Guvs should get real about PA

Who says vaudeville is dead? When the Port Authority proposed huge toll increases for its Hudson River crossings, along with a steep increase in the PATH train fare, it was clearly a revival of some well-worn political theater.

Sure enough, the governors of New York and New Jersey have now saved commuters from the perils of excessive payment by approving much more modest increases -- which was no doubt the intention all along.

It would be nice if politicians just said that hard times have cut Port Authority revenue, while political wrangling drove up costs at the World Trade Center site. Plus, they need money for infrastructure. So tolls and PATH fares have to go up.

But perhaps a good show makes the hikes a bit more palatable -- even if only to the governors, who can pretend to be saviors. This year's drama included a suspiciously timed attack by New York's comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, on Port Authority overtime spending -- including its failure to uphold a plan to cut overtime by $17 million, a paltry fraction of its $7.2-billion operating budget.

In a finger-wagging letter, the governors insisted on a "stringent audit" of authority finances because of unspecified "fiscal mismanagement" that made the hikes "the only financially solvable solution." An audit is fine, but the governors should focus on finding new sources of funding to rebuild our sagging infrastructure. That would keep the economy growing and income flowing into government coffers.