Peter Vallone, Sr. . . .

. . . this piece is for you*:

By the time the bus got to 125th Street at Lexington Avenue, frustration had hit fever pitch.

Passengers on the M60 bus who had already been forced to stand were pressed against the doors. Others, trapped by tall suitcases, could not get up from their seats. Two dozen people with yet more bags tried to board, but a wave of exiting riders, shouting loudly, pushed them right back off. The same scene was replayed at the next stop, Third Avenue.

“They pack us in like cattle,” said Clay Crawford, 40, who lives in Harlem and was commuting to his job as a security guard in Queens. “Who wants this?”

Flo Lyle, 60, an Upper West Side resident, nodded. “If there’s one line in the city calling out for more buses, it’s this one,” she said.

Or, given that the M60 is the only public-transit option directly from Manhattan to La Guardia Airport, at least increased service at travel-heavy times like Christmas, suggested other sardine-packed riders this week as the bus inched its way along 125th Street.

This time of year, the M60 quickly fills up with airline travelers — and their luggage, resulting in a testy mix of passengers and delays that makes the idea of getting home for the holidays a dicey proposition.

Vikaas Sharma, a Columbia University student who was trying to wiggle a blue suitcase out of the way, boarded the M60 at 2 p.m. on Tuesday to catch a 3:45 p.m. flight on his way to San Francisco, where he grew up. But the bus did not arrive at La Guardia until 4 p.m., so he missed the flight, which turned out to be the last one available until Christmas Day — leading to the first Christmas Eve of his 20 years that he spent without his family.

*Grrr.