Remember to sign TJustice.info’s petition, HERE.

It will be sent to Massachusetts Senate President, Robert Travaglini, urging him to take up the issue of MBTA funding, so that we can head off the next round of fare hikes, which, I can assure you, are already in the works. Get in on this, and get your friends and colleagues in on it, too. It takes about thirty seconds. Imagine that: making a difference while sitting on your ass. It’s a wonderful world.

Jeff Rosenblum, of livablestreets, with whom I met briefly last Tuesday, I think it was, has told me that the Association for Public Transportation (APT) came out in favor of the fare increase at their annual meeting last week. Which gives me another opportunity to really hone my message: As I’ve said, I am more or less resigned to the current fare increase. I am not at all resigned to the next round of increases, and unless the public lobbies the legislature for real change in how the T is funded, we are looking at a spiral of higher fares and diminished services with no end in sight. It’s really that simple.

As for the rally at 4 o’clock in Copley Square on JUNE 6TH, well, what can I say that I haven’t already said?

As the date approaches, the plans sort of gain form. Basically what’s going to happen is, people will gather a little before four. Whoever shows up should come prepared to wave some signs and make some noise. (And, if you can, bring signs and noisemakers–and if anyone has a line on amplification equipment, let me know.) There may or may not be a speech by State Senator Jarret Barrios, and others, and at 4:30 those in attendance will be encouraged to go to the MBTA-sponsored hearing on the fare hikes at the Boston Public Library, which will be a big buzz kill, but that’s life. It can’t all be fun and games.

If you, too, have resigned yourself to current fare hikes, as I think many have, still realize that, as no less than Dan Grabauskas has said, the current hikes are necessary to maintain basic services, not to improve or enhance them. If the MBTA’s $8 billion debt is not addressed, and the legislature does not allow the T any other means to cover payments and higher operating costs than through fare increases, we will be looking at regular fare increases. The current increases are a quick fix, but unless the legislature addresses the issue again, another quick fix will be necessary for FY2008.

The MBTA cannot go to the legislature and ask for more money–it can only come to you and me.

So, if you think this fare increase is a little steep in some respects, but doable, that’s cool. But think ahead to ‘08 when we’ll be going through the same process again, but looking at $2.15 for one-way subway fare. Or, if you’re cool with that, to 2010, when it’ll be at least $2.60.

What’s being asked of you now is nothing. Sign a petition, email your represetnative, attend a rally or a meeting. Show your interest in an every-day issue. Big deal. But there are organizations and legislators out there who need to know you’re concerned. Once you’ve done you’re little part (at most about a three-hour commitment in toto, spread out over months), you can roll over and go back to sleep, just as I plan to do. And don’t hog the covers. I hate that.

By ADAM COHEN in the New York Times today[$]

The World Wide Web is the most democratic mass medium there has ever been. Freedom of the press, as the saying goes, belongs only to those who own one. Radio and television are controlled by those rich enough to buy a broadcast license. But anyone with an Internet-connected computer can reach out to a potential audience of billions.

This democratic Web did not just happen. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who invented the Web in 1989, envisioned a platform on which everyone in the world could communicate on an equal basis. But his vision is being threatened by telecommunications and cable companies, and other Internet service providers, that want to impose a new system of fees that could create a hierarchy of Web sites. Major corporate sites would be able to pay the new fees, while little-guy sites could be shut out.

Sir Tim, who keeps a low profile, has begun speaking out in favor of “net neutrality,” rules requiring that all Web sites remain equal on the Web. Corporations that stand to make billions if they can push tiered pricing through have put together a slick lobbying and marketing campaign. But Sir Tim and other supporters of net neutrality are inspiring growing support from Internet users across the political spectrum who are demanding that Congress preserve the Web in its current form.

The Web, which Sir Tim invented as a scientist at CERN, the European nuclear physics institute, is often confused with the Internet. But like e-mail, the Web runs over the system of interconnected computer networks known as the Internet. Sir Tim created the Web in a decentralized way that allowed anyone with a computer to connect to it and begin receiving and sending information.

That open architecture is what has allowed for the extraordinary growth of Internet commerce and communication. Pierre Omidyar, a small-time programmer working out of his home office, was able to set up an online auction site that anyone in the world could reach — which became eBay. The blogging phenomenon is possible because individuals can create Web sites with the World Wide Web prefix, www, that can be seen by anyone with Internet access.

Last year, the chief executive of what is now AT&T sent shock waves through cyberspace when he asked why Web sites should be able to “use my pipes free.” Internet service providers would like to be able to charge Web sites for access to their customers. Web sites that could not pay the new fees would be accessible at a slower speed, or perhaps not be accessible at all.

A tiered Internet poses a threat at many levels. Service providers could, for example, shut out Web sites whose politics they dislike. Even if they did not discriminate on the basis of content, access fees would automatically marginalize smaller, poorer Web sites.

Consider online video, which depends on the availability of higher-speed connections. Internet users can now watch channels, like BBC World, that are not available on their own cable systems, and they have access to video blogs and Web sites like YouTube.com, where people upload videos of their own creation. Under tiered pricing, Internet users might be able to get videos only from major corporate channels.

Sir Tim expects that there are great Internet innovations yet to come, many involving video. He believes people at the scene of an accident — or a political protest — will one day be able to take pictures with their cellphones that could be pieced together to create a three-dimensional image of what happened. That sort of innovation could be blocked by fees for the high-speed connections required to relay video images.

The companies fighting net neutrality have been waging a misleading campaign, with the slogan “hands off the Internet,” that tries to look like a grass-roots effort to protect the Internet in its current form. What they actually favor is stopping the government from protecting the Internet, so they can get their own hands on it.

But the other side of the debate has some large corporate backers, too, like Google and Microsoft, which could be hit by access fees since they depend on the Internet service providers to put their sites on the Web. It also has support from political groups of all persuasions. The president of the Christian Coalition, which is allied with Moveon.org on this issue, recently asked, “What if a cable company with a pro-choice board of directors decides that it doesn’t like a pro-life organization using its high-speed network to encourage pro-life activities?”

Forces favoring a no-fee Web have been gaining strength. One group, savetheinternet.com, says it has collected more than 700,000 signatures on a petition. Last week, a bipartisan bill favoring net neutrality, sponsored by James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin, and John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, won a surprisingly lopsided vote in the House Judiciary Committee.

Sir Tim argues that service providers may be hurting themselves by pushing for tiered pricing. The Internet’s extraordinary growth has been fueled by the limitless vistas the Web offers surfers, bloggers and downloaders. Customers who are used to the robust, democratic Web may not pay for one that is restricted to wealthy corporate content providers.

“That’s not what we call Internet at all,” says Sir Tim. “That’s what we call cable TV.”