It's a Big Wheel.
It's a Segway.
It's a subway scooter cop!
Law enforcement in the subways has taken a cartoonish turn with transit police increasingly tooling around on three-wheeled standup scooters.
The NYPD transit bureau now has 29 of the electric-powered T3 transports for use by officers sworn to battle crime underground.
The T3 can reach 25 mph, about double the average top speed for an adult. But only the sorriest subway purse snatcher could be chased down, with so many stairwells around.
The T3 would descend steps as smoothly as a box turtle. That's a small woodland creature with a shell, a head the size of a cherry tomato and the dexterity of a toaster oven.
"We take the elevator," a scooter officer at the Times Square station said.
Crowds and low ceilings in stations also can pose challenges. The officer stands on a small platform between the wheels 9 inches above the floor.
It was slow going a couple of weeks ago for one officer spotted in a long walkway linking the A, C and E trains at 42nd St./Eighth Ave. with the Times Square complex to the east. He had to lower his head to avoid banging his noggin against the bulky pipes that run along the ceiling.
Hugging one of the walls, the officer traveled slowly, moving in fits and starts, struggling against the tide of riders walking briskly toward him in the opposite direction.
He was like a lone salmon heading upstream wearing a bicycle helmet.
Two officers on scooters are regularly posted near the shuttle terminal at Times Square, a relatively small but teeming mezzanine bordered by stairwells and small sets of steps.
"In the subway, it's a little ridiculous," Jaclyn Shea, 30, of Brooklyn said of the scooter patrol. "I saw it, and I said to myself, 'What?' It's a Segway in the subway."
Kenneth Reeves, 52, a chef from Queens, questioned the wisdom of amassing such a formidable fleet of nearly 30 scooters for the transit bureau.
"You would think there are more important things they could spend the money on," he said.
The NYPD issued a statement saying the T3s are "suitable for patrolling large transit hubs such as Times Square and Grand Central. From a standing position, the officer can see and be seen easily from a distance. In addition to providing greater police officer visibility, officers on T3s cover greater distances more quickly than by foot."
The NYPD didn't answer questions about the cost of the scooters.
They are hard to miss, which could have benefits.
"A criminal who was going to do something might stop and alter his mind," Reeves said. Or just take the stairs.
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