With Gov. Paterson focused firmly on gay marriage, the state Senate in chaos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver waiting for someone else to make a move, New York City yesterday moved one day closer to the first of what’s likely to be a series of ever-steeper transit-fare hikes — and ever-deeper service cuts.

It’s impossible to exaggerate Albany’s leadership crisis: Paterson is simply a non-presence, while Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith presides over as odious a cast of characters as has ever sat in the Senate chamber. Silver, as noted, is sitting on his hands.

Former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch labored mightily and produced a plan that involves unpopular bridge tolls and new taxes — but that would go a long way toward helping the agency shore up its collapsing revenue base.

He presented it to Paterson & Co. last December. And there it sits — much talked about, but untouched.

Reports yesterday that indicated a breakthrough could be near turned out, yet again, to be so much nonsense.

Meanwhile, the state’s economy continues to deteriorate: New York has lost 176,000 private-sector jobs since last August, 33,000 in March alone.

The MTA’s board of directors is to consider emergency measures that insiders indicate could drive the price of a subway or bus ride to $3 by the end of the year — and enact truly draconian service reductions, too.

Unacceptable?

Not at all.

The integrity of New York’s mass-transit system must be maintained at all costs — even if one of those costs is $3 or more for the basic ride.

Yet the crisis can be averted — even if Paterson, Smith and Silver aren’t up to it.

Time to turn elsewhere. Could New York’s public-employee unions help?

Sure could.

They call most of the shots in Albany anyway, and their constituents — teachers, cops, sanitation workers, office staff — ride the trains and buses every day.

They’re the ones who’ll be buying the $3-per-ride MetroCards.

They’ll see their bus routes and subway lines eliminated or cut.

UFT kingpin Randi Weingarten or Municipal Labor Committee Chairman Harry Nespoli — so wise in the ways of Albany when it comes to pursuing their own interests — could perform a real public service by pulling the levers that get things done.

Heaven knows we’ve had our differences with Weingarten.

But we believe she’s a patriot at heart — and this crisis is utterly unprecedented and growing more acute with each passing day.

New York needs action.

Paterson isn’t up to it. Nor is the Legislature — not in its present state of mind.

The unions could change minds. Hell, they do it all the time.

Time to step up to the plate.