Thanks for nothing, speaker

In the course of a six-hour hearing Tuesday, the City Council harangued MTA brass for their failure to fix the subways and their nerve to suggest the city should pony up more funds. “To make it seem that the governor’s being so magnanimous and that this city is rejecting its responsibility, I’m not going to sit here and accept that,” Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito huffed.

No, Mark-Viverito did worse: She as good as snatched $30 million away from the MTA’s parched capital fund, via her habit of empowering individual Council members to nix worthy development projects in their districts.

This time, the agent of destruction is Bronx Councilman Andy King, opposed to the city Economic Development Corp.’s plan to turn a vast empty lot alongside an MTA bus depot in the northeast Bronx into a shopping center and 180 apartments for senior citizens.

The sale would yield the MTA found money while erasing blight, and both Community Board 12 and the Bronx borough president approved Baychester Square. Not King, a former union organizer, who objects to more retail in the area as promoting low-paying jobs, never mind the $15 minimum wage coming soon. (Campaign contributions from a rival mall operation couldn’t have hurt.)

His is just one vote among 51 Council members, all representing a city that rises or stalls with the subways and buses. Surely, some members see the potential of $30 million to ease mass transit’s troubles and house needy seniors in the bargain.

But Mark-Viverito indulges the pernicious local-member veto without limit or second thought. Hence King’s objections forced EDC and the MTA to drop their request for Council approval before a Wednesday vote could take place.

We don’t wish ill on anyone, but may Mark-Viverito and King get stuck on a train together, so they can think about what they’ve done.