Today in Room 232 City Hall at 10:00 am, transit coalition members will be packing a hearing room to try to get a judge to put an injunction on SEPTA, preventing them from eliminating the transfer.

SEPTA originally claimed that its desire to get rid of transfers was part of their plan to raise fares. Now they have added to this rationale by saying that transfers are inefficient.

The bottom line is that the elimination of transfers is really unfair to riders who can't afford or don't need to buy a pass but do need to make more than one connection per trip. This will particularly hurt school kids who currently get transfers for free with schools tokens. And let's not forget that transpass prices are also going up.

That's why the City Solicitor has filed a request for an injunction which will be heard today.

I hope he wins and that an injunction is issued. However, beyond this crisis, it's clear that SEPTA is being badly mishandled. Not only should transfers not be eliminated, they should be free to everyone between every stop. We also need to change the SEPTA board to get some more representation from the city so that this kind of bullshit stops.

After that, we need to greatly expand SEPTA service and routes. There is no such thing as a "world-class" city with as dinky of a public transit system as we have and it's time that civic, business, and elected leaders regularly recognize that fact as we discuss the idea of growing Philadelphia's wage base, economy, and population.

If you can't make the hearing, email SEPTA General Manager Faye Moore directly and tell her how dumb it is to get rid of the transfer: fmoore@septa.org