Joe Biden’s criticism of LaGuardia Airport to illustrate the sorry state of US transportation infrastructure got a lot of attention here. In a speech last week at 30th Street Station in Philly, Biden said LaGuardia has the look and feel of an airport you’d find in a third-world country. That same assessment (almost word-for-word) was made by Donald Trump more than three years ago during one of his flirtations with a presidential bid.

I’ve worked at LaGuardia now for more than 16 years. The airport’s Central Terminal Building is decaying unabated inside and out. To those who have used LaGuardia in the last 25 years, Biden was stating the blatantly obvious. The New York City airport favored by business travelers is a hard-to-fathom misrepresentation of the architectural and innovative splendor so wonderfully crammed into the metropolis it serves. What a lousy first impression LaGuardia gives to the ten of millions of visitors who make the trip here annually.

I walked out of work last Friday past a scrum of local television reporters seeking reaction to the Biden comments. Passengers on the news that night basically said Duh. Yup. It’s a serous dump. It has been forever.

That same day, our new mayor Big Bill got indignant when asked about Blunt Joe’s quip. Said DeBlaz: “I respect the vice president but I think his comments were inappropriate. LaGuardia, obviously, needs an upgrade. But that being said, the airport manages an extraordinary amount of traffic, and the people who work there make it work under very difficult circumstances and so as a proud New Yorker, I didn’t like that comment and I think it was not the right way to talk about it.”

Aw, Bill. Why not be like the veep and tell it like it is.

Next Wednesday, the Port Authority Board of Commissioners is expected to approve a ten-year capital spending blueprint that includes a commitment to advance a $3.6 billion plan to replace the Central Terminal Building at LaGuardia beyond the thumb-twiddling stage. Assuming it meets deadlines and gains necessary funding to resolve inevitable cost overruns, the project would create a glistening, new 35-gate main terminal by late 2021.

As mayor, DeBlasio (who is constantly invoking the name of Fiorello LaGuardia as a political role model) has zero responsibility for the fitness of the two commercial airports within city limits. The badly dysfunctional Port Authority owns that domain. But DeBlasio’s frowning response to Biden suggests he doesn’t give a whit about what a shithole one the city’s main gateways has become and will continue to be until the big guy is long gone out of office. That’s a bummer. He should care more.

-The Post is using bland AP wire copy to cover the Winter Olympics. Newsday didn‘t bother making the trip either. It’s quite a contrast to the approach taken by the Times and Daily News. Outside of NBC – and maybe Yahoo – the Times has to have this country’s biggest brigade of reporters and photographers in Sochi. It’s consistent with that paper’s tradition of serious Olympics coverage. What a treat it has been to read the great John Branch write about snowboarding. He helps you understand the sport and then later enjoy it when NBC shows you the tape-delayed routines. As mentioned here many times over the years, my favorite scribe on the Olympics beat (he also gravitates to World Cup soccer and major tennis tournaments) is Fil Bondy of the News. Not only is his event coverage unique, fresh, cynical and funny, his separate “diary” entries in the paper every morning are alone worth the per copy newsstand price. He’s always finding some kind of misadventure on the road – and it’s often tied to his adherence to a vegetarian diet. Bondy announced in the diary a few days ago that this would be his last Winter Olympics. He said the 2018 winter games in Pyeongchang will start just one day after he officially retires from the News.