As targets for criticism go, it is hard to imagine one more inviting than the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, better known as the MBTA, best known as the T. That such a sprawling system is nearly universally recognized by a single letter is a testimony to its ubiquity. It also suggests the central role the T plays in so many lives.

As with other institutions that protect or foster the common good — schools, police departments, fire stations — Boston was an innovator, a pioneer in providing mass transport. The American Public Transportation Association credits Boston with the nation’s first publicly operated ferryboat (1631), first commuter fare on a railroad (1838), first fare-free promotion (1856), first public-transportation commission (1894), first electric underground street railway line (1897), and first publicly financed transportation facility (1897).

While the community can take pride in the past, pride will not help the region navigate the future. We are building on century-old infrastructure and can not lose site of that.

With gasoline prices skyrocketing, and unlikely to go lower, and recognition of the importance of global warming finally penetrating the national consciousness, the MBTA is of more central importance than ever before.

The special report in this edition of the Phoenix is rooted in that assumption, and looks at issues both large and small. In some cases the articles are analytical; in other cases whimsical. But if there is a bottom line to be found in the Phoenix survey, it is this: all things considered, the MBTA is doing a pretty good job. The question is: how can it do better?

As Adam Reilly makes clear, MBTA General Manager Dan Grabauskas has been quietly effective at improving the small things, which add up to an experience for which more drivers are willing to ditch their autos. The transition to automated fare collection went off remarkably smoothly. Stations are becoming cleaner and more handicap-accessible. Riders are now allowed a free transfer from subway to bus.

The turnaround may not be as obvious as what Grabauskas did at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, where he worked as registrar from 1998 to 2003. But in some ways it is even more impressive, given the size, bureaucracy, and financial constraints of the authority. The Patrick administration should not kid itself that someone else could do better, or create change faster.

Hopefully, Grabauskas will continue to make many improvements, both large and small, which will draw significantly more people into the system. We each have our own pet project in mind, be it the Green Line extension, rail service to New Bedford, Silver Line Phase III, or another. But there is no shortage of worthy projects. You’ll find 206 highway and transit plans listed by the Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization at bostonmpo.org/bostonmpo/resources/plan/UniverseProjectsMatrix.pdf.

Some of these projects — the Fairmount Commuter Rail Line, and a Red Line–Blue Line connector, for example — are included in the transportation-bond bill signed by Governor Patrick this past month. Although Treasurer Tim Cahill has legitimate concerns about over-extending our state’s debt obligations in the current credit market, this bond package rightly funds the types of projects that should be high priorities.

But that is only a start. For the MBTA continually to improve its service and expand its reach, it must be given two key things: resources and freedom from political meddling. Neither is ever easy to find on Beacon Hill.

That is the real problem with the T — not the workers, not the managers, not the public support, but the dysfunction of our state government, whose leaders have yet to find an agency, department, or public authority they will not strangle of funds, bloat with patronage, subvert for misuse, or stymie in some petty power play.

Sadly, as our need for public transportation rose over the past 30 years, our leaders’ interest in it devolved and deteriorated. Massachusetts went from having a T-riding governor in Michael Dukakis, to Mitt Romney, who could not tell you what it cost to ride the Red Line. Radio talk-show hosts continue to lampoon Governor Deval Patrick’s Cadillac, but Patrick is committed to public transportation. Appointing Grabauskas as T chief was one of a scant handful of memorably good things Romney did. Let’s hope that in 2010, when Grabauskas’s current term expires, his work is appreciated, he wants to stay on, he is re-appointed, and, most important, the Patrick administration can fight the urge to play politics with the MBTA.