There's a Silverliner in your SEPTA riders' future, and a smart-card system too

After years of yearning for a smart-card fare system to replace its Old Millennium tokens-and-transfers antique, the SEPTA board yesterday authorized a $175 million loan that will bring the transit agency into the 21st century - by 2016.

SEPTA General Manager Joe Casey said he will announce the winning smart-card vendor among three competing bidders by early summer, and have the high-tech fare system running within three years - although, he cautioned, it usually takes five.

SEPTA went after the $175 million loan, which will come from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. and CanAm Enterprises, after suffering a 25 percent capital-budget cut because dedicated state funding dried up.

The SEPTA board also approved issuing $250 million in bonds to buy 120 Silverliner V Regional Rail cars to replace the 46-year-old, butt-busting classics that look and feel like they came straight out of "True Grit."

Asked by a Daily News reporter when those sexy silvery beauties with their soft, rump-hugging seats will be seducing Regional Rail riders all over the Delaware Valley, Casey good-naturedly refused to provide a tentative schedule, citing a glut of past tentative schedules that were never consummated.

What Philadelphia has now are three Silverliner V demo cars that were removed from limited-fare service after a few weeks to - as the kids say - hook up with the first three production Silverliner Vs.

This union will produce the city's first six-car Silverliner V train within a week, Casey said.

Given the fact that Silverliner V cars have been plagued by production problems at the South Philadelphia assembly plant for months - which is why all those tentative delivery schedules were paper tigers - a working Silverliner V train in actual service would seem like a SEPTA miracle.

So would paying a SEPTA fare as easily as you buy convenience-store coffee. But miracles do happen. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 2008 World Series. Stay tuned.

The revenue bonds will also fund the renovation of Wayne Junction Station, which was built in 1901 and which SEPTA euphemistically describes as having "fallen into a serious state of disrepair."

Like the smart-card fare system, the Wayne Junction rehab was also a victim of SEPTA's 25 percent capital-budget cut.