Things marginally transit-related

• SEPTA hopes for dedicated funding to relieve its cyclical woes. Gov. Rendell has commissioned an, um, commission to study the best way to do that, but the report isn't due until after the 2006 election. Opposition from the legislature is expected.
  
  
• For reasons that entirely escape me, SEPTA has launched a public-relations campaign that involves "ordinary folks" from their staff, talking about life in Philly ("it's gravy, not pasta sauce"). The one I saw in the el today was some conductor saying that he loved to eat. This is supposed to inspire confidence? Anyway, apparently this brilliance is being packaged for the affectionate public as a set of trading cards available with your pass or token purchases. Like some kitsch with that?
  
  
• On the taxi front, it appears that more than riders have been being bilked lately: taxi inspectors are charged with taking $ thousands in bribes.

  It charged that the inspectors took $76,000 total in bribes - mostly in $20, $50 and $100 increments - to pass cabs without inspecting them and issue permits to hacks without testing them.

  That explains the stellar uniform quality of the city's taxis and drivers! [Also here, more bemoaning of the "contaminated culture" of bribery in all different sectors of city functioning.]