The truth is I’m a cheap bastard in the first place. I quit buying cigarettes and started bumming them when a pack of Viceroys got to about what a trip on the T costs now. I’ll quit the T, too, and start bumming rides, if the fare gets too out of hand. If you’re not good with money, you’ve got to be good at making friends with money. Those are the only two ways to get by in the world today.

Remember, it was not so long ago that we were getting the same service for 85¢. When I first came to Boston, it was 85¢ and it stayed that way for nearly a decade. And it was an impressive system at 85¢ a pop.

But nothing would make it worth a buck-seventy. Nothing would make it worth $750 a year for a monthly subway pass. Nothing. Not flowers and chocolates. Not champagne and sushi. Not daily foot-rubs, tongue baths and blowjobs from a personal harem of plus-size T conductors in thongs and the GM himself. Nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

I’ve heard a lot of people’s ideas about what would make it worth it to them: improved infrastructure, updated equipment, more trains, faster service. But that’s way too pie in the sky for me, especially since the proposed increase is not earmarked for improvements, but for merely maintaining “basic services”.

The problem with the T is that the higher the fares, the worse the service will get, because riders will be ever more outraged by the ever-lousier yet more expensive service, and T employees will continue to be rude and unreceptive while providing that lousy service for which they are so well-known and in which they apparently take great pride. Because the T currently exists to serve the T, and not those who ride it.

We know, as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says, that “a major reason for [the T’s annual operating defecit] is the fact that Boston’s transit work force is among the highest paid in the country.” Consider that almost 55% of the operating budget of the T goes to payroll, and a third of that to fringe benefits. We have all heard about the generous pension offered by the T, for which employees are eligible after only 23 years. An antiquated and counterproductive system of seniority still governs the T. In ’05 The MBTA Advisory Board observed that rampant absenteeism is costing the T $4 million a year in overtime. Thus far, the T has done nothing about it. The T continues to reward bad behavior and lackluster job performance.

Add to this the BTS’s findings that in addition to payroll, bloated costs are due to the “MBTA’s outdated equipment and the fact that it generates much of its own power in inefficient, oil-burning power plants,” and it’s clear that the problem is systemic. The cost of fares will continue to rise while improvements will be minimal or redundant (like the informative flashy new electronic signs in Downtown Crossing that say simply, “No Smoking” and “for more information go to mbta.com”–Gee, thanks).

This is why it’s hard for me to justify paying more for fare, because it’s not going to fix what’s broken: the unions, bad contracts for grossly overpriced generally faulty equipment as the rule, and the legislature’s “forward-funding” plan, which just ain’t cutting it, either.

And one last little note. I just think it’s ironic, all that money that went into the fiscal black hole that is the Big Dig. These fare hikes are about priorities–of commuters, of the T, of this city.