Mayor Bill de Blasio offered his take on how the DOT handled the city Council speaker's tweet. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Jill Colvin

NEW YORK CITY — The mayor thinks the Department of Transportation is "stupid" because it gave the council speaker the same advice it would give every other New Yorker.

Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito tweeted a picture Tuesday of a broken traffic light in East Harlem and called on the DOT to fix it.

When the DOT responded that her first action should be to call 311 — advice it would give to any similar inquiry — Mark-Viverito responded angrily.

“I'm sorry...whaaaat??? This a joke? Or an auto response? Or maybe even an intern? Not a response for an elected,” she tweeted — drawing criticism from some who accused her of expecting special treatment.

But Mayor Bill de Blasio threw his support behind the speaker.

“I think they should recognize if… one of the leaders of the city government… is raising an issue that, that obviously demands respect and demands attention,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

“I thought it was stupid.”

The speaker shot back at critics who said she was unhappy being treated like an ordinary citizen.

“Not asking for special treatment at all. Doing my job. Which is to facilitate constituent requests thru agencies,” she tweeted.

At the Wednesday press conference, the mayor said the agency — which he is in charge of — should follow a respectful and diligent response to every New Yorker.

“She should not have had to say what she said,” he said. “I think the response should always be that we’re going to fix the problem right away.

“We want to see anyone raising a concern treated with respect, and we want the turnaround time to be very, very fast.”

He said the moment for DOT was “what we call a teachable moment.”

“I think they’ll get the message. I have not spoken to them. But I think they’ll read what you write and get the message. I think it’s self-evident,” he told reporters.

A spokesman for agency told The New York Times that its response was “standard.” A spokesman for Mark-Viverito’s office said legislation may be considered on how city agencies receive complaints.

The DOT did fix the problem Mark-Viverito reported swiftly.