Yes, everybody's in trouble. Transit fares could easily be $5+ per boarding by Christmas (may come sooner in Sacramento - see: [www.sacbee.com] - so those SF Muni people can quit their complaining!). By my figuring back around 2000, the Folsom express buses could have broken even (on their direct costs including drivers, but not including subsidies of the local and dialaride buses) at about a $5 fare; with inflation etc figure $8-10 now. Local buses back then needed fares about what taxi rides would cost to break even - probably similar now. Light rail now would probably be about the same as the bus was back then (much lower operating labor and energy cost per passenger, but higher maintenance cost because you can't dump track maintenance into somebody else's budget like you do with roads).

Look at it this way: for those with no option (retail and other service workers, students, etc.), spending 2 hours of daily net wages to get to/from work (assuming no need for transfers, which doubles the cost or more) may still be better than panhandling - but then maybe not, because you'll be sleeping on the street or with a dozen others in a ripoff apartment anyway. Lower-level state employees, by the way, are very close to being in that group (around $15/hour after furloughs or next year's pay cuts - roughly double minimum wage - often with a degree required - and you wonder why the DMVers snarl at you?).

Should the welfare people provide free one-way Greyhound or Amtrak or airline tickets, as long as the destination is out of state? If a lot of people took them up on that, who would sell you lunch? THAT's the group that loss of transit hurts, not those who are mildly inconvenienced because they have to deal with traffic congestion because more of the "choice" transit riders return to driving. The fallout of course is that for the rest of us prices WILL go up to cover the cost of replacing them, unless of course businesses bring in more illegals ...

Of course, without cheap transit how goes the "smart growth" bunch? Can you get along without a car now?