The hardworking staff has long held that the MBTA – Boston’s public (not to be confused with rapid) transit system – is like someone’s hobby.

But it’s not just our system that’s the modern-day equivalent of a swayback mare.

From Emma G. Fitzsimmon’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times:

Delays and Costs Agitate Riders in a System ‘Bursting at the Seams’

Big Repairs Needed For City’s Subways

Fares are about to go up. Delays are driving riders to distraction. And on a recent evening, Ian Nolan’s train was out of service.

Widespread problems across the subway system in recent weeks have left weary commuters waiting on crowded platforms, stranded inside stalled cars and scrambling to find alternate routes. With a fare increase set to go into effect on Sunday, riders across New York City are complaining of having to pay more when service is worse.

But transit experts and advocates say conditions will not improve unless the Metropolitan Transportation Authority invests heavily in upgrading and expanding the system’s infrastructure — the tracks, the trains and the tunnels that power the city’s daily transit miracle, except when they don’t.

Sound familiar?

Big Town straphangers driven nuts graf:

In the past month, Lisamarie Green, 26, a skin care specialist who lives in Astoria, Queens, said she had to take taxis home from her job in Midtown at least three times because of train problems on the E, M and R trains — the lines she usually takes.

Also sound familiar?

Misery may love company, but it makes for a funky ride home, yo.