There's a whole lot of pain coming to the buses, rail cars and transit stops of the Port Authority. While the cuts to head off a $75 million to $80 million deficit in fiscal 2007-08 will pare routes and vehicles, the hurt will be borne by flesh-and-blood commuters.

Lest anyone think the sting will be felt only by those who use mass transit, the reality is that the 25 percent service reduction will wash over the parkways, secondary roads and parking lots where motorists compete for speed and location every working day. Practically no traveler in Allegheny County will be untouched by the higher fares, layoffs and the largest rollback of runs by the Port Authority.

Yet it is as necessary as it is disturbing.

The state Legislature, despite other transit shocks in recent years, still has not developed a stable, predictable formula for funding the dozens of transit systems that transport riders in Pennsylvania. Although Gov. Ed Rendell filled the gap by shifting highway maintenance funds to keep buses on the road, that option will no longer fly -- nor is it wise.

The Port Authority, while making efforts to cut payroll and improve efficiency in the last decade, still is strapped with the highest transit wage rates in the country when adjusted for inflation. When changes to rationalize the cost of labor can't be made agreeably through contract negotiations, they will be made radically through job cuts. Unfortunately, 400 employees will lose their jobs now.

A route-by-route analysis has been long overdue. While the system plans to eliminate 124 of 213 weekday routes, it's important to realize, as Port Authority CEO Steve Bland points out, that "not all routes are created equal." Post-Gazette staff writer Joe Grata reported Friday that some buses, on a routine day in November, had only two or six or eight riders, on average, per trip. Even in times of flush revenue, no passenger has a birthright to a publicly funded bus ride with little more than the driver on board. It's also no way to run a transit system.

Changes at the fare box won't be easy to swallow either. The Port Authority said last week that it will either raise the $1.75 base rate to $2 if a flat-fare system is adopted, or to $2.50 if the zone-fare system is retained. Either way, it means digging deeper for less and less.

Despite the higher cost and lower level of service, the authority expects to lose no more than 11 percent of its 240,000 weekday riders. Even that loss -- of passengers trying to get to work, to school, to the doctor, to the store -- will be felt throughout the community. We can only hope that this bitter medicine will also shock the Legislature and Port Authority labor and management into refashioning a system of transit funding and service that's fit for the 21st century.