It’s almost like a comic book tale—warlords suck up all the resources as they fight for territory, power, money and victory at any cost.

Meanwhile, as their battles rage, it’s the beleagured people of the increasingly dark and ragged city who become victims of crumbling services, rising dangers and vanishing civility.

Well, it may not be as bleak as a near-hopeless moment in a Batman movie—yet—but one could forgive Chicagoans this next week if there’s a hint of a bad day in Gotham City on our faces at times. Barring an unforeseen miracle, the CTA is cutting 380 buses—about 8 percent of the fleet—and raising fares 50 cents to a dollar by the end of this week. There will be 39 fewer bus routes.

This is on top of CTA trains that have stretched what were once 10-minute commutes to frustrating 40-minute-and-longer ordeals. And don’t forget—Pace and Metra are cutting back, too, so there are going to be even more people saying to hell with mass transit and hopping in their cars instead, just what our overcrowded, polluted streets and roads need.

Meanwhile, like Gotham’s power-crazed crimelords, our state’s leaders—the people who are supposed to be making things like mass transit work—are oblivious to all this. Mass transit, they snear? Who cares when there are jousts to be won.

Unbelievably, critical legislation to fund mass transit got shoved aside last week, another victim of the governor’s testosterone contest with legislators. Then again, who would have expected last week would be any different than all the other weeks in Springfield this year? Just add mass transit to the list of unresolved issues that have been forgotten—education, healthcare and gay and lesbian partners’ rights among them—while some of the state’s top Democrats do their best to breathe life into Illinois’ two-party system.

It’s sad, more than anything else. This governor, if he’d had it in himself to simply sit down, negotiate with legislative leaders and work toward passing legislation, could have accomplished more than any governor in recent memory. We could have had mass transit funding, we could have had more accessible healthcare and we could have reformed public education funding. Gay and lesbian couples could have had civil unions, if not full marriage equality.

All of that was possible last January. Now, none of it seems even remotely achievable.

Of course, in the comics, just when hope is almost gone, the superhero swoops in to rout the bad guys and save the day, allowing the upright and decent average citizenry to once again live happy and productive lives.

Good luck with that—the reality is that we are stuck with these guys for at least three more years. At the moment, if we want anything to change—and don’t expect anything monumental—we’re going to have to let the governor and our lawmakers know we’re paying attention and we’re not happy with what we’re seeing.

If you ride the CTA, if you have a kid in school, if you drive on our deteriorating roads, if you worry about getting sick or paying your rent or mortgage—in short, if you live here—you need to call Gov. Rod Blagojevich and your state legislators, especially your state senators right now, and tell them you’re tired of what they’re doing, you’re tired of hearing rhetoric and you’re tired of seeing your state fall apart.

It won’t change things overnight. But it’s a start.

And at this point, frankly, it’s about the only thing left to do short of throwing the bat signal up in the sky and waiting for miracles to happen.