Approximately 130,000 riders a week board buses without dipping MetroCards, or plunking change into fare boxes, according to new transit data, suggesting the cash-strapped agency is losing millions of dollars annually.

“We’ve identified the worst routes, including the worst bus stops or hot spots,” said Joseph Smith, NYC Transit vice president in charge of buses.

Smith said he hoped the crackdown would start in a week or two. An NYPD spokesman, however, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has yet to sign off on a final plan. The two sides are in talks about how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could defray costs.

Fare-beaters enter via rear bus doors that are opened by exiting passengers or by helpful riders on board. Some simply saunter past the driver and fare box up front. To reduce the risk of being assaulted, drivers are instructed not to confront or accost fare-beaters.

Above-ground fare-beating is most prevalent on 10 routes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to NYC Transit. The worst is the B46 in Brooklyn where drivers have reported “theft of service” at a rate of about 4,000 a week. The route runs the length of the borough, between Williamsburg and Marine Park, through Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East Flatbush and Flatlands.

The report conducted by NYU adjunct professor John Tepper Marlin shows that if the Yankees snag at least a wild-card berth, a first-round appearance could fill the coffers of bars, restaurants and other businesses across the city with $26 million.

Marlin, a former number-crunching chief economist for three former city comptrollers, said the Bronx Bombers would need to make the playoffs every year if the city hopes to reap any economic benefits, a feat many fans and businesses have taken as a given since 1995.

As last call approached, so did a customer in a pinstriped shirt. Money changed hands. The dealer slipped something into the man’s pocket as oblivious revelers strolled past.

It’s a common sight in the club-heavy Meatpacking District, which has replaced Chelsea as the epicenter of the Manhattan party scene — and home to all the woes that follow.

The venerable neighborhood, long-ago habitat of butchers in bloodstained aprons, hosts an assortment of less savory sorts each weekend: Drunks. Cokeheads. Dealers.

. . .

The no-holds-barred party, as witnessed by Daily News reporters, knows few boundaries. One reporter was solicited by three dealers within two hours on a Saturday night.