Mayor Pave’s excuse-mongering continues wrt to decimating transit ridership in Madison. In a blog post that would have made Big Brother proud, he boasts:

…Metro [Magazine] reported that 65% of the top 100 transit operators reported that they were having difficulty providing service due to steady ridership demands and decreased funding. Not us.

Yeah, not us. Not us because The Pavemeister jacked up fares so much that it drove away ridership. After year-over-year gains in ridership of 5-6% over the last 10 or so years, the mayor’s draconian 33% fare increase has been driving ridership down. The latest figures show losses of up to 2%. This, in an economy that makes car ownership prohibitive for more & more people.

Yet the Greenwasher-in-Chief crows,

Thanks to the tough but necessary budget decisions the Council and I have made [what a hero], I can now say for a certainty that my 2010 budget will contain no fare increases or service cuts for the bus system.

…while ignoring the fact that no mayor in the last 20 years has cut bus service as much as he has over the last six.

And no one in the DMSM has the guts enough–much less the analytical abilities–to call him on it.