Bloomberg: Not many panhandlers on subways

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday that "there aren't very many panhandlers left" in the subways, a remark that flabbergasted many straphangers who beg to differ.

"What train is [Bloomberg] riding?" said Gerard Madriaga, 32, of Queens. "It's everywhere you go, always a panhandler."

Political observers and some New Yorkers said Bloomberg's comments are the latest example of a mayor out of touch with the lives of regular New Yorkers.

While officials couldn't say definitively whether begging for change on the trains is on the decline, Ronald Stewart, 48, of Brooklyn, insists he's seeing more subway panhandling.

"It's many more. It's sad," said Stewart, who said his morning commute on the A train yesterday included two panhandlers.

Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, said when Bloomberg rides the subway, he is accompanied by a security detail, which shields him from such annoyances.

At an unrelated news conference yesterday, Bloomberg shared his view on panhandling when a reporter asked about the subways and mentioned the "occasional panhandler."

Bloomberg responded by saying there weren't many left, adding that the reporter's question was a "cheap shot at an agency that's worked very hard to fix that."

The MTA declined to comment yesterday.

The mayor has been a regular straphanger for 45 years, his spokesman said.

A city survey on homelessness conducted Jan. 31 found 1,275 homeless people in the subway, an 18 percent increase in "unsheltered" people there compared to 2010.

Suggesting that there aren't many panhandlers in the subways probably wouldn't jibe with what riders regularly see, said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.

But the problem has improved since the 1980s, Russianoff added, when the trains were akin to "a hotel."

Mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser wrote in an email that much has been accomplished by the city, "even if there is always more to do."

With Marc Beja