Before 2,300 bus-trolley union workers walk off Port Authority jobs and disrupt a community that provides them with a decent living . . .

Before the transit agency runs out of operating money, shuts down the system and complicates an already difficult situation . . .

Before tens of thousands of students, senior citizens, commuters and people with no other means of getting around are left out in the cold for months . . .

Before business and commerce in the region are hurt and labor suffers more bad publicity about being bullheaded and strike-happy . . .

Before the authority and Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, lose what little public support they have left and riders abandon buses and trolleys as they did after a 28-day strike in 1992 . . .

Before the contract impasse gets further out of hand and things happen that everyone will regret later, someone please push "Stop."

The recent fact-finder's report in which neither side got anything near what it wanted nevertheless came oh-so-close to achieving a settlement.

Mr. Know-It-All had guessed -- incorrectly -- that management would reject the recommendations because savings over the next three years would have totaled less than $1 million when this year's operating budget alone assumed a $10 million savings in labor costs.

And he thought Local 85 would accept the recommendations because they sustain secure, well-paying jobs and nice pensions despite raising retirement with full benefits to age 60. But the union's 20-member executive board said no, so rank-and-file workers now are less likely to end up with an equal or better deal when the dust settles.

There may be a way out of this dilemma, but not necessarily by ripping up the fact-finder's report and starting from square one. Not by resuming talks this week with all of the same people. And not by a union membership vote, although it would seem like the democratic thing for Local 85 leaders to do inasmuch as this has become so emotional, so personal, so political.

Rather, the solution may lie in bringing the real deal-makers together and locking them in a room until they reach an agreement.

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato and authority Chief Executive Officer Steve Bland must be at the table, because they have the final word.

The union reps would still be Local 85 President-Business Agent Patrick McMahon and its longtime attorney, Joseph J. Pass -- but them alone, without members of the Local 85 executive committee.

Two-on-two, with or without boxing gloves.

Mr. Onorato and Mr. McMahon have great disdain for each other. Might as well say it: They hate each other. But they wield the power to settle this mess and assure that the Port Authority will be here for a long time.

The former owes it to taxpayers and people paying the 10 percent drink tax to support transit. Mr. Onorato often says, "For this to be settled, everybody has to come to the table." That includes him.

Mr. McMahon owes it to his members, many of whom are worried about families and their future.

Both of them owe it to riders facing a loss of buses and trolleys as soon as two months from now.

Something as little as raising the retirement "multiplier" by 0.25, to 2.5 percent a year, the same as state retirees, could settle the impasse.

Or enabling Local 85 to establish a health-care trust plan for retirees like the one Mr. Pass recently negotiated for the Chicago Transit Authority union.

In exchange, the union might have to accept an authority's proposal not to pay overtime until after 40 hours have been worked in a week. Such a move could reduce chronic absenteeism by employees who know that if they miss a day, they can make it up with overtime later in the week.

There's precedent at the Port Authority for locking the top people in a room and, in essence, keeping them there until they work things out.

After negotiations and fact-finding failed in November 2005 and before a threatened transit strike took place, Mr. Onorato and Gov. Ed Rendell intervened on the final night during nearly two days of nonstop talks.

They emerged from the State Office Building around 7 a.m. on a Saturday to announce tentative accord on a three-year contract.

Why not try again?

Read the fact-finder's report for yourself. It's under "Features" on the Web at www.portauthority.org.

You be the judge.