BIT-TER RIVALRY
Joe chews out DeB over subway eating
What is this, 2013? MTA boss Joe Lhota and Mayor de Blasio renewed their old rivalry Wednesday in a full-blown food fight over a potential ban on eating in the subways.
De Blasio fired off the first salvo when he said New Yorkers have the right to stuff their faces on the trains, like he did when he actually rode the rails.
“From 1979 to 1999, I did not own a car and almost exclusively got around by subway. It would have been in those years inconceivable not to be able to eat on the subway,” de Blasio told reporters during an event in Long Island City.
“I don’t think it’s fair to people to say you can’t eat on the subway,” added de Blasio, who is usually ferried to his Park Slope gym from Gracie Mansion and other locales by a taxpayer-funded, copdriven SUV.
Lhota — who went toe-to-toe with de Blasio in a losing bid for City Hall in 2013 — opened the door to a possible food ban Tuesday following a trash-fueled track fire in Harlem that caused chaos for commuters.
The newly minted MTA head, who previously led the agency before taking on de Blasio in the mayoral race, called Hizzoner’s comments “incendiary” and said the NYPD needs to step up its enforcement of litterbug straphangers.
“I’m in charge with trying to find ways to make the subway system more efficient, faster, cleaner and more responsive. You would think the mayor would be supportive in those efforts,” Lhota told The Post.
“It’s nice to hear from the mayor, but it doesn’t help to be so incendiary in his advice . . . everyone has a right to be on a clean subway,” Lhota said.
He said the idea that subway rid- ers have a right to eat underground is “an absurd thought.” He added that de Blasio’s police force could do more to stop people from throwing garbage on the tracks. “People throwing food and garbage on the tracks is a violation,” Lhota said. “It would be very, very helpful if they enforce the laws.” De Blasio conceded that track fires are “a real concern,” but instead of preventing hungry riders from chowing down, “We’ve got to think about both education and maybe a different kind of enforcement to get people to stop throwing their trash on the tracks.” He added, “I talked to Joe Lhota about this.”
“I think in a lot of ways we need to encourage people to not be sloppy when they’re on the subway, but I can’t imagine personally the idea of people not being allowed to eat on the subway in a place as busy as this,” de Blasio said.
Lhota countered it’s illegal to eat in subways in cities such as San Francisco and Washington, DC.
“This is not a unique thing,” Lhota said. “When people eat food or throw food on the subways, all it does is feed the rats.”
He found the mayor’s comments ironic considering the city’s new $32 million plan to battle rats in the Big Apple’s most rodent-infested neighborhoods.
“The mayor wants to spend a fortune in eradicating rats,” Lhota said.
When pressed for details of a potential food ban, Lhota couldn’t give specifics, but said: “I want to be able to make sure that someone who is a diabetic is eating what’s necessary . . . People who come on board with full trays of food — it needs to stop. You have to be smart about this.”