You know, the ones precipitated by the DC37 contract? Through fare hikes, of course:

The acting head of the MTA said on Tuesday she can’t rule out a fare hike to pay for raises granted to bus and subway workers, which hiked their pay 11.3% over three years.

Irony alert: Bloomberg has the gall to grandstand about it.

Then there’s this tidbit, from the Post: “The MTA will have to raid $360 million from its federal stimulus dollars, the budget that funds mega-projects like the Second Avenue Subway, and from its reserves to fund fat raises for rank-and-file transit workers, angry officials said yesterday.”

Or even this, from the Times:

During contract talks, the agency dropped its demand for one-person train operation, instead of two, thinking that Transport Workers Union Local 100 would make health care concessions in return.

But an arbitration panel has found there had been “no evidence” of a quid pro quo — handing a victory to the workers, who had been seeking to limit their health care contributions.

Establishing one-person train operation has been a major goal of New York City Transit for more than a decade. Using one-person crews would save millions in labor costs, and the agency, which wanted to start the program on the No. 7 and L lines, has already invested in new compatible subway cars.

You’ve heard it reported anecdotally but now there is firm evidence that you should always buy the cheapest well drinks, because it’s the same stuff:

Hot spots around the city have been nailed by the State Liquor Authority for refilling top-shelf liquor bottles with cheaper booze, watering down drinks or serving up cocktails full of fruit flies.

The SLA slapped staggering penalties on some of the city’s hippest clubs for a slew of violations in 2008-09, records show.

Some of the popular joints found themselves in violation of Subdivision 2 of Section 106 of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law — meaning they kept their booze in “containers the contents of which were not represented on the labels affixed thereto.”

“We may find contaminated liquor or contaminated products, which may include refilling of liquor bottles with inferior liquor or fruit flies contaminating the bottle,” said SLA spokesman Michael Smith.

But then again, there may be a corkage charge for that, too:

Recession-hit restaurants are helping themselves to your wallet by serving you an extra side of super sneaky charges.

The Post last week found city eateries subtly billing customers for things usually free — including bread and butter.

. . .

Unexpected costs found by The Post include . . . $3 for bread and another $2 for butter at Company, in Chelsea.

No cost was mentioned when bread was requested and delivered to a Post reporter last week — and a waiter refused to give a refund.

“It’s clearly on the menu, and we do have a famous baker,” restaurant spokeswoman Danielle Pagano said, referring to owner Jim Lahey.

The menu listing is in Italian.

Update, 4/28/09: This correction doesn’t change the fact that Company charges $2 for butter:

Due to an editing error, a story in yesterday’s Post misattributed a quote explaining the cost of bread and butter at Company, in Chelsea, to restaurant spokeswoman Danielle Pagano instead of to a waiter. Also, the menu listing is not in Italian.

. . . including the dick who wouldn’t take us to the airport just the other day (if you’re truly “off duty,” turn on your fucking off-duty light and don’t pull up when we hail you*): I don’t believe you. I will never believe you. And when people like me believe a city regulatory agency over you, you’re in trouble. So quit complaining and take our credit cards already:

The average cabby works nine and a half hours a day. A cab’s busiest hours are 6 to 8 p.m. And even as the economy has fallen deeper into recession, the number of cab rides each day in New York has remained relatively steady.

Those are among the most vivid bits of information about the yellow cab industry to emerge from a trove of new data collected by the Taxi and Limousine Commission from cabs equipped with new computerized systems that record each trip and fare.

Among the more surprising findings is that credit cards may be saving the industry from feeling the worst effects of the recession.

“The credit card that we put in cabs has helped keep them afloat,” said Matthew Daus, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

By last November, every yellow cab in the city was equipped with a credit card reader — as a part of the new computerized system — and as a result, Mr. Daus said, many corporations that once ordered black cars for their employees have begun telling them instead to take a cab (which costs less) and charge it.

That has hurt the black car business, which was already reeling from the impact of the Wall Street crisis on its main customers, financial services firms. The black car business is down at least 30 percent, Mr. Daus said.

But the shift has helped yellow cabs and appears to have made up for lost business as tourism and air travel have slumped and the disposable income of ordinary New Yorkers has dwindled.

*And yes, I know the drill: Get in the cab before telling the driver where you want to go, but he caught me off guard as I was fumbling with the luggage (where did he think we were off to?)

Not just for European tourists, the automatic tip is a sign of the economic times:

New York City eateries have begun tacking on automatic gratuities to meal checks, making up for the economic downturn by socking the wallets of unsuspecting customers.

The Post last week found a dozen restaurants foisting tips on diners — sometimes as high as 20 percent and regardless of party size and without noting the policy on the menu, all in violation of consumer laws.

“I felt cheated and taken advantage of,” said Dazi Chen, who discovered a 20 percent tip stealthily added to his check at Midtown’s Bombay Eats, where he dined with a friend.

“They’re trying to get double gratuity,” fumed Chen, 31.

When he complained to a waitress, he was told the tip is “programmed” into the cash register and could not be refunded.

Rebecca Christian, a resourcing manager from Manchester, England, who visited the swanky River Café in Brooklyn over the holidays with her boyfriend, said she was hit with an unannounced 15 percent gratuity on a $400 check.

In fact, the menu said, “Gratuity and sales tax not included.”

Despite being “absolutely shocked,” she said, she paid the bill because she thought it was an American custom.

The eatery denies adding on secret gratuities.

“It’s very, very rarely that we would do that, and if we do, we always inform the guest that it has been added to the calculation, both on the check and verbally,” the maitre d’ told The Post.

. . . and less expensive dry cleaning service . . . then let’s call it even:

For women across New York City and beyond, it basically amounts to being taken to the cleaners. Women’s shirts often cost much more to launder than men’s, even if they are smaller and made of the same cloth.

Many women grudgingly accept the higher prices, much as they accept the perennial lack of pockets in their pants and the lengthier lines outside their restrooms. But not Janet Floyd, a 44-year-old mother, community volunteer and newly minted missionary for gender equality in the wash place.

Ms. Floyd’s crusade began in November, when, she said, she and her husband brought their nearly identical blue Brooks Brothers oxfords to be laundered at Best Cleaners in Chelsea. The shirts came back clean, but Ms. Floyd discovered that hers cost $8.75, his $7.

“We had the same shirts — I paid more and his was larger,” recalled Ms. Floyd, who wears a size 4 petite (her husband, Joe, wears a 15.5-inch neck and 33-inch sleeve). “That’s what was so infuriating.”

The letter-based restaurant inspection system, an idea floated at the state level about two years ago and which has perversely been turned into a badge of honor in places like Los Angeles is set to be tried in New York City:

For the first time, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will compel the city’s nearly 25,000 restaurants to publicly post inspectors’ cleanliness ratings, which have previously been available only online or at the department. Rating signs, to be supplied by the city, will be required to be visible from the street, either in a restaurant window or vestibule.

The agency also plans to switch to a letter-grade system similar to that used for years in Los Angeles (using the letters A, B and C for passing inspection grades). The new rules, which will be part of a broad revamping of inspections, will be put in place over the next two years, giving restaurant operators time to comply.

The department said that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed off on the program as part of the executive budget announced Friday. He has scheduled a Saturday news conference to announce the new procedures.

“We expect this will improve our inspection program,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city health commissioner. “It will encourage restaurants to be cleaner and inform people so they can make better choices about where to eat.”

Cab drivers actually get higher tips with credit card transactions:

Cabbies are getting bigger tips thanks to their new credit-card machines, according to statistics obtained by The Post.

Both the Taxi and Limousine Commission and a drivers union said cash transactions on average result in a 10 to 15 percent tip for drivers.

But credit-card customers are bigger spenders. They gave an average 16 percent tip during three weeks in December.

Still, some drivers complain that their tips are getting wiped out because they are charged up to 5 percent for credit transactions.

“A beggar has no choice,” said cabby Gabriele Edet, 72, when asked what he thought about the credit-card fee.

OK, so what actually is the credit card transaction fee? They always say five percent, but apparently that’s the high end of the spectrum.

After being barraged with “scary” new improvements and “privacy-limiting” geegaws, cab drivers apparently have finally stopped spitting in customers’ faces when asked to use technology:

One year after taxis were outfitted with machines so passengers can pay with plastic, drivers admit they might not like the new system, but they can live with it.

When the high-tech GPS and credit card devices were first installed in the city’s 13,000 cabs, there was fierce opposition from many drivers.

They would openly grumble if a passenger did not have cash — or sometimes lie that the machine was broken.

Drivers also railed against the company that had installed the machines, saying they lost money because it got to pocket 5% of each credit card fare.

“When drivers say it’s not working, they just don’t want you to use it because of the price they have to pay. But what you gonna do?” said cab driver Jean Francois after taking a reporter on a $3.70 ride from Chelsea to the West Village, earning himself a $1.30 tip.

“It’s business. Sometimes you lose; sometimes you win.”

During more than a dozen cab rides across the city over the last week, the Daily News found drivers now seem resigned to the new system.

When asked if it was okay to use a credit card, some replied: “Sure, no problem,” while others greeted their passenger with a more subdued nod of the head and “Uh-huh.”

“Mostly, the people still pay cash,” said another driver who took a reporter across midtown Manhattan. The ride cost $7.30, and he received a $1 tip.

“But I guess it’s good for those that don’t have any.

“I try not to worry about it. It’s just the system.”

The Taxi and Limousine Commission says drivers should embrace the machines, as figures show the average tip is now 19%, compared with 12% to 15% before the machines were installed.

“We have moved beyond the point of some drivers expressing a fear of the unknown about these systems … with most drivers truly appreciating their benefits,” Commissioner Matthew Daus said.

Or at least involuntary isolation:

When the cash toll at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge rose from $9 to $10 last March, many Staten Island drivers thought they had seen it all.

But the sticker shock of the sawbuck pales in comparison to a toll hike as high as — get this — $14.

That’s how much the round-trip toll could conceivably cost as part of the MTA’s proposed package of fare and toll hikes.

The authority outlined a variety of options yesterday meant to achieve a projected revenue increase of up to 23 percent, to plug a $1.2 billion budget gap.

Nothing is set in stone; rather, the proposed changes, including a $6.25 express bus fare, a $2.50 or $3 local bus or subway fare and severe service cuts, reflect the outside threshold of pain.

Of the $14 toll threat, MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said, “Is it a possibility? It’s there, but it’s in the upper range. I don’t know where we’ll be in the end.”

So given the history, I guess this means what I think it means:

Proposals being considered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could raise the base subway and bus fare as high as $3, the 30-day MetroCard to $105 and bridge and tunnel tolls to $7 next year.

On the heels of plastic bags, another plan that masquerades as an environmental initiative but is really a revenue-raising instrument:

Billed as an environmental measure, efforts to require a deposit for juice and water containers never got very far. Now, it’s being put forward, somewhat controversially, as an untapped revenue stream in a tight fiscal circumstance.

One nickel at a time.

Budget officials say those nickels would add up to $25 million this year, and $118 million in the next fiscal year. An expanded bottle bill is in David Paterson’s plan — granted, in the back — to bridge a $1.5 billion end-of-year budget deficit and cut spending for the next budget cycle.

“It may be that it takes an economic crisis to get the bigger better bottle bill passed,” said Laura Haight, senior environmental associate at the New York Public Interest Research Group, which has long advocated the bottle bill’s passage. She said it would bring in even more money than the budget office projected, and would reduce litter and increase recycling by giving consumers a financial incentive not to throw away their garbage.

Here’s the money trail now: you buy a six pack of Rheingold, and pay an additional 30 cents in deposits (5 cents times 6 bottles). If you’re a responsible citizen, you enjoy the Rheingold responsibly, rinse the bottles and return them to the nearest grocery store, which gives you back your 30 cents. The grocery store keeps 12 cents (2 cents per bottle) as a handling fee, and the same distributors that brought you your Rheingold take away the bottles.

If, however, the bottles end up with the rest of the garbage, or lost, or smashed, the beer distributors keep your 30 cents, and use it to offset what it costs them to cart away the responsible citizen’s bottles.

The new proposal would send the thirty cents to the state coffers. Additionally, it would put deposits on everything from Snapple to orange juice containers, increasing the amount of things New Yorkers can return to stores.

Beverage distributors . . . I hate those guys.

Hey, pointy-headed technocrats — our economy depends on the right to double park:

As mass transit riders continue to enjoy a quicker commute with the Bx 12 Select Bus Service, business owners along the route are calling it quits.

Norman Ephron, longtime owner of Imperial Linoleum and Carpet Co. Inc., said within 30 days of the lane instillation, seven stores along E. Fordham Road were forced to close due to lack of business. He said the Select Bus Service is to blame.

“Why should customers come to Fordham Road if they can’t park,” the storeowner questioned, referencing the lane that eliminated 40 parking spaces from the heavily trafficked thoroughfare, including a handful in front of his 361 E. Fordham Road establishment.

. . .

After 40 years operating at the same site, he said he’s never once experienced the enormous decrease in business that’s occurred since the Bx12 express bus went into operation at the end of June.

“A lot of my business came from people picking up their carpet and taking it home. Now they can’t pick it up anymore.” His loading area now services the Bx 12.

Ephron said that also for the first time in four decades, nearly 90% of his 35-employee staff is working half days, down from their previous full-time hours.

“I don’t know who thought of the idea but they’re killing us,” he said. “I’ve been sitting her all day and haven’t seen a single customer.”

That stupid, stupid, stupid asinine Christmas rebate back in 2005 is looking stupider and stupider now that the MTA is squawking about consecutive years of fare increases:

The subway fare is accelerating faster than a runaway express, as the MTA yesterday announced two fare hikes in the next 30 months.

Straphangers are due to get slammed by the pair of increases — totaling 13.4 percent by January 2011 — on the cost of tolls, commuter tickets and MetroCards, according to the MTA’s financial plan.

An 8 percent hike is slated for July 2009, and another 5 percent is due to be tacked on 18 months later. Added to the 3.85 percent hike enacted in March, the fare will have risen nearly 18 percent in 34 months.

“I don’t want to pay more money,” said Wendell Trupe, 49, of Harlem. “What are they doing with the money from the last fare hike? These damn people are out of their minds.”

The 8 percent increase, due to raise $202 million next year, is proposed to take effect six months earlier than originally planned. It is the first time riders have been hit with fare hikes in consecutive years since the early ’80s.

The MTA is also expecting to spring a 5 percent raise on the cost of MetroCards in January 2011 to bring in an additional $272 million that year.

“This is a function of where we are now,” said MTA executive director Elliot Sander. “The last thing we want do is to be up here right now asking for this.”

(And are we in for a similar shock after years of idiotic property tax rebates? Likely!)

Recession widens, detergent makers hardest hit:

Higher fuel and water prices mean the cost of a load of wash is spinning out of control for the city’s cash-strapped residents.

“We try to wash a lot of the clothing in the sink at home,” said Bianca Vaugean, 14, a Harlem ninth-grader who does all the laundry for her family of seven.

The family’s dishes had to share sink space after the price on the large washing machines at the 134th St. laundromat jumped from $3.25 to $5.25, she said.

City residents also report skipping washes and cramming the machines to get the most bang for their buck.

“I saw the price on the large dryer go up two dollars last week and I was shocked,” said Mary Ann Hart, 33, at a Bay Ridge laundromat at 79th St. and Third Ave. “I am going to have to stretch our usage from every week to every other week.”

Laundromats are taking a beating because of rising utility costs, said a trade expert.

“There isn’t another small business that has been hit as hard as the Laundromat,” said Brian Wallace, president of the Coin Laundry Association. “Costs are trickling down to the people in the poorer neighborhoods who can least afford it.”

During the last month, rates have been steadily bubbling up citywide — jumping as much as 40%.

If the milk price gouging law isn’t working, do the next best thing — raise the price ceiling. Problem solved:

The state-controlled price for a gallon of milk in New York City will rise to $4.37 next Tuesday, state regulators said, in the wake of rising fuel costs and diminishing corn supplies.

State agriculture authorities set the loose ceiling of milk prices, based on the cost of farm production. Individual stores can top the milk-price threshold — now at $3.93 a gallon — if they can show financial hardships, such as extraordinarily high wholesale, rent or delivery costs.

So in practice, the state-set threshold generally applies to the large supermarkets, while neighborhood bodegas tend to have higher prices, officials said.

. . . you can always rescind them later:

The cash-strapped [MTA] will not launch a $60 million service improvement package because it doesn’t have the money, the Daily News has learned.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority last year unveiled plans that included more frequent bus, subway and commuter trains to soften the blow of fare hikes. The program was to be launched in phases starting this summer — if the authority could afford it.

It can’t, sources said.

“A final decision won’t be made on the enhancements until we report June revenue numbers next week, but revenues would have to turn around significantly as we are already $80 million behind in real estate taxes alone,” MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin said.

And more than once, too:

Caveat emptor: When you go into a drugstore in New York City, it’s best to check the expiration date of common over-the-counter medications, which can be expired even at large national chains, a survey by the state attorney general’s office has found.

The attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, said on Thursday that he sent his staff to 1,000 pharmacies across the state in March, April and May and found expired items — including milk, eggs, infant formula and common medications — at more than 250 stores across the state, including 50 in New York City.

Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference in Manhattan that the two worst offenders were Rite Aid and CVS, where investigators bought more than 600 items — though typically only one or two per store — that had expired. Many of the items were intended for children.

“Consumers deserve what they pay for,” Mr. Cuomo said.

(”Consumers deserve what they pay for” — what does that mean exactly?)

Councilmember Tony Avella, the City Council’s true master of grandstanding (beating out both John Liu and Eric Gioia), has staked out many positions in his run up to a mayoral campaign, from the principled (refusing a pay raise, vowing to investigate the quid pro quo-like lobbying during the congestion pricing debate) to the useful (a do not call list for advertising circulars) to the loopy (section 809 of New York’s Education Law), but this just takes the cake:

The fight over foie gras is coming to City Hall, with a City Council member who is running for mayor, Tony Avella, set to urge his colleagues to support a proposed ban on the force-feeding of ducks and geese.

Mr. Avella, who also has introduced a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city, said he thinks it is inhumane to force-feed birds to fatten their livers for foie gras.

Tomorrow Mr. Avella is scheduled to introduce a council resolution in support of a state bill proposed by Senator Frank Padavan that would ban the force-feeding of birds by hand or machine to enlarge their livers.

“If they can produce foie gras by feeding the animals in a normal process, well, that’s up to them,” Mr. Avella, who represents parts of Queens, said. The resolution will not call for a ban on the sale of foie gras.

And, dude, New York City is just not that kind of town.

. . . New York’s milk price gouging law has been a huge success*:

A whopping 86 percent of supermarkets, delis and bodegas throughout the five boroughs are charging above the state-mandated price ceiling for milk, according to a City Council survey released yesterday.

The survey found that 43 out of 50 stores checked last November were charging an average of 40 cents above the state limit, which is set each month by the Department of Agriculture and Markets.

“It is no secret and it has been widely reported that the price of food has been consistently increasing in New York and across the country,” said council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

“While food prices are rising, it’s incredibly important that we make sure important staples, critical things to families like milk, are as affordable as possible.”

Current metropolitan-area limits for June are set at $3.93 per gallon, $2.01 per half-gallon and $1.04 per quart, with lower prices upstate.

Shoppers cutting every corner to make ends meet — many of whom did not know there were legal price limits — were appalled to learn they were getting gouged.

“I have two children. We buy a lot of milk. If it’s overpriced, it’s unfair for mothers and their children,” said Gloria Williams, 36, who was shopping in Murray Hill.

. . .

The complex state law does allow stores to make a case for above-the-limit prices before they are considered in violation.

Most of the major supermarket chains have done so, but many smaller shops do not.

In fact, a manager at one small store — the Food Market at Second Avenue and 41st Street, where a half-gallon was selling for $3.29 — was clearly unaware of the regulation, saying, “This is a free country. I’m allowed to charge whatever I want.”

*So was ditching the resolution worth it? Probably not.

Sorry, I assumed that would be the headline instead of “MTA hike fare-y may visit us again”:

A rare back-to-back increase — along with service cuts — could be in store for commuters now that MTA number crunchers are suddenly dealing with a massive hole in next year’s budget.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s projected 2009 budget gap has ballooned — doubling or even tripling original estimates, sources said.

Without new state money, officials may soon raise the spectre of increases, service cuts — or both, sources and experts said.

“They don’t have many options,” one source said.

Subway riders gasped at the suggestion.

“I’m a recent college graduate so I can’t afford the subway as it is,” said Bryan Tran, 21, of Queens. “Any higher and I will have to walk everywhere. It’s ridiculous.”

Counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags, sure. But counterfeit condoms, too? Not to sound harsh, but if you’re cheap enough to buy condoms at a 99-cent store, you probably deserve what you get:

Careful with those Trojan brand condoms from the discount store. They may not be the real thing.

Same with the Barbie doll and the Louis Vuitton handbag.

In raids in the metropolitan area yesterday, federal agents arrested at least eight people and charged them with heading a counterfeit products ring. Authorities say the ring has been smuggling into the country and then distributing massive quantities of fake brand-name goods manufactured in China, including Apple iPods, Major League Baseball and National Football League caps and Marvel comic books.

The counterfeits, which included millions of the phony Trojans, were sold for the past three years mainly in small discount stores in the area, as well as elsewhere in the country, including Texas and Virginia, according to court documents.

A spokeswoman for Church and Dwight, the company that manufactures the legitimate Trojan condoms in the United States, declined to comment on whether the counterfeit Chinese condoms could fail to prevent pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

But a source familiar with the federal investigation said that while the counterfeit condoms were of inferior quality, samples had been tested and they were no riskier to use than legitimate ones.

The packaging of the Chinese condoms is almost identical to the legitimate ones, except that the counterfeit packaging is plastic, while the legitimate product is packaged in aluminum foil, said another source familiar with the investigation. “They [the counterfeiters] spent all their money on printing,” said the source.

. . . congestion pricing for taking crying children into a movie theater:

Clearview Cinemas on First Avenue and 62nd Street last week stopped offering reduced-price tickets for children and seniors, charging $12 across the board — even for a matinee.

And several other theaters are also expected to raise children’s ticket and concession prices to make up for their cost increases, The Post has learned.

“I feel like everywhere I go, I’m getting nickeled-and-dimed these days,” said Jack Miller, 40, who took his 7-year-old son, Benjamin, to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” at the Clearview yesterday afternoon, only to find that a children’s ticket had shot up $2.50.

“Everything is expensive,” he griped.

Davina Kahlon, a 31-year-old nurse from Manhattan who saw “Narnia” with her son Jahan, 2, called the price jump “horrible.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” she said. “It’s bad enough we [adults] have to pay $12. Children will be children. He may fall asleep or start to cry, and I might have to leave early. It’s not just.”

Rita Richardson, 46, said she plans to boycott the theater.

“They charge more to go to the movies here than in Times Square,” she said. “I won’t be coming here anymore.”

Making matters worse for the kiddies is the fact that a large tub of popcorn costs 50 cents more at the Clearview than it did last year — up to a whopping $6.50 — a concessionaire said.

A ticket seller in the box office said the admission-price increase started last week as a pilot program for theaters in the area.

(”Pilot program” . . . what else did they call a “pilot program”? Oh yeah.)

. . . is run through ExxonMobil’s gigantic supercomputers and reflected in mysterious gas prices around the city:

Major oil companies use secret mathematical formulas to figure out the varying price of gas from one city to city — even as specific as one neighborhood to another.

Gas stations owned by large oil companies, such as ExxonMobil, determine the cost of gas by creating “geographic pricing zones” based on competition from nearby pumps, traffic patterns and the makeup of the local population.

Oil companies claim they use the formulas to confine competition to the smallest possible area in order to maximize prices at each outlet.

But independently owned stations set their prices based on the owner’s assessment — factoring in how much it costs to buy the gas from a distributor and the price of his nearest competitors.

. . .

The cost of crude itself accounts for about half the retail price at the pump. The rest of the cost is for refining, shipping, taxes and the cost of running the station.

But why does gas cost so much in Manhattan compared to Staten Island?

“There are fewer gas stations in Manhattan,” [New York State Petroleum Council lobbyist Cathy] Kenny said. “And there’s even fewer of them since owners figured out that selling the land is a lot more profitable than selling gas.”

This past weekend, the priciest place to get gas in the city was at a Shell station in Brooklyn and an Exxon station on Staten Island, both of which were charging $4.25, according to newyorkgasprices.com.

. . . we all scream, “Hey, jackass, move your freakin’ truck before I bash your head in with an oversized wrench”:

The man in the Mister Softee truck stuck his head out the window and glared at the fellow in the white cap and black bow tie.

The guy in the bow tie grimaced back as he rang the bell on his Good Humor truck, whose bumper sat inches from Mister Softee’s.

“Ching ching ching.”

“This is open turf,” said Jose Martinez, 52, the Good Humor man, yanking at the bell.

Summer is more than a month away, but the ice cream wars have already begun. In neighborhoods across the city, skirmishes are breaking out over which franchise can sell its wares on which route. And the tension between the city’s purveyors of ice-cold treats can at times be thicker than a Chipwich.

There have been harsh words, hurt feelings and even bloodshed between competitors. In 2004, a couple in their 60s who owned and operated two ice cream trucks were ambushed in the Bronx and beaten with an oversized wrench. The motive, the police said, was the couple’s ice cream route. A rival ice cream salesman was charged with assault and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

While disputes between drivers of ice cream trucks rarely become that violent, they can be cutthroat.

(That last line is the mixed metaphor of the day.)

This could only mean one thing — the return of the Good Humor man, which some don’t find funny:

On Tuesday afternoon, new battle lines were drawn on the Upper West Side at the corner of Columbus Avenue and 83rd Street, where Ceasar Ruiz, 50, the Mister Softee man, said he had been selling ice cream without any competition for more than eight years.

He said his routine was the same every season. He arrives at the corner by about 2:30 each afternoon, mostly to catch the students getting out of Public School 9 and the Anderson School, just a few yards from the corner. He stays for about an hour and a half, then moves to his next location, he said.

But Tuesday afternoon was different. When he arrived, there sat the freshly painted Good Humor truck and Mr. Martinez, decked out in a crisp uniform, ringing his bell.

“I sell Good Humor, too,” Mr. Ruiz said. “But his is more cheap. I sell bar for $2. He might sell for $1.50. Not good. Not good.”

. . .

Good Humor trucks all but disappeared from the New York streets 30 years ago. In 1977, the Good Humor company shut down its street vendor operation, opting for supermarket freezers, said Robert Pinnisi, who helped restore Mr. Martinez’s truck. But the company gave drivers the option of being independent contractors. Mr. Pinnisi said he knew of only one other Good Humor truck operating in New York City, and one in Mount Vernon.

See also: The heretofore unchallenged Mister Softee juggernaut.

In other news, the Advance reports that mail service is still widely used on Staten Island:

Don’t disregard the extra pennies you find laying around the house or car — you might need them Monday.

That’s when the price of mailing a first-class letter increases 1 cent, to 42 cents, along with a number of other postal rate hikes that take effect.

But there is a way to avoid paying more to mail a letter.

Forever stamps, which can be used after the hike, can still be bought at the old 41-cent price. But the cost of the Forever stamp will also increase Monday, to 42 cents.

Those still having unused 41-cent stamps will be able to purchase a new 1-cent stamp — the Tiffany Lamp — to make up the difference. Several new 42-cent stamps are also available.

The passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006 allows the Postal Service to increase its rates every May in accordance with the rate of inflation as indicated in the Consumer Price Index.

The city should subsidize Fresh Direct deliveries to underserved neighborhoods*:

A continuing decline in the number of neighborhood supermarkets has made it harder for millions of New Yorkers to find fresh and affordable food within walking distance of their homes, according to a recent city study. The dearth of nearby supermarkets is most severe in minority and poor neighborhoods already beset by obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

According to the food workers union, only 550 decently sized supermarkets — each occupying at least 10,000 square feet — remain in the city.

In one corner of southeast Queens, four supermarkets have closed in the last two years. Over a similar period in East Harlem, six small supermarkets have closed, and two more are on the brink, local officials said. In some cases, the old storefronts have been converted to drug stores that stand to make money coming and going — first selling processed foods and sodas, then selling medicines for illnesses that could have been prevented by a better diet.

The supermarket closings — not confined to poor neighborhoods — result from rising rents and slim profit margins, among other causes. They have forced residents to take buses or cabs to the closest supermarkets in some areas. Those with cars can drive, but the price of gasoline is making some think twice about that option. In many places, residents said the lack of competition has led to rising prices in the remaining stores.

*Right after we figure out how to supply high-speed internet connections and computers to all.

But what is perverse is that people who can afford not to spend half their income on rent are probably doing so, too:

Arnold Somrah was spending almost half of his income on the Park Slope apartment he shared with a friend. The 24-year-old finally moved back into his parents’ Ozone Park home.

“You can’t go out. Your Friday and Saturday nights are done,” said Somrah, who was paying $750 a month for his basement room. Samrah is now saving to eventually buy in Florida. “It’s too expensive here.”

Nearly 530,000 renters in the city are spending 50 percent or more of their income on housing, a 14.9 percent jump from 1999, according to data released yesterday by Rep. Anthony Weiner.

“Financial advisors say, ‘You should spend no more than a third of your income on rent’” said Weiner. “That’s sounding more and more like a pipe dream.”

The Bronx is feeling the burden the most, with 32.85 percent of its renters paying half their income on rent in 2006. Manhattan (22.32 percent) had the lowest.

NYU raises its tuition beyond the cost of inflation, giving new meaning to the concept of “Ivy League or equivalent”:

Already one of the most expensive schools in the country, NYU plans to boost tuition another 5.9 percent starting with the next academic year.

That translates into a $2,081 increase over this year’s tuition of $35,283, according to the financial aid department.

Students are outraged.

“It’s definitely putting a damper in my parents’ pocket,” said Emmanuella Durandisse, a 19-year-old freshman from Nyack. “I’m definitely mad. Maybe the teachers are overpaid.”

The school’s president, John Sexton, blamed the hike on the size of the college’s endowment.

“Many colleges and universities against which we compete to attract faculty and students have endowment resources per student many times larger,” he wrote in an e-mail to the faculty.

The school is not insensitive to the financial strain. It plans a 12 percent financial aid boost for the neediest students.

But that’s still not as much help as other private colleges, such as Harvard, are giving out. The Ivy League school plans to actually cut tuition for low-income students.

“We are not in a position to match these institutions, as much as we might wish that all endowments are created equal,” Sexton wrote.

The cost of NYU certainly puts it in league with Ivy-level tuition. Columbia University charges students $35,516, while Harvard charges $31,456.

Both Ivy schools also plan to hike tuition next year, Columbia by 3 to 5 percent and Harvard by 3.5 percent.

A commitment to efficiency in state government:

Horace Mann School, the $29,000-a-year preparatory school in the Bronx, and dozens more New York educational and cultural institutions just got stuck between the collapse of auctionrate bonds and an expired New York law.

Rates on $60 million of the securities sold by Horace Mann in 2002 rose to 5.4%last month from 3.4%. At nearby Riverdale Country School, where tuition is $35,250 for grades six through 12, interest jumped to 11% from 3%. Interest costs almost doubled for borrowers in the $330 billion auction-rate bond market this year after banks stopped buying unwanted securities for the first time since they were created in the 1980s. Unlike local governments across the country, the New York institutions can’t convert the bonds into other types of debt after a state funding law expired January 31.

. . .

More than 800 YMCAs, libraries, hospitals, universities and prep schools in the state sold socalled civic-facility bonds, including auction-rate debt, through industrial development authorities, according to the Albany-based New York State Economic Development Council.

Auction rates for some of these borrowers have risen as much as fourfold.

. . .

Civic groups in New York lost their ability to borrow using development agencies as state lawmakers battled over rewriting the law that governs industrial authorities. Assemblyman Sam Hoyt of Buffalo, a chairman of the local governments committee, refused to extend debt-issuing authority.