Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended his controversial policing surge in New York buses and subways again Tuesday, despite the outrage over the arrest of a churro vendor and the ticketing of a city artist.

Speaking to reporters after passing out turkeys on Long Island, Cuomo said the state-run MTA’s move to add 500 police officers to its in-house police force was necessary to combat increasing numbers of hate crimes, misdemeanors and attacks on transit workers.

The decision will cost the cash-strapped agency as much as $1 billion over the next decade, budget watchdogs say.

“Let’s get back to a little common sense in all this political hysteria,” Cuomo told reporters. “The MTA has to do two things, operate the trains and the buses and they have to operate on time and they have to be safe.”

Cuomo and the MTA have faced a barrage of criticism in recent weeks over a series of high-profile, caught-on-tape arrests.

In one video, an officer sent riders scrambling after entering a train at Brooklyn’s Franklin Avenue and Eastern Parkway station with his gun drawn while looking for a suspect.

Another video documenting a churro vendor’s arrest at Brooklyn’s Broadway Junction Station has over 2.8 million views since being posted on Nov. 9.

On Friday, some 200 protesters flooded the streets of Upper Manhattan chanting “f—k the police” and “fare-free NYC.”

Previously, Cuomo attempted to justify the extra police by saying that crime is up in the subways.

NYPD statistics show that misdemeanors in the subway are up 23 percent year-to-year, while felony crimes have dropped 3 percent.

Cuomo insisted the public’s anger was not over his push for more cops, but rather “the relationship between the police and the community.”

“I haven’t seen this type of anger at the police in many, many years,” he said, adding that the public’s anger over the videos must be “discussed” and “resolved.”

“The victims of crimes proportionately tend to be lower-income, tend to more minority,” Cuomo said. “They are the victims of crimes, so of course we need police and we need to be safe.”