8:16 hurtling toward Gotham this morn.

Conductor comes around for tickets. The man in front of me is Hispanic, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He’s snoozing.

“Tickets, please,” says the conductor, a normal looking man, about 40, black.

The Hispanic man wakes up. He doesn’t have a ticket.

“Where you going?” asks the conductor. All eyes gradually shift to the scene. It’s more interesting than the Monday Journal.

The man mumbles something.

“Fourteen dollars,” says the conductor. “You owe me $14.”

The Hispanic man mumbles again. The conductor walks away to punch more tickets.

He returns about 10 minutes later.

“Fourteen dollars,” he says, then in Spanish (catorce?). “You owe me money.”

The conductor is not rude, not disrespectful. Just direct.

“Next stop is 125th,” says the conductor. “Where you trying to go?”

The rider mumbles something about Mt. Kisco, then “Plezz.”

“Pleasantville?” says the conductor. “Mt. Kisco? You’re goin’ the wrong way.”

The conductor realizes he’s not getting money out of the man. He walks over to the vestibule and writes something on a ticket receipt. He returns to the Hispanic man.

“Get off at 125th Street,” he says. “Tell the conductor you’re going to Mt. Kisco.”

He hands the man the receipt. That’s what it says, Mt. Kisco–so the Hispanic man can simply show it to the conductor.

“I’m not going to charge you,” says the conductor, and walks away.

The March issue of MTA rag Mileposts awaited us on the 8:17 today, these Ides of March. And indeed, the MTA’s surprisingly witty wordsmith had some fun with the Julius Caesar references. Promising it won’t be “more back stabbing by close associates,” Mileposts announced that some schedule changes would follow the Ides (”Julius Caesar got the ‘point,’ ” the story adds).

In short, if you live in Mt. Kisco, Tarrytown or Stamford, you’ve got some new commuting options.

As always, Mileposts announced the latest “On-Time Performance” ratings. The Hudson Line won with a 99.4 on time score (of course, as we mention all too much, “on time” means anything that’s up to 5 minutes and 59 second late). In second was our beloved Harlem line, followed by G. Francis’ hapless New Haven line.

When reporting this race, it’s hard not to picture the Jumbo-tron dot race at the ballpark, or the subway race at Shea, or the sausage race at the stadium in Milwaukee.