How to get to “Big Apple Transit” from here.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson spent all 48 minutes of his first State of the City speech talking about helping New Yorkers get around the city they love, and most of it on the crisis in the subways.

Amen. He is absolutely right that without trains that run on time, the city is doomed.

To bolster the case, Johnson produced a smart and detailed report with a sheaf of recommendations for trains and buses and cars and bikes: fix arcane union work rules that drive up costs, plan capital projects better, improve accessibility. The headline idea, which Johnson makes the case for on this page, is for the city to wrest control of the transit system from the state-run Transit Authority. We’re listening carefully. But the key to policy, like to comedy, is timing. Debate on all this can wait until April 1, after the state budget is enacted — because right now, the fate of one of the linchpins of any plan to rescue the subways hangs in the balance.

Congestion pricing, which Johnson calls essential, lives or dies in the next 26 days. Between now and then it should be all hands on deck to boost the mayor and governor and get the Legislature to impose a reasonable fee on vehicles entering Manhattan below 60th St., with the revenues dedicated to transit, paired with a commitment to make the MTA work better. That’s the challenge staring us in the face.

The speaker said that if state lawmakers don’t okay congestion pricing, the Council will. Legally doable? To be determined. In any event, in the here and now, don’t wait. The Council should immediately pass a home rule message to Albany calling for the policy.

That would buck up Assembly and Senate supporters, help convince fence-sitters and put pressure on the holdouts.

Congestion pricing first. If we miss this train, it won’t come around again for years.