Once more, SEPTA is on the ropes. It faces a $130 million budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, and unless the state finds a way to plug the hole, services will be cut and fares increased.

In other words, business as usual. Mass transit gets short shrift most places in this country, but nowhere is the political deck stacked against it more deliberately than in Philadelphia. This despite the fact that the city is blessed with a transit infrastructure that would be prohibitively expensive to build today, is being used by about a third of the city's commuters (a percentage that is inching up), and is . . . you guessed it, gradually rotting away.