They range from the disabled to college students — people who won’t have transportation Monday when Metro cuts a third of its service.

About 130 turned out Friday morning to a forum organized by the Jewish Community Relations Council in Creve Coeur to addressed the cuts. They’ll will leave an estimated 12,000 area residents will be without transportation, according to Metro.

“I can’t express the depth of my frustration and agony over these,” said Missouri Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City.

The cuts are Metro’s response to a $45 million budget shortfall. Transit agencies nationwide, from New York City to Atlanta to San Francisco, face similar predicaments of tax revenue not covering current operating expenses. A last-ditch effort is being made to get $35 million in emergency funding from Missouri, which could restore many of the 25 targeted routes late summer.

Bray said transit supporters must convince the right people soon to make the appropriation or it won’t happen. “We are desperate,” she said. “We. Are. Desperate.”

The budget problems were years in the making. In the 1980s, the federal government stopped subsidizing operational costs for transit systems. Public attitudes toward Metro soured after 2005, when costs of building the Shrewsbury MetroLink line exceeded budget by $126 million. Sales taxes, which Metro relies on to operate, began to nose dive with the recession. In November, St. Louis County voters rejected a sales tax increase to keep and exand existing service.

The cuts mean Stuart and Dianne Falk, who both have multiple sclerosis, will no longer have a ride to church, to errands or to anywhere. They’ll be confined to a nursing home in Ballwin. “It feels we’re being punished though we’ve committed no crime,” Stuart Falk told the group. “We need to get out. We need to intersect with the community.”

Julia Lucas, who works for the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, said she’s spoken with some students who will no longer have a way to get to classes. “I’ve had students call in tears because they can’t get to school,” she said.