If you've been following local transit news recently, you know about the service cuts and the very real possibility of an alarming 33% fare increase. While Bob Herbert sees it all as just one murky drop in a pondful of dire news, I'm not convinced that we should move from the particular to the general quite so specifically. A radical fare hike combined with a serious cut in services would be an amazingly serious blow to the lives of the working poor in this city, who are have already been battered by rising unemployment and a high-pressure real estate market. This is particularly galling, since part of Gov. Pataki's landslide-generating strategy for re-election was to imply that he wouldn't dream of letting the MTA raise fares -- but now, of course, the campaign and its dreamy portrayal of the leader who cares are both behind us and the "tough decisions" can be made in political safety.

Here's some salutary focus on the issue.