City supervisors yesterday rejected the proposed Muni budget that would cut service and hike fares to $2 come July. Muni Board President David Chiu pointed to several programs that look like a blatant waste of funds -- including enforcement against fare evasion -- saying "we have to make sure that every single penny we are spending is being spent well." It turns out that paying for all the transit cops who check for passes and transfers costs $8.8 million a year, and the tickets they hand out to fare evaders only generate about $700,000 a year! Anyway, we can all probably agree that Muni is kind of eff'd and they could use a little ballbusting leadership right about now. UPDATE: Final vote on the budget and fare hike comes in 2 weeks.

In related news, BART announced the success of a pilot program in which passengers could pay fares just by passing their cellphone through the turnstile, Fastrak-style. The test run included 240 passengers who tried the technology during a four-month period last year, and it brings the thirty-five-year-old transit system one step closer to going paperless, and one giant leap into the 21st Century.