying that finding
5 alternative routes is going to happen quickly,
6 but I do think it can happen. I think it is
7 something that will take some time.
8 I'm ready to start the work, if we get
9 the slightest window open on the federal level
10 and, you know, hopefully set up a foundation so
11 that it can be done in the future. Again, it's
12 not something that will be built over a year or
13 two-year period; but it's something that you
14 have to work on now so that you can see
15 something in 5, 10, 15 years down the road.
16 And again, it is a personal interest of
17 mine; and I'd be happy to report back when I get
18 back from DC.
19 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
21 Representative Quinn.
22 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thanks, Mr.
23 Chairman. It's great to see you again, Madam
24 Secretary. Thank you for coming out here.
25 If you haven't noticed, it's been a mild 55
1 winter, you know, very mild. With the budget,
2 what kind of dollars, at this point, do you
3 think you've saved because of this?
4 MS. RICHARDS: Okay. So again, it's
5 been a mild winter in District 6 where you live,
6 Representative Quinn, where I live. It's been a
7 mild winter in District 8, but we have 11
8 districts; and so in the nine other districts,
9 they are already 75 percent over where they
10 usually are in their expenditures for winter.
11 We've had repeated storms, again, on
12 weekends, that have really, you know, made us
13 pay for overtime; and there's been a lot of
14 icing; there's been a lot of freeze and thawing.
15 So right now where we are, our winter budget is
16 $205 million, and we're at 184 million right
17 now.
18 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Oh, that
19 surprises me. So those dollars for snow
20 removal, ice removal, that's statewide; you
21 don't allocate that per district?
22 MS. RICHARDS: Correct.
23 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I guess that
24 makes sense. So here I was feeling pretty good
25 about being able to hop on some spring 56
1 maintenance project soon. But listen to the
2 groundhog, huh?
3 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. I'm sorry to
4 report that. Again, in District 6, and even,
5 you know, my husband has heard me talk about
6 this and my children, as well. My kids are
7 upset they did not have more snow days than they
8 did this year. They only got one. But the rest
9 of the state looks quite different.
10 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Okay. Well, good
11 to know. Back to Act 89. It was projected to
12 generate between $7.3 and 7.6 billion in new
13 funding to be used over a myriad of different
14 things transportation related.
15 Can you tell us if the Act 89
16 projections are still meeting expectations and
17 what the prospects are for the next couple of
18 years?
19 MS. RICHARDS: Well, Act 89 is getting
20 us $2.5 billion after year five, every single
21 year; and that is happening. We're dealing with
22 the State Police issue. Because as that was
23 taking a larger and larger chunk out of the
24 Motor License Fund, we were not able to deliver.
25 However, I'm happy to report the decade 57
1 of investment projects, we've made a remarkable
2 effort there. We have almost two-thirds of all
3 of those projects either complete or underway.
4 Over the next ten years, we will have all of the
5 maintenance projects with the Road MaP
6 initiative that I went into earlier, we will
7 have them done as well. And so it is achieving
8 what we anticipated; and, of course, we continue
9 to make sure that every dollar goes as far as
10 possible.
11 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you.
12 PennDOT reacted very quickly and effectively
13 with the lousy news we had, I think it was in
14 January, with regard to the closure of the
15 Delaware bridge over the Turnpike bridge; and
16 thank you for that.
17 It affects so many drivers down in our
18 region. As your team went out to investigate
19 that, was it found to be an error in design or
20 some maintenance or, you know, did something hit
21 the wall?
22 My question is: If it's in design, my
23 concern would be how often that design was used
24 on other bridges that we might have coming back?
25 MS. RICHARDS: You can come work for 58
1 PennDOT. That is exactly the questions that we
2 all had. And I was worried that I was going to
3 have to close a significant number of bridges
4 that had similar design. It was found that it
5 was due to a process that is no longer allowed.
6 And that is when holes are drilled in pieces of
7 this truss, they were plugged; and now we don't
8 allow that. There would be another -- something
9 else put on to make it more structurally sound.
10 But back then, when this bridge was built in the
11 1950s, it was the steel that was used back then,
12 as well as this was common practice. It is no
13 longer common practice.
14 We have -- and I had a report at the
15 last Turnpike Commission meeting, which was
16 yesterday, and we are X-raying, you know, not to
17 use more technical terms than that, but
18 basically X-raying the whole bridge and seeing
19 where other plugs may exist; and we have
20 identified two other places. We're looking at
21 the structural soundness of the bridges in those
22 areas.
23 We are looking at our other bridges, and
24 now that will be something that we look at. We
25 don't feel that this is something where we need 59
1 to close bridges. But from now on when we
2 inspect them, we will be looking at that type of
3 a plug weld, it's called. And so we feel we can
4 retrofit this bridge and we're figuring out at
5 the Turnpike, what we do in the long-term. That
6 will be a short-term fix, but by short-term I
7 mean several years; and then we will figure out
8 the long-term fix.
9 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you. And
10 if I do decide to come and apply to work for
11 you, I know I'll be helping that diversity
12 complement.
13 MS. RICHARDS: Yes, you will. We could
14 use it.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
16 Representative Kreuger-Braneky.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank
18 you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you, Madam
19 Secretary, for joining us here today.
20 So I'm looking at the 511 App on my
21 phone. I remember last year hearing a notice
22 that we could track where snowplows were. And I
23 remember being stuck here at the Capitol at one
24 point and traveling home and wanting to know if
25 the roads were going to be clear. 60
1 Can you talk a little bit about this
2 technology, how it's working and what kind of
3 feedback you've gotten from Pennsylvania
4 residents, to date?
5 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. We've gotten great
6 feedback, both in allowing us to be more
7 efficient, but also allowing us to get
8 information out to the public; so it's one of
9 our GO-TIME initiatives; we have a dozen of them
10 over the last three budgets, which are saving
11 $89 million over the next five years.
12 AVLs, Automated Vehicle Locators, were
13 placed in every single plow this year, 2200,
14 allowing us to assess every single winter storm,
15 just the materials that were put down, the
16 temperatures, what worked best, how to be as
17 efficient as possible; and so we're very pleased
18 with that progress.
19 It also shows the locations of the
20 plows. We always ask people to stay home, if
21 possible. It allows our plows to do the work as
22 efficiently as possible. But if you have to go
23 out -- we understand there's medical
24 emergencies; some people have to work no matter
25 what the weather is. People's lives depend on 61
1 it. We want them to be able to leave their
2 house at the safest time, knowing when the plow
3 had just cleared the route that they need to
4 take.
5 And so we're putting all that out on our
6 511PA App, and it has been, you know, getting
7 rave reviews. People are really happy to have
8 that information at their fingertips.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: And is
10 there anything else that you're doing from a
11 customer service perspective with technology?
12 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. The newest thing,
13 which I think is pretty exciting, and it came
14 out of the Turnpike issue during Storm Jonas,
15 where there were cars trapped and a long queue
16 after an accident. And so working with Pima,
17 working with the Turnpike Commission, Homeland
18 Security, as well, we put together the 511PA
19 Connect App. And what this does, is it allows
20 us to geo-fence an area. When we see there's a
21 two-hour delay and there could be possibly
22 another two hours afterwards, we can look at the
23 area on a map electronically; we can circle that
24 area and we can send text information to anybody
25 in that area. 62
1 They can respond back to us, if they
2 would like to receive more information. And the
3 way I like to describe it, it's kind of like
4 when you're on an airplane and you're sitting on
5 the runway and you don't know why and you're
6 aggravated and you just get more and more angry
7 or the pilot can tell you, we're sitting here
8 because there's a storm ahead or, you know, the
9 President is in our airspace or whatever the
10 reason is, then we'll be another 30 minutes, you
11 can feel the anxiety and the stress on the that
12 plane lower; and that's what we, you know, feel
13 that this app is doing.
14 We have used it once so far this year,
15 and it has been a huge success. The Turnpike
16 has used it twice. It is not to replace 911.
17 If someone has an emergency, they feel like
18 they're having a heart attack, they have an
19 emergency happening in their car, they are still
20 to call 911; but it is to get them information
21 so they can get a better handle how long they
22 may be there, why they are there and get the
23 information to them as quickly as possible; and
24 we're real excited about it.
25 We are the first in the nation to have 63
1 this two-way communication, and I spoke about it
2 at a national conference and I know other states
3 are going to quickly be copying us.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY:
5 Congrats on being first in the nation on that.
6 MS. RICHARDS: Thanks.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Do
8 drivers have to opt in to be able to get those
9 text messages?
10 MS. RICHARDS: They do. And that was
11 one part of it. We didn't want to be giving
12 information to people who did not want to
13 participate. There's always that part of the
14 population that does not want to receive
15 information, does not want to feel like we are
16 pushing information to them; so they do have to
17 -- the initial text is sent out, Do you want to
18 receive more information? And then based on how
19 they respond to that initial text, they will
20 either get more information or they won't hear
21 anything else from else.
22 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: But
23 anyone in that immediate area would receive the
24 text, whether they've signed up for the app or
25 not, the first text? 64
1 MS. RICHARDS: Correct. Correct. It
2 goes out to everybody in that area.
3 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Great.
4 Thank you very much.
5 MS. RICHARDS: You're welcome.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
7 Representative Kampf.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Madam Secretary,
9 good afternoon.
10 MS. RICHARDS: Good afternoon.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: I think maybe
12 last year or the year before I asked these
13 questions: It's about the employee benefit
14 factors. I didn't see them in your submission
15 to us. Although, I did see a note that you
16 might provide them through the Budget Office.
17 Do you have those with you or --
18 MS. RICHARDS: I know them, and I'm
19 happy to discuss them with you.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. For
21 example, the highway maintenance or -- well,
22 let's start with that one. What's the current
23 benefit factor?
24 MS. RICHARDS: Okay. Well, we have a
25 -- so just to give you the overall, which is 65
1 what we discussed before, and that's why I came
2 prepared; I remembered your question from last
3 year.
4 So we spend 1 billion, 70 million in
5 salary to our personnel. And of that, 43.5
6 percent goes to benefits. So the breakdown is
7 605 million to salary. So the total cost is 1
8 billion, 70 million; 605 million is salary, and
9 then the remainder, which is about 460 million,
10 goes to benefits; so that is the breakdown. And
11 that's their percentage.
12 Did you want a separate one for
13 maintenance?
14 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: So that's sort of
15 a blended rate of all the different --
16 MS. RICHARDS: Uh-huh.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. Well,
18 that's fine. And is there -- usually when the
19 benefit factor's presented, it's not 57 to
20 salary, 43 to benefits; it's --
21 MS. RICHARDS: You're looking for the
22 multiplier?
23 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: -- every dollar.
24 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, that's 77.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Seventy-seven? 66
1 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, that would be .77.
2 So for every dollar that's paid, another 77
3 cents goes to benefits.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And is that
5 '16-'17 or '17-'18?
6 MS. RICHARDS: The numbers I was just
7 given, so I'm assuming they're '17-'18. No,
8 they're '16-'17. Good thing Dave's sitting next
9 to me. I was wondering -- you know, we need to
10 utilize Dave; so if you have any other
11 questions, feel free to ask him directly.
12 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And what is it
13 going to be? What's the blended rate for
14 '17-'18?
15 MR. MARGOLIS: We're assuming the same
16 amount right now. We'll actually -- when we do
17 the rebudgeting after you pass the
18 Appropriations Act, we'll recompute that; but we
19 don't see a significant difference from the
20 current year.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. All right.
22 Thank you very much.
23 MS. RICHARDS: Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
25 Representative Donatucci. 67
1 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,
2 Mr. Chairman; and welcome today. I have two
3 unrelated questions. With SEPTA as the sixth
4 largest branded system in the nation and
5 Pittsburgh is the 25th, Pennsylvania has made
6 great strides in addressing mass transit needs.
7 Can you elaborate on what Act 89 did for mass
8 transit?
9 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. So before Act 89,
10 there was 162 million for Transit Capital
11 Grants; and now we're very excited to say we
12 have 500 million, so an increase of $338
13 million. And as you know, these transit
14 agencies -- I'm a former SEPTA Board member and
15 worked very closely with all of our other
16 transit agencies.
17 This, as you know, is much needed.
18 We're still, you know, under, as far as our
19 sister agencies in Boston and Chicago and DC;
20 you know, we struggle and we have to make every
21 dollar count.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you.
23 Growing population and growth in auto and truck
24 miles traveled, it's using up a lot of the road
25 capacity that was built during the interstate 68
1 highway boom. Creating new highway capacity
2 could possibly have significant environmental
3 and social impacts.
4 Having said that, it's my understanding
5 that there are several strategic highway
6 capacity enhancements now in development. Can
7 you describe two or three examples of how this
8 is being accomplished in the state?
9 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. Capacity projects
10 are, you know, few and far between, and
11 especially with the question earlier with
12 autonomous vehicles. We don't know what our
13 roadways will look like in the next 5, 10, 15,
14 20 years; but we do think that automated
15 vehicles, connected vehicles, are going to
16 reduce that congestion; and so, you know, we're
17 taking a look. We're taking a look at that.
18 Of course, I-95 is a very congested
19 corridor in your area; and so the new phases of
20 I-95 that are moving forward, while they are
21 adding, I would say, distances to get on and to
22 get off in certain neighborhoods in particular,
23 it wouldn't be seen as huge capacity adding,
24 even though that is our heaviest traveled
25 corridor. So we have a couple moving forward. 69
1 I could get you a list of exactly which
2 ones and where they are and be happy to talk
3 that over with you. But right now, you know,
4 our main focus definitely is enhancing the
5 corridors that already exist and maintaining our
6 network right now.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you. I
8 wish you could do something with the Schuylkill
9 Expressway. Like, I would love to have -- and I
10 know it's not going to happen -- like a second
11 level. I would pay whatever toll they wanted to
12 be able to do that. So thank you.
13 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. The I-76 corridor
14 program that I alluded to earlier, I won't go
15 over it again, but you're going to see the
16 activity in the end of this year, early next
17 year.
18 And while I say to everybody, it's not
19 going to become the Pocono Raceway afterwards,
20 it is definitely going to be improved from how
21 it exists today; and it could use it.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I just wanted
23 to note, Madam Secretary, I had suggested to
24 Governor Rendell that he build a double-decker
25 on 76 and toll that with a P3; but he never took 70
1 me up on that offer.
2 MS. RICHARDS: It's out there. So if
3 there's any financiers or teams that want to do
4 that, I am the Chair of the P3 Board. I'd be
5 happy to listen.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Believe it or
7 not, we had one or two unions who had offered,
8 back then, to actually construct the project.
9 They were -- I think one was a Canadian union,
10 one was an American union.
11 MS. RICHARDS: Uh-huh.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: That said,
13 they think it's a great way to invest their
14 pension system, which was interesting. But
15 we'll move on.
16 Representative Greiner.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thank you, Mr.
18 Chairman. Madam Secretary, thank you for being
19 here. I'm going to try to switch gears and get
20 back to the budget a little bit. And I know
21 we're talking about roads and construction, but
22 I want to get back to the numbers.
23 Back in November, after the election,
24 the Trump Administration announced that it's
25 going to complete a comprehensive review of all 71
1 federal regulations; and this includes the CAFE
2 standards, which changed dramatically under
3 President Obama, I mean, inflated tremendously
4 and, you know, something that I know we're going
5 to be looking at.
6 When the legislation that became Act 89
7 was being compiled when we voted on that bill,
8 fuel consumption estimates for 2017-'18 were
9 about 6.5 million gallons versus the current
10 estimate now of just about 6.1 million.
11 And that's -- you know, even with a
12 significantly lower -- I mean, consumption's
13 down, even though gas prices are also down
14 significantly. And this represents a
15 six-percent reduction, at least in my
16 calculation, in the estimate, which to me equals
17 roughly $230-million revenue loss to the Motor
18 License Fund. That's kind of what I'm looking
19 at here.
20 Can you discuss -- first of all, I want
21 to know whether my thinking is right on that.
22 And then, second of all, can you discuss the
23 impact that the CAFE standards are having on
24 that Motor License Fund?
25 And you say you're going to be in, I 72
1 guess, Washington next week or you're going to
2 -- I mean, maybe you'll be hearing more about
3 the Trump Administration's plan to potentially
4 slow down, you know, the CAFE standards that
5 were put in place, you know, years ago.
6 If you could maybe comment on that.
7 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. I'm eager to hear
8 what their outlook is on it. Of course, because
9 the Motor License Fund is dependent on gas tax
10 revenue, even the more -- you know, as you
11 mentioned, but the more fuel-efficient vehicles
12 that were using, everything is impacting that
13 revenue now.
14 So I am part of the I-95 coalition,
15 where we are looking at, in a broader sense,
16 from Florida through Maine, what else we can
17 depend on and we're also looking at, obviously,
18 how it impacts the environment, emissions, how
19 the federal standards and what the federal plan
20 is and what this Administration will look at.
21 But again, I'd be happy to respond after
22 DC. I don't know if there's something specific.
23 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: So we don't
24 know what the fund -- I mean, to me it looks
25 like a significant decrease to us for roads and 73
1 for, you know, other transit and multimodal and
2 those type of things.
3 MS. RICHARDS: It is. I mean, it will
4 be. That's our main revenue source.
5 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Yeah. Just one
6 -- I'm just going to make one comment. I'm a
7 big supporter of rail, too; but somebody said if
8 we have a dedicated funding source, I'm just
9 going to say that pretty much is the answer to
10 everything here in Harrisburg. If we could have
11 a dedicated funding source for everything, all
12 our problems would be taken care of.
13 I think rail's a long time away, but I
14 will say I think it's something that -- there's
15 a lot of potential there. I kind of did get a
16 kick out of that answer, because we need money,
17 we need funds, and we need to be smart about how
18 we approach it. We can't keep on going after
19 the taxpayers. Just kind of was thinking about
20 that. So thank you.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
22 Representative Schweyer.
23 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Thank you, Mr.
24 Chairman; and welcome, Madam Secretary. I just
25 want to say, for the record, just so there's no 74
1 confusion, that I do still serve on my Transit
2 Authority Board back home. And my question is
3 not specific for LANTA, but it's just sort of a
4 broader program.
5 But in my time on that board, one of the
6 most interesting programs -- and frankly, one of
7 the programs I'm most proud of is our Shared
8 Ride Program. Now, not so much LANTA, but there
9 are some concerns about the demand for the
10 Shared Ride Program. Specifically, you know, we
11 were talking weekends and evenings and kind of
12 the tough times that our folks with disabilities
13 have in getting to doctors' appointments and so
14 forth and so on.
15 So one question, and I'm going to keep
16 it very specific to this one particular topic,
17 ma'am. Do you have any ideas, thoughts about
18 how we can improve our delivery of services for
19 those folks, partner with our organizations,
20 those sorts of things?
21 Because, I mean, I really do -- I'm very
22 proud of that program locally, and I mow
23 statewide it's something that we could always
24 use a little bit more assistance with.
25 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah. Well, I share your 75
1 concern for it. When I was on the SEPTA Board,
2 that was one of our biggest challenges. And to
3 run an efficient and effective Shared Ride
4 Program is very difficult. Some of our transit
5 agencies do better than others. And I had a
6 conversation just this week. We are also
7 working with DHS, as well as Labor & Industry
8 and Education on the Employee First work plan;
9 and we're very excited to be partners in there.
10 One of the new ideas that that plan has
11 made us, you know, not only take note of but
12 we're moving forward, is we're taking a look at
13 van pooling, how that can be more -- how it can
14 be used, how we can subsidize certain vans to
15 make sure that they can accommodate those who
16 need wheelchairs. And, also, when you have to
17 make room for a wheelchair, you have to take out
18 three other seats; it takes up four seats. And
19 so how can that service be provided without
20 losing money and also allowing people with
21 disabilities to get the rides that they need?
22 That's one of the things we're taking a
23 look at. We also continue to look at the
24 opportunities that exist with Ride Share
25 services, such as Lyft and Uber, and how we can 76
1 incentivize drivers in areas that we don't have
2 drivers.
3 Also, how can we help them get vehicles,
4 again, that can accommodate those with
5 disabilities who cannot travel in a
6 stereotypical vehicle or in a standard vehicle,
7 I should say. And so we are actively working on
8 all of those fronts, and we definitely want to
9 make sure we make choices available for
10 everybody, those in the disability community, as
11 those not in the disability community. It's
12 something that we're actively involved in.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Great. Thank
14 you so much, Madam Secretary. Thank you.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
16 Representative Delozier.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you, Mr.
18 Chairman. Madam Secretary, I have a quick
19 question on Act 89. It seems to be a lot of the
20 focal point, since it's such a huge bill.
21 But what was not mentioned, and it was
22 talked about a little bit earlier, you mentioned
23 about the online registration for the vehicle
24 registrations. So I guess my question from
25 that, to tag onto that, is the fact you said 77
1 $2-million savings because of less mailing costs
2 and that kind of thing.
3 What is the estimated savings for not
4 having to produce the sticker and --
5 MS. RICHARDS: 1.1 million.
6 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So that's on
7 top of that, too?
8 MS. RICHARDS: Correct.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So with those
10 two savings, I know at the time you had said
11 that the program is working well. One of the
12 pushbacks that I've received is from the actual
13 enforcement of those that have expired
14 registration stickers.
15 So in the past, obviously, with the tag
16 on the plate, law enforcement or anybody were
17 able to easily decipher as to whether or not
18 they were out of date or if they were in
19 compliance.
20 So a lot of the discussion had been
21 about the scanners and the use of scanners, and
22 now our local municipalities have to purchase
23 these scanners in order to have that ability to
24 quickly check.
25 So my understanding was that with the 78
1 savings, that they were going to go to grants in
2 order to allow for these municipalities and
3 local law enforcement to purchase these
4 scanners. So I would like to know what that
5 update is with those savings you've been able to
6 accrue and those grants going to those local law
7 enforcements in order to buy that equipment.
8 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. So last year when
9 we were talking about that, that was the plan
10 and we were willing to take that $3.1 million.
11 Over the next, you know, five years, we were
12 going to put that together and offer grants to
13 buy hundreds of these scanners, but there was no
14 interest. We tried to get a bill in place;
15 nobody wanted to move forward on it.
16 And so what we did, is we took all of
17 that money and we put it back into construction.
18 So that money is now being utilized to drive
19 down the number, the decade of investment
20 projects that we're working on.
21 So it's not like it's sitting in a pot;
22 it has been allocated and working on our network
23 throughout the state.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: And when you
25 say, no interest, no interest by companies for 79
1 the scanners, no interest by law enforcement?
2 Because, I mean, I get asked about it all the
3 time from law enforcement; so I guess I don't
4 understand why there would have been no
5 interest.
6 MS. RICHARDS: We talked about it with
7 the Transportation Committee in the Senate and
8 the House, and it wasn't moving; there was not
9 an interest. There was not an interest as far
10 as moving that legislation forward, so it didn't
11 pass.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. So was
13 the law -- so it wasn't asked then to law
14 enforcement themselves in the sense of being
15 able to do their jobs?
16 MS. RICHARDS: Well, we talked to law
17 enforcement to see if scanners would be helpful
18 and there was an agreement that the scanners
19 would be helpful; but there wasn't a large, you
20 know, coming together of people saying we need
21 this and this is what we need; and there was
22 definitely no movement last year. So we put
23 forth. I was surprised. I thought that a
24 number of people would take it and run with it,
25 but -- 80
1 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Well, actually
2 I'm surprised; because I sit on the Judiciary
3 and I don't remember a conversation whatsoever.
4 So I would assume you went to the Judiciary
5 Committees in both --
6 MS. RICHARDS: No, no. We discussed it
7 in Transportation, as it was being discussed.
8 That's how I discussed it anyway.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. Well, I
10 guess I would say that there's a tremendous
11 amount of interest; because the police officers
12 don't feel they can do their jobs when it comes
13 to the enforcement of the change in and of
14 itself with the elimination of those stickers on
15 the cars in and of themselves. So, I mean, I've
16 had a lot of discussions with them. I guess a
17 lot of frustration, because that was a very
18 large -- an easy way to be able to disect that
19 and be able to determine whether or not somebody
20 was -- now it's a secondary cause, a secondary
21 reason for someone getting a citation or
22 anything; and, you know, you've mentioned
23 safety. Well, registration and being able to
24 have our cars registered and, you know, doing
25 the right thing, I guess is a safety issue, as 81
1 well.
2 Is that something that you would be
3 interested in or would be able to revisit then?
4 Because I don't know if the Transportation
5 Committee wasn't interested, but I can guarantee
6 you I am.
7 MS. RICHARDS: Of course. You know,
8 we're always willing to talk about things. We'd
9 have to identify money, because the money isn't
10 -- it's not like it's sitting in a pile waiting
11 to be used. It has been allocated. But we'd be
12 happy to have that conversation. We like
13 working alongside law enforcement. We want to
14 make sure they can do the jobs that they can do.
15 We'd be happy, you know, to have that
16 conversation.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. I guess
18 I would just register the fact that I can't
19 believe there was absolutely no interest,
20 considering how much I hear about this on a
21 regular basis, with the frustration of, what did
22 you do in Act 89 to us?
23 So I'm surprised that didn't filter
24 through in any of the other conversations. So
25 thank you very much. 82
1 MS. RICHARDS: No. I can just say it
2 was offered multiple times. I was also
3 surprised.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
5 Representative Keller.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you, Mr.
7 Chairman. Madam Secretary, I'm sure you'll be
8 shocked that I'll be asking about the port.
9 MS. RICHARDS: I'd be disappointed if
10 you didn't. And we have good things to report.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yes, we do.
12 First, I want to thank you and the Governor. I
13 mean, every Governor has given us support, from
14 Governor Casey on. Every Governor has realized
15 how important the ports are to the economy of
16 Pennsylvania, and they've all supported us.
17 But I don't think anyone's supported as
18 much as Governor Wolf has. Two things I want to
19 highlight: Number one, the changes that he made
20 at the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.
21 Professionalizing the staff that the Port
22 Authority has, sent a worldwide recognition that
23 now Pennsylvania is open for business; and I
24 think we'll see fruits from those changes that
25 we've made. 83
1 And number two: Making the investments
2 for the terminals. I mean, we've done the --
3 channel deepening is almost complete. It's 90
4 percent done. And it's great to be able to
5 accept these new bigger post-PANAMAC ships, but
6 if we don't have a terminal for them to pull up
7 into, it's all for nothing. So the investment
8 that the Governor's made into the terminals in
9 the Philadelphia port will pay off greatly.
10 And I'm sure you've seen the Inquirer
11 article that the port is booming right now. The
12 volumes are up, right across the board.
13 MS. RICHARDS: I have it right here in
14 my book (indicating).
15 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: You have it
16 ready? And so those volumes, those increases in
17 volume that we had been predicting are coming
18 for years and we had to get ready for, that
19 equals one thing, the thing -- you can strip
20 everything away. The thing we are most
21 interested in up here are jobs, and that will be
22 able to create good family-sustaining paying
23 jobs. And so I wanted to thank the Governor for
24 that.
25 And to make sure that all these years 84
1 I've been bothering everybody with the terms
2 like dredging and container cranes and TEUs,
3 it's well worth it. It's paying off. So I just
4 wanted to make that point. And that's one thing
5 we can be proud of, and it's going to create a
6 lot of jobs in the future.
7 Two questions. I want to get them in,
8 so the Chairman doesn't cut me off. I know I'm
9 very parochial, but can you explain the benefits
10 that Act 89 has made on three ports in
11 Pennsylvania, not just the port of Philadelphia
12 that I'm always interested in?
13 And number two: Can you clarify what
14 the different responsibilities are between
15 PennDOT, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission,
16 and the two bridge commissions, Delaware River
17 Port Authority and the Delaware River Joint Toll
18 Bridge Commission? I know there's always a lot
19 of confusion --
20 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, there is a lot of
21 confusion.
22 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: -- when it comes
23 to that.
24 MS. RICHARDS: Let me start with that
25 real quick. 85
1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Sure.
2 MS. RICHARDS: So the Delaware River
3 Port Authority, as well as the Delaware River
4 Joint Toll Bridge Commission, they're both
5 bi-state agencies; they both operate and
6 maintain bridges that go from Pennsylvania to
7 New Jersey. They're very different than
8 PennDOT, very different than the Turnpike
9 Commission.
10 Their boards are set by the Governors of
11 New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and again, they
12 operate as a bi-state agency and they're kind of
13 on their own as far as how they operate.
14 And so PennDOT does not have any
15 oversight with them. Of course, we work
16 alongside and we're very interested in the
17 Scudder Falls, which is operated and maintained
18 by the Delaware Joint Toll Bridge Commission,
19 because that is one of the detour routes with
20 the Turnpike bridge that is out.
21 So let me get to the Turnpike. There
22 are five commissioners on the Turnpike. The
23 Secretary is one of those commissioners. And
24 then there are four others. And so we oversee
25 and vote on the decisions for the capital plan 86
1 and operations for the Turnpike, but it's run by
2 a CEO, a COO, and there's an engineer.
3 And so, again, PennDOT does not maintain
4 or operate the Turnpike. Of course, we work
5 very closely with them. And when we see areas
6 of mutual benefit, we try to save money and
7 administrative costs on safety issues. We have
8 a transportation quality initiative where we go
9 over how we treat our roads, how we pave them,
10 whatever we can learn from each other. And the
11 development of the 511PA Connect System that
12 helps trapped travelers, is something that -- an
13 example of something that we worked on together.
14 And then, of course, there's PennDOT,
15 which, you know, 44,000 miles of roads and
16 25,000 bridges, ports, airports, aviation, rail
17 and -- and let me get to the three ports, which
18 was your question.
19 And so in Act 89, we've been able to
20 help out with the Philadelphia port; and that's
21 what's been key in the cargo incentive. We are
22 now in the second year of the five-year program,
23 where we give up to a million dollars, $25 per
24 container. And all of the firms who have taken
25 us up on that, we've seen an increase of 32 87
1 percent in the number of containers that come
2 through the Philadelphia port. So it's been a
3 huge success, and we're looking forward to
4 seeing that success over the next three years.
5 As far as the Erie port, they are going
6 through a strategic plan; and we've been able to
7 help them with that, again, through Act 89. And
8 there's a phased rehabilitation, as well as one
9 of their dry docks, the Donjon dock there, which
10 allows for the safety but also for materials to
11 come in and out of that port.
12 And then as far as the Pittsburgh port,
13 we have been able to continue our support on the
14 Pittsburgh port; and they have some concerns
15 with locks and dams, which is very unique, and
16 so we're helping them with those challenges.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: It's my
18 understanding that the port of Pittsburgh and
19 the locks and dams are going to be very critical
20 when it comes to the new cracker plant opening
21 up.
22 MS. RICHARDS: It is. And that's a huge
23 opportunity for all of us to help the economy
24 here in Pennsylvania, and so we're as supportive
25 as we can be. 88
1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: That's the job
2 creator out west, as we have the port hopefully
3 in the east.
4 MS. RICHARDS: Absolutely. Thank you.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you, Mr.
6 Chairman.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You're
8 welcome. Representative Hahn.
9 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I have
11 two different topics. But the first one, I
12 represent parts of Northampton County. And just
13 last year, the County Council copied PennDOT on
14 the P3s and their grouping bridges together. I
15 think they have like 119 bridges that they're
16 working on.
17 So just your feeling on that, the
18 status, and if you think that's something that
19 other counties can do as a cost-saving measure.
20 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, I was extremely
21 excited when that idea came across the P3 Board.
22 As a former county commissioner that also had
23 bridges and roadways, when a county steps up,
24 not only by enacting the $5 registration fee,
25 which Act 89 allowed counties to do to take care 89
1 of their infrastructure needs, but when they
2 also come up with an idea of how to creatively
3 take care of their assets, we're looking
4 closely. And I have told every single county
5 commissioner that I've spoken to and everywhere
6 I go, to take a look at Northampton County; I
7 think it's a fantastic example. I wish them the
8 greatest success. Of course, they're just
9 starting this process; and we want them to be
10 hugely successful. And we want every single
11 county to follow in their footsteps and to take
12 the stewardship role of their assets.
13 Our entire network is strengthened when
14 our local municipalities and counties also take
15 care of the bridges and roadways. They connect
16 and are very vital to the network.
17 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Great. Thank you.
18 Now I want to go to Green Light-Go. So I think
19 the Governor's '17-'18 budget provided $40
20 million for the municipal traffic signals, so I
21 think Act -- I think it was Act 101 reduced the
22 local match from 50 to 20 percent. So I know a
23 lot of municipalities try for those grants. So
24 how do you feel that funding is going to play
25 out with them and, you know, where the match is 90
1 going to -- since it's been reduced, like how
2 many more grants do you think you're going to
3 give out with that?
4 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, we're already
5 seeing the grants just how we wanted. We wanted
6 to see more activity and we wanted to see more
7 communities and municipalities taking advantage
8 of it, and the lower match is showing that. And
9 so we know that no one knows the signalization
10 challenges and the congestion in a community
11 better than the community itself, so it's a
12 great way for us to work with the communities to
13 offer these matching funds.
14 It's important to us that there is a
15 match. And so the lower match now, again, is
16 doing exactly what we wanted, which is getting
17 greater utilization of these fees and making
18 sure that the traffic areas, the real problems
19 in communities are being addressed.
20 So we're very excited about it and we
21 hope it continues to grow and that the full 40
22 million is utilized. We're not quite at that
23 point yet.
24 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Okay. Thank you.
25 Living in a municipality where five state roads 91
1 come into town, we have a lot of signalling
2 problems; so that's helpful.
3 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah.
4 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: But the other
5 thing, Governor Wolf announced that 109
6 municipalities would receive $12 million to
7 underwrite the cost of upgrading those signals
8 in that program.
9 However, the 25 million appropriations
10 for '15-'16, lapsed in June; so you can explain
11 to me and the Committee from which year's
12 appropriation the 12 million in grants will be
13 paid from.
14 MS. RICHARDS: Well, we're using -- it
15 wasn't left over. We're using it for our
16 signalization, where we are helping corridors
17 with multiple jurisdictions; so the money is
18 still being used to help communities in
19 signalization.
20 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Okay. Thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
23 Representative Boback.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Thank you, Mr.
25 Chairman. Over the years, PennDOT has provided 92
1 assistance with transit mergers across the
2 Commonwealth. Last month, it was announced that
3 the County of Lackawanna Transit System, Luzerne
4 County Transportation Authority, and Hazleton
5 Public Transit were still discussing potential
6 mergers with PennDOT. And that's in all my
7 area.
8 Do you have figures that show the
9 aggregate amount of the potential savings from
10 these mergers, and what would the grant funds
11 be? How will they get them provided by PennDOT,
12 as well as savings to the counties, with these
13 local match waivers?
14 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. So as of now, the
15 South Central Transit Authority is the only
16 transit agency that's receiving the local match
17 waivers. They are receiving local match that's
18 waived at the amount of $780,000, so it's
19 significant.
20 Others are also being consolidated. And
21 we have seen the Red Rose Transit Authority,
22 Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority,
23 they can consolidated. That is into the South
24 Central that I just -- just for those of you who
25 don't know what South Central is. 93
1 And that happened starting in early
2 2015. The consolidation has allowed Berks and
3 Lancaster Counties a waiver from the local
4 match. And so during the five-year period, the
5 local match savings will total $4.5 million; so
6 it is quite significant and it's allowing them
7 to invest in capital costs, keeping their routes
8 where they should be, and increasing frequency
9 if they need, which is really where transit
10 agencies should be spending their money. So
11 we're very happy to see them take advantage of
12 that program.
13 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: So then I guess
14 we're still in the discussion stages at
15 Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Hazleton?
16 MS. RICHARDS: That one is still moving
17 forward. So I have Rapid Transit that's been
18 working; that's York, Adams, Franklin, Union,
19 and Snyder. And I will update as far as where
20 Lackawanna -- I have that the local officials
21 are working on resolutions currently.
22 And future actions are to request
23 additional information on regional
24 consolidations of all their fixed routes and
25 their Shared Ride services; so that's where it 94
1 sits now for those -- that area.
2 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: It sounds
3 optimistic. Thank you.
4 And I must comment, since I have time, I
5 think it's the first time in all the years I've
6 been on Appropriations, when someone came in
7 front of us and for the first time I'm hearing,
8 I believe, four incentives: We are first in the
9 United States for something big, and they're all
10 very, very good. Was it four or five? I beg
11 your pardon.
12 MS. RICHARDS: You know what? I have
13 not counted all of them, but I know we are in
14 first in many things and I'm quite proud of the
15 work that we've done at PennDOT.
16 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Excuse me. I
17 think somebody was keeping count. Did I -- oh,
18 I thought somebody was calling out --
19 MS. RICHARDS: I'm going to keep count
20 of that. But there are many firsts. And again,
21 I am very proud of the work that we've done
22 here.
23 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: And we are all.
24 So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 MS. RICHARDS: Thank you. 95
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
2 Representative Grove.
3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Mr.
4 Chairman. Madam Secretary, thank you so much.
5 Question one: What affect would a $12 minimum
6 wage have on your department? Have you analyzed
7 that at all?
8 MS. RICHARDS: We have not, no.
9 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: No? Do you have
10 any contracts which have minimum wage as any
11 criteria, set?
12 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, we do. I don't
13 know what -- oh, the federal. All of the
14 federal contracts do.
15 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay.
16 MS. RICHARDS: But as far as any
17 analysis, I don't know if we have any more
18 information to give.
19 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. Can you
20 provide this Committee an assessment of effects
21 of the prevailing wage threshold increase in Act
22 89? Have you looked at that at all for our
23 local government costs?
24 MS. RICHARDS: No. No, it hasn't become
25 -- no one has asked, and we haven't done that. 96
1 If that's something you'd like to see, we'll
2 take a look.
3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. I would
4 greatly appreciate that. We have kind of an
5 internal list of kind of newspaper articles that
6 we get. I found one -- I was reading one
7 January 20th about -- and it's about -- what's
8 the title -- I-95 Plan for a Toll Bridge at
9 Scudder Falls. And reading down here, it also
10 says, The Bridge Commission isn't the only
11 authority that has lately turned to PLAs.
12 Under Democratic Governor Wolf, PennDOT
13 is asking contractors to enter a PLA to repave
14 Markley Street in Norristown from Main Line to
15 Elm after paving nearby streets without such a
16 deal.
17 I actually lost it, so I had to do a
18 Google search. I did find another one on, I
19 guess, it was earlier from September 4th, 2015,
20 on actually the original Markley Street,
21 Norristown, where it was actually done ahead of
22 schedule. Reopening that was not done with the
23 PLA. Are you looking to do more PLAs? Is that
24 still on the table to do a PLA on that, the next
25 round of Markley Street? 97
1 MS. RICHARDS: Yeah, we were looking --
2 look, we have some challenges on a lot of our
3 projects. We have cost overruns; we have change
4 orders; we have projects that don't get done on
5 time; there are delays. So I really think it's
6 our responsibility to look at every resource
7 possible to get our jobs done on time and on
8 budget.
9 PLA is one of those resources. And in
10 discussion with the Administration, we've agreed
11 to put forth one project; and that's one project
12 out of hundreds that will be awarded and
13 advertised this year. And the Markley Street
14 project is the one that we have gotten federal
15 oversight and approval to do.
16 We did have to go through FHWA to get
17 that approval. And when that first article came
18 out on the Scudder Falls, we were still going
19 through that to see if it was even possible for
20 us to do that.
21 And so there will be one pilot project.
22 I know it has been discussed that all of our
23 projects will be done. It will be one, and we
24 will monitor it closely and we will see what the
25 results show. And if it's a huge success, we 98
1 may or we may not, look to do more. But only
2 one will be done, and then further analysis
3 whether or not there will be more.
4 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: How would a PLA
5 reduce exchange orders? I don't understand how
6 that's possible.
7 MS. RICHARDS: Change orders. So the
8 PLAs, from what I understand from other
9 colleagues across the country, they've used them
10 quite successfully, there is -- the
11 communication is different. And I'm assuming
12 that it's tied into the process, the
13 apprenticeship process, the grievance process,
14 the other aspects of a PLA.
15 And again, I don't know. That's why
16 we're doing one pilot. And we will be
17 monitoring it closely to see what works and what
18 doesn't work.
19 But I think this is a good pilot and
20 something to move forward on; and again, we will
21 assess and analyze before deciding to do any
22 additional PLA work.
23 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So Scudder Falls
24 bridge was done as a PLA, correct?
25 MS. RICHARDS: From what I understand, 99
1 that is a Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge
2 project; it's not a PennDOT project.
3 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Have you looked
4 at that as a study? I believe that was a
5 20-percent over budget and they only had one
6 bidder.
7 MS. RICHARDS: I don't know -- I don't
8 know the details, and so I would not be able --
9 I don't know how they advertised it. I don't
10 know -- I do know that there were -- there may
11 have been a miscommunication of whether it was
12 going to be a PLA, whether it had been promised
13 to someone else. There were a lot of rumors
14 going around. So I'm really not sure all of the
15 details that surrounded that particular project.
16 Again, it's not a PennDOT project. So,
17 you know, the information on that project, we'll
18 definitely take a look at it. You know, I'll be
19 honest, we want to see more than one team bid on
20 it. I don't want to see just one team come in,
21 and that will part of the analysis. If we put
22 this PLA out and we only get one team, that will
23 be something that we take a look at.
24 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So part of the
25 PLA is your signatory with a trade union, 100
1 correct? So if you're not, you can't bid on
2 that. Would that kind of go against one of your
3 core requirements of diversity? Wouldn't that
4 be kind of discrimination on an open shop that
5 is non-union?
6 MS. RICHARDS: Actually, in talking to
7 the unions, they have told me that it will
8 increase diverse participation. Again, that
9 will be something we're going to take a look at;
10 but that was one of the questions upfront,
11 before considering whether or not to do a PLA.
12 That was one of my first questions that I asked.
13 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: That's about
15 all the time you have.
16 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
18 Representative John Taylor.
19 REPRESENTATIVE TAYLOR: Mr. Chairman,
20 I'm going to be the only member standing between
21 these folks getting to leave, right; is that it?
22 Am I last? Okay. With that, --
23 MS. RICHARDS: Yes. I don't know what
24 your question is, but I'll give you a quick
25 answer. 101
1 REPRESENTATIVE TAYLOR: Yeah. I'm going
2 to talk about the scanners lease first. This is
3 more of an Appropriations problem than a
4 Transportation problem. We'll be glad, as a
5 policy, to help have every police car in the
6 Commonwealth with scanners, but that cost would
7 be prohibitive. And so if you all find that
8 money, we will approve the policy.
9 Madam Secretary, I'll ask three
10 questions all at once. I'll make sure Dave
11 writes them down, so that I won't have to
12 interact with you --
13 MS. RICHARDS: I think he only said
14 about ten words; so if you want to go ahead and
15 ask Dave a question, go ahead.
16 REPRESENTATIVE TAYLOR: But I think
17 these are all pretty direct questions: One, an
18 update on Amtrak as it pertains to Pittsburgh,
19 in trying to increase some passenger trains to
20 Pittsburgh, particularly from Harrisburg. The
21 rail freight grants and whether or not we can
22 see them in time for this season.
23 And, you know, following up on something
24 Warren asked about salaries and Representative
25 Bullock about diversity, I'm sure another issue, 102
1 at least in terms of District 6 and probably --
2 I'm hearing it from central PA, as well, as to
3 the problem of trying to retain employees with
4 the salary structure to be competitive.
5 And I don't want to give this Committee
6 any more adjectives about that, because it may
7 go across all state employees; but that is --
8 had been a serious issue, and maybe you want to
9 comment on that.
10 MS. RICHARDS: Sure. I think I can
11 answer them all fairly quickly.
12 As far as competitive salaries, it's a
13 huge problem, particularly in District 6, where
14 you can work for the private sector and get paid
15 a lot more than you do at PennDOT. There are
16 certain areas where a PennDOT salary is a
17 fantastic salary, as compared to the other
18 salaries that are offered. And so those are the
19 areas where we don't have as much trouble
20 attracting good talented employees.
21 But in District 6, it's been a
22 challenge; and so we've been working with OA in
23 seeing if we can look at cost-of-living where
24 they are, if we can restructure in a different
25 way. Also, the volume of work and the 103
1 complexity of work in District 6 and
2 southeastern Pennsylvania, you can't even
3 compare it to any of the other districts. It
4 just blows them all away.
5 And if you looked at them on a graph, it
6 would be, you know, off the charts. And so it's
7 a very challenging area as well. So we've
8 looked to add certain positions; for instance,
9 an extra assistant, District 6 executive. We
10 have our press team that is fully operational
11 there.
12 And so we are looking at different ways
13 to help spread out the work. And, of course, we
14 rely on contractors in a higher percentage than
15 we do in other areas; because that's the way
16 that we can get the work done and how we can get
17 it done most efficiently with the structure that
18 we have now.
19 As far as the rail grants, that money
20 does not become available until, I believe, July
21 1st; and so we'll have all of those grants in
22 place before then. We are not losing out --
23 we're not behind right now. We did ask for the
24 applications a little earlier than we have in
25 the past, and so I think people think that we 104
1 are behind schedule.
2 But we only did that, because last year
3 we needed a little more time to assess and
4 analyze; and so we have all that information.
5 But that will be coming out. It will be voted
6 on at the next STC meeting and it will be voted
7 in well before the money is available, so we're
8 not losing any time on that.
9 And I know the first question, Dave,
10 you wrote it down. Oh, Amtrak to Pittsburgh.
11 And so we're very interested. Obviously, I'm an
12 advocate for rail. Governor Wolf is an advocate
13 for rail, and so we've been working with Amtrak
14 to get, you know, what would it cost to get one
15 more train and what would it cost for us to
16 upgrade and increase some of the speeds?
17 Because it is a long time; takes five hours to
18 get from Harrisburg -- you have to love taking a
19 train to take that train to Pittsburgh.
20 And in so many ways, it doesn't make
21 sense. And, look, we would love to find a way
22 that's cost effective; and I will not give up.
23 We'll keep looking at it. I'm really hoping
24 that my DC visit is very promising in terms of
25 rail, in terms of Amtrak, in terms of whether 105
1 it's high-speed rail or just rail investment, in
2 general; and the Pittsburgh area will be the
3 first one that we take a look at. Because it's
4 really a shame that you can't get from
5 Philadelphia to Harrisburg to Pittsburgh in an
6 efficient way by rail.
7 REPRESENTATIVE TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr.
8 Chairman.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Just a few
10 comments. Particularly, in York County, we
11 border Maryland. And I got to tell you, as I
12 knocked on doors in the campaigns, a lot of
13 people with Maryland license plates.
14 So, Madam Secretary, I don't know -- I
15 thought the federal law was that you cannot
16 register your car or get a driver's license if
17 you don't have an address in the state. But I
18 hate to tell you that in York County, and I'm
19 sure it's probably happening in Adams, maybe
20 even Lancaster County, people that have moved
21 into Pennsylvania from Maryland, we've had quite
22 a few -- probably about a hundred thousand
23 people from York County drive to Baltimore or DC
24 every day.
25 And it's a question, I would suggest -- 106
1 there's another question that has to do with
2 Maryland and somebody from your department may
3 be around long enough, but I remember, I believe
4 it was during the Ridge days, that Maryland was
5 found to be guilty of not paying its fair share
6 of apportionment tax on diesel tax. I'm looking
7 to any of the people that might be around.
8 And my question is: Who audits those
9 figures to make sure that Pennsylvania is
10 getting its fair share? Is there an audit by
11 the federal government? But who does that?
12 Because we get a lot of tractor-trailers through
13 Pennsylvania, and I just want to make sure that
14 we're getting enough dollars from that that we
15 are owed.
16 I don't know if Chairman Taylor
17 remembers anything about that many years ago or
18 not.
19 MS. RICHARDS: I can tell you, that has
20 not been raised as an issue right now; but we
21 will take a look back -- I don't know, Dave, if
22 you know anything.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I would be
24 interested to see if somebody does audit.
25 Because, like I said, I remember, it was like 107
1 around $300 million back many years ago. And I
2 thought they owed it to Pennsylvania, but it
3 might have been to a number of states that they
4 had not paid out appropriately.
5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Chairman,
6 it might be the Department of Revenue that may
7 have --
8 MS. RICHARDS: It may not come under us.
9 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: --
10 enforcement of that.
11 MR. MARGOLIS: Yeah. And the process is
12 quite different from the way it was some years
13 ago, but we can look into that and talk to the
14 Department of Revenue.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay. I just
16 want to be sure we're getting our dollars.
17 MR. MARGOLIS: So do I.
18 MS. RICHARDS: I do, too. We're on the
19 same side as that.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Having voted
21 for Act 89 with Chairman Taylor and a lot of
22 other members here, I want to make sure we're
23 getting every dollar we can.
24 But, Madam Secretary, I want to thank
25 you for being here today. And, David, for your 108
1 being here and your cooperation. Thank you very
2 much.
3 MS. RICHARDS: Well, thank you very
4 much. Thanks, everyone.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: The Committee
6 will reconvene tomorrow at 10 a.m., where we
7 will hear from the State Treasurer.
8 (Whereupon, the hearing concluded.)
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25 109
1 CERTIFICATE
2
3 I hereby certify that the proceedings and
4 evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes
5 taken by me on the within proceedings and that this is a
6 correct transcript of the same.
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8 ______
9 Tracy L. Markle, Court Reporter/Notary 10
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