After dropping $8,000 on bus and train billboards declaring

, TriMet is scrambling to pull the self-aggrandizing ads from public view.

Oregon’s largest transit agency started putting the placards on the side of 168 buses and trains after seeing a February

naming Portland “the nation’s best city for public transportation.”

Never mind that the analysis piece didn’t specifically say

was the nation’s best transit agency, as the signs imply.

But now there’s no doubt that TriMet's bragging is false advertising.

Officials recently became aware that the newsmagazine-turned-website quietly posted a correction, saying an earlier version of the article "used incorrect data from the National Transit Database.”

And just like that, the

knocks Portland from first to fifth place in the rankings.

“This is unheard of,” said TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch. “We’ve tried contacting the story’s author to find out what happened with the faulty data.”

U.S. News reporter Danielle Kurtzleben has yet to return a phone call from The Oregonian to discuss what went wrong in her analysis.

So, does TriMet, which just raised fares for the fourth time in five years, think the ads were a waste of money? Fetsch was coy. “We thought it was an important message to get out -- that we were ranked so high,” she said. “And number five isn’t bad.”

The new transit champ, according to U.S. News: Denver-Aurora, Colo., followed by New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

Of course, this could be the perfect opportunity for TriMet to show that it has a sense of humor. Why not use spray paint to cross out the “1” on all of those trans and buses and replace it with a “5”?

No, Fetsch said. “We’re taking them down.”

OK then. How about asking Denver if maybe they're interested in buying the "#1 Transit" billboards to use on its buses?