Oops, they've done it again! New Jersey Transit has just raised its fares, for the third time since 2002. The increase is effective June 1. As a daily train commuter to New York, I guess this will be the last month I am "lucky" enough to pay the lower fare.

Leaving from Dover every day for NYC, I am "lucky" enough to go from one end of the line to the other. That also means the privilege of paying the maximum fare for my ticket, which will now be about $327 per month. Perhaps, after looking at the price of gas and factoring in the aggravation, stress, and just plain horror of driving in each day, it's a relative bargain. Still, I have long felt that fares should work the other way. Those lucky enough to only have a short trip should pay more and those of us stuck on the train for over an hour pay less for the ordeal.

In any event, my viewpoint isn't widely shared, and despite 13 public hearings and 2,155 comments from the public, the fare increase is a done deal.

Once again, we have our politicians in Trenton to blame. Led by a governor who is clearly transportationally challenged, they have done nothing to support mass transit.

The governor recently announced a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent over the next 44 years. Supporting mass transit should be part of the plan.

NJ Transit is the nation's largest statewide public transportation system, providing about 857,000 weekday trips on its trains and buses. We are also No. 1 when it comes to failing to support transit with dedicated taxes. Instead, NJ Transit's state funding is allocated through annual appropriations, which makes public transportation subject to budgetary constraints and political pressures.

Despite the fact that operating costs have risen by more than $400 million since 2000, the state's contribution has only been $152 million.

So what's a railroad to do? Short on funds, it has to divert money that should go to buying new buses and trains, building stations, and fixing tracks to cover operating costs. NJ Transit needed to close a $60 million deficit.

So despite the third year of record-high ridership – up almost 5 percent this year – we are hit with a fare increase. The most recent fare increase was only in June 2005. This is the third increase in just five years. See a pattern here?

NJ Transit's former executive director, George Warrington, does. He calls it "a policy of periodic fare increases."

I call it a bad trip.

Legislators can right things by, first, returning to the idea of dedicated funding. Other large urban transit systems are well supported.

Second, they can take the hard step: increase gasoline taxes, which at 10.5 cents a gallon are already the third-lowest in the nation, to pay for mass transit. NJ Transit will have raised its fares more than 60 percent since 1988, which was the last time New Jersey raised the gas tax. I haven't even mentioned what that does for maintenance on the state's roads and bridges.

When given the chance to reform transportation spending by raising dedicated funds for transportation, the governor instead simply devised another bonding scheme, which will extend the state's transportation debt to about 2040. Typical for New Jersey politicians: Borrow it, bond it, and let our grandchildren worry about how to pay for it.

Not that NJ Transit is blameless. If the goal is to lure more commuters out of their cars and onto the trains, it is hard to explain why they built the new Secaucus transfer station. Located just off the Turnpike and right near the Lincoln Tunnel, you would think it would serve as a great park-and-ride location, and a way to avoid driving into Manhattan, which is already considering taxing vehicles entering Manhattan to alleviate congestion. Instead, the station has no parking! It was designed merely as a transfer point between rail lines.

It's an apt symbol of the entire system: an expensive way to keep things exactly as they are.