The thousands of Philadelphians who use public transportation every day have five days to find alternate methods to get to work and school or even to go shopping.
Facing a potential public transit shutdown, union and SEPTA officials report no progress toward a settlement between the local transit system and its union workers.
Members of Transport Workers Union Local 234 announced earlier this month that they will stop working at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 31, which is this Monday, unless they can negotiate a new contract with SEPTA.
The union's previous contract expired in June.
Despite several rounds of negotiations over the past few days, union spokesman Bob Bedard said the likelihood of a strike is the same now as it was several weeks ago.
The two groups have reached a stalemate on the issue of health care, and both sides have said they are unwilling to concede.
"We are doing what we think we have to do to protect the rights of the hard-working employees and the riding public," Bedard said.
SEPTA officials have stressed in the past that the need to control health-care costs is vital to the agency's survival.
SEPTA released a contingency plan Monday ahead of the strike.
The contingency plan states that while regional-rail routes will continue to run, city lines will not.
The plan requires that passengers have a ticket before boarding trains.
Vukan Vuchic, a professor of Transportation Engineering, said this plan may lead to overcrowding on the regional-rail lines.
"There is no reason why you cannot have many standees," Vuchic said. "But they have to be better organized. ... They have to have more dispatchers and different operations and so on."
Vuchic added that the city is partially to blame for the lack of mediation.
"I remain highly critical of the not-very-active role that the city has in this," he said. "And the mayor just seems to be sitting waiting for the strike to happen."
Eighty-five percent of SEPTA riders are Philadelphia residents, Vuchic said.
In a final push to sway agency officials, the union launched a campaign yesterday to involve the public via flyers and TV advertisements.
The ads -- which attack SEPTA on the health-care issue -- urge citizens to contact SEPTA on behalf on the union.
"They are really snappy, nasty commercials," Bedard said.
He added that the union has purchased slots on several local news stations.
In spite of these efforts, Bedard said most indicators point to a strike.
"SEPTA has missed every deadline," he said. "There is no reason not to expect them to miss Oct. 31."
SEPTA representatives could not be reached for comment.
