While politicians mouth sound-bites about the "middle-class" Governor Paterson & Mayor Bloomberg are putting the bite on all of us. Their alter ego, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), is preparing for fare increases and service cutbacks.

No community is not affected and every one is trying to save his or her favorite bus line or subway stop from oblivion. Review the current MTA proposal . Consider coming to the public hearings the first of which is Wednesday night.

MTA Hearing This Wednesday Wed Jan 14 6 pm-9 pm Hilton NY, Trianon Ballroom (Third floor)1335 Ave of the Americas (between 53-54 Streets), Manhattan Subways: E,V to 5 Av/53 St, or B,D,F,V to to 47-50th St/Rockefeller Ctr. Buses: M5, M6, M7 Registration to speak: open till 9 pm at hearing. Limit 3 minutes per speaker.
You can register to speak in advance, or comment in writing: contact Douglas Sussman, Director of MTA Community Affairs, 347 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10017, 212-878-7483.

Other hearings are scheduled click here.

One of the more self-defeating parts of this charade -- thank you David Paterson, Michael Bloomberg -- is the opportunity for each adversely affected community to fight to prevent it's favorite service from getting the axe. Where I live, on Manhattan's Lower East Side, two bus lines face extinction and the community has rallied around one of them -- the M8 -- the Eighth Street Crosstown which brings people to subway lines from the East and West Village.

From the advocates trying to save the M8

Today we met with the MTA, and were told that if we turn-out in big numbers to the hearing Wednesday it may determine whether or not the M8 gets cut. They also said that they had already gotten far more e-mails and calls on the M8 than on any other line, so nice work so far! Let's keep it up.

You can see, can you not, that communities less organized will put less pressure on the MTA. I certainly want proper funding for the MTA City-wide and I don't want an unfair fare increase. But I also want my bus -- the M8 -- which leads me and my neighbors, in effect, to be asking the MTA to spend money here and not on your bus. We're fighting over shrinking pieces of pie instead of demanding more.

I'll write about this more later but yesterday, when asked about MTA cutbacks and fare increases, Congress Member Anthony Weiner , who shows some signs of running for Mayor, launched into a treatise about public authorities.