Here’s the catch: Even if fares go up, the M.T.A. has said there is no guarantee it will prevent service cuts.

Then on Tuesday, a nearly 6-foot monkey wrench landed in the M.T.A.’s machinery.

Mr. Cuomo told my colleague Emma Fitzsimmons he does not believe the M.T.A. needs to raise fares at all. “I have no faith in what they say,” he said of the agency.

Not even to prevent service cuts?

“No. Tighten your belt. Make the place run better,” Mr. Cuomo replied.

And with that, Mr. Cuomo continued what one website called his “reign of terror on the M.T.A.”

They plan, he disrupts. Remember the L train shutdown?

So why is Mr. Cuomo doing all of this?

One obvious answer: It’s popular. Stop a shutdown, prevent a fare increase, bask in glory.

More substantively, it is part of the governor’s carefully executed strategy to, as Emma wrote, “humiliate” the M.T.A. into (somehow) improving.

The board meets at 9 a.m.

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