CITY HALL — Take the car to the train.
Mayor Bill de Blasio got a ride to Park Slope Thursday morning — hours before hopping on the subway with Sen. Chuck Schumer to call for increased federal spending on transportation infrastructure.
The mayor was driven to Brooklyn by his security detail to work out before the event, which drew criticism because the city has not increased its funding for the subway system over the years, despite the MTA's request for more money.
"News at 11: Politicians leave car, ride subway once," the transportation website Second Avenue Sagas wrote on Twitter. "That says a lot about transit policy issues at city, state & national level."
The event was part of a bipartisan push by elected officials around the country to get Congress to pass a new and increased long-term transportation funding bill this year.
The funding for the federal Highway Trust Fund, which provides money for the subway, expires on May 31.
“The bottom line is we need investment if we expect to have a society that works, if we expect to be able to get around, if we expect to be able to get to work, we need investment from Washington," said de Blasio.
“What we have seen in recent years is investment that has not even been close to meeting the needs of this city and so many other cities around the country."
Service on the subway system has grown noticeably worse. Some 20 percent of trains were late last year, an increase from the year before.
And the number of delays due to broken rails and busted equipment has led straphangers to complain about the delays as ridership skyrockets to record levels.
Average daily subway ridership jumped to 5.5 million in 2013, the highest figure since 1949, according to the MTA's most recent data.
On Monday, a 7 train was trapped under the East River for two hours, stranding hundreds passengers after a mechanical problem created a smoke condition.
“If it’s renewed and not increased, we crawl along at a tortoise's pace and that’s not what highways and mass transit should be like," Schumer said. "Our needs have been growing. Infrastructure is getting older, we need to renew things, we need to build new things."
The push comes as the MTA faces a $15 billion shortfall for its $32 billion capital plan.
The money would go toward the second phase of the Second Avenue subway, installing technology that will allow more trains to run on closer together and replacing antiquated signals and tracks.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls the MTA, has criticized the capital plan as "bloated" as the MTA has called on increased funding from both the city and the state to meet its capital plan goals.
A report from the Independent Budget Office found that if the city's contributions to the MTA had kept pace with inflation they'd be closer to $360 million rather than the approximately $100 million they currently contribute.
The MTA gets about $7 billion from the Highway Trust Fund, including money for the construction of the Second Avenue Subway. Cuomo's budget contributed $750 million to the MTA's capital plan.
John Raskin, executive director of the Riders Alliance, a grassroots subway and bus rider advocacy group, said the federal funding has remained flat since 2009.
"There is no question without increased federal support our system will fall apart," said Raskin." But the city and state government are also not off the hook.
"You can't solve this problem without funding from the city, state and federal governments," he added.
As for the mayor being driven to the subway, Raskin wasn't that concerned.
"The real substantive issue is will Congress reauthorize the Highway Trust Fund," he said. "Today is a nationwide day of action to build momentum for Congress to pass a nationwide transportation funding bill."
