Transit, football, and pots of soup

Pittsburgh is crazy about football, and it's a good analogy for the transit situation. Both teams are trying to move the ball from one end to the other and score points. Yay, the union scored a goal! Yay, management upped the score! Go team!

In football, however, nobody cares about the condition of the ball. Players jump on it, throw it on the ground, kick it all over the place, and it often flies through the air, landing out of bounds. Who cares about the ball!

In public transit, riders are the ball. Nobody cares about the riders, really. We're kicked and pushed around just like the football. How different a football game would be if, instead of a leather ball, it was played with a pot of soup. Carry that soup pot and jump on it all you want, but don't spill the soup!

To this end, I do not care if there's a union, nor do I care if there's a Port Authority. I just want to have a bus to ride! They're both spilling the soup when they argue.

However, there are really three sides to a football game: Officials! Officials, in this case our elected representatives, really decide what happens. They don't so much spill the soup as spoil the soup. "No you can't add ingredients." "Yes, you must add paprika and I don't care if you hate paprika." Right now they're saying, "No, you can't plug in the burner under the pot."

Enough already! We riders want our soup. We do not want it spilled. We do not want it spoiled. Figure it out! Don't spill our soup!