Ford Taurus gear shift sticks in park?

I have a '99 Ford Taurus SE. Sometimes the gear shift will get stuck in Park and will not come out of park into gear until after a lot of jiggling of the gear shift, mashing of the brakes, and lots of frustration. This doesn't happen every day, but it has been happening for months. I didn't think a whole lot about it at first because I thought it was maybe my brakes going bad (this is a "special" car anyway, as something has to be replaced about every three months). One time this happened and my brake lines burst, so I thought it was just something wrong with the brakes not triggering something.

Anyway, since my brake lines have been replaced, it's been happening more and more. A week or so ago, it got so stuck I had to restart the car twice and I thought I was going to break something in the column from pulling on the gear shift as hard as I did, but I finally got it out of park.

I've spent nearly a week researching what could be causing this problem. And a lot of answers have said that it is the brake light fuse gone bad. And if that is the case, the brake lights will not work. This is not my problem, being as how my brake ligths DO work. Does anyone have any idea as to what could be causing this problem?

(Please, serious answers only and none of that "it's a Ford, what do you expect?" jazz).

Brake switch problem. Problem in the column. Or shift cable. Find local shop at ATRA.COM for more help to verify

Dumb question here, but do you park on a hill? If so, try setting parking brake, THEN shift into park. Weight of car may be resting on Park pin in transaxle.

Bring it to the shop.