As everyone knows, NJ Transit has not arrived at a tweaking moment. It does not need a delicate dial-twist. The bulging consensus is that NJ Transit needs transformational reform, that it needed to happen yesterday, and that it's going to cost a lot of money to get it right.

That's the familiar theme running throughout a new report on the nation's third-largest commuter rail system by Moody's, the credit ratings agency. And while this report is the proverbial drunkard's lamp post - something reform advocates will use more for support than illumination - Gov. Murphy and transit officials would do well to heed its bullet points, and get moving on a long-term funding plan to deal with this rolling fiscal bomb.

Moody's meta-message bears repeating: Transit is inextricably linked to our state economy and to jobs, and without strong service, economic growth will lag. There are 150,000 NJT passengers who work in New York City, and if they can't access their jobs because of a Hudson River tunnel failure, that number could drop by a whopping 75 percent.

It also asserts that new state funding will be needed for deferred maintenance and capital projects, because currently NJ Transit "has limited flexibility to reduce spending without cutting service."

And, given the absence of a "large and predictable new revenue stream," Moody's says the state will take on more debt "in the near term." In fact, just to keep pace with its peer railroads, NJT will have to increase annual spending by more than $800 million per year.

None of this is surprising, but it reminds us that we cannot keep jabbing at the snooze button. Governor, that alarm is meant for you.

Transit was said to be his priority, but $98 million increase in NJT's operating budget - which amounted to a 4-percent bump - wasn't exactly a bold step in fixing its looming shortfall. The audit ordered by the governor made it clear that the agency can no longer subsist on shifting capital funds to operations or by lifting money out of the Clean Energy Fund, yet the governor did both.

The NJ Transit quagmire illustrates how state's fiscal crisis is not about abstract concerns over a low bond rating and high borrowing costs. If we don't solve the larger fiscal crisis, the decay at NJ Transit will deepen. And that same threat looms over the state's public schools and its health care system. If we don't get our house in order, all of that is in danger.

So far, Murphy has presented no plan to address this crisis, nor has he embraced the reasonable approach of Senate President Steve Sweeney, who has done the math and concluded that another round of cuts to pension and health benefits is unavoidable.

The Moody's report may be boilerplate, but it spoke clearly to the doyen of New Jersey rail policy: "At least it addresses a problem our politicians will not acknowledge -- the inadequacy of state capital funding for transit," said Martin Robins, one of the founders of NJT. "Especially while (President) Trump controls federal investment policy."

Yes, the agency is in better shape than it was when Murphy took over. The management team is filled with transit specialists rather than political patrons. The installation of Positive Train Control is 88 percent complete. New engineers are coming through the pipeline. All good.

But the governor has not responded to the Moody's report, and we have arrived at the break-glass moment with NJ Transit. We have the means to plan, and now it's time to summon the will to do it.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.