What do you do if you're a politician heading to a news conference where you intend to tell citizens to leave their cars at home– and your staff car is a Lincoln Navigator? That was the dilemma facing Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. The Metro (subway) couldn't get him there on time. Riding his bicycle would make him sweaty. Taking one of the city's fleet hybrids would look too contrived. So Mayor Fenty did what shocked a lot of people: he took the bus, minus his security detail. Hizzhonor stated to the Washington Post, "You don't need a car to get around. That's what makes us different than the suburbs." After the conference, he took the subway back to his office. Then he hopped into his personal Ford Expedition to drive across town to a pair of meetings.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait…. a Weird Al reference on TTAC? This is now my favorite website evar. Also, I wonder if anyone is ever impressed by these political stunts, or does the truth, when it comes out, always makes the politician look worse as a result of their attempted deception?
Do what I say, not what I do. Politician motto if there ever was one…
Must not be a good politician if he couldn’t afford the Lincoln Navigator version.
“You don’t need a car to get around. That’s what makes us different than the suburbs.”
Because nobody needs to go to the suburbs, ever, because nobody lives there.
What surprisd me the most was that the other politician mentioned in the article, council member Tommy Wells looks like he’s actually the real deal, at least enviormentally speaking.
He rides his bike to work everyday, and he was already on the bus when he found out that the mayor was going to take the bus too, so he hopped off and waited for the mayor’s bus so he could ride with him.
Which means that Wells taking the bus wasn’t a publicity stunt, it’s just the way that he was planning on getting there anyways. Good for him.
cgraham:
Isn’t the solution obvious? If you live in the suburbs, you should drive you Prius to the outskirts of the city, pay $15 to park (roughly, I am from the country, so I wouldn’t know), then hop on the bus or the train.
See? being an environmentalist is easy! Just take whatever makes sense..then do the opposite. Oh yes, and don’t forget to act snooty when you are doing it, or you have totally missed the point.
A Cannondale as a tri-bike?
Ryan,
I also live in the country and think that public transportation is a great thing, a wonderful thing…of course you have to actually live IN a city to use it.
I love that my tax dollars go to subsidize the TTC so that people in TO can ride the bus or subway and help save the environment. I am only midly bitter about that. What I AM bitter about though, is that my current employer has a bus system in place that will pick up people in the neighbouring towns and bring them to work, both to reduce traffic on site and to make it safer for people to get to work in the winter. Bus passes cost something like $40 and it costs something like $1/ride, so one ticket lasts 20 days. My employer has been doing this for years (10+), but last year Revenue Canada stepped up and said that, since my employer was subsidizing the price of the tickets, the difference between the actual price and the $40 was taxable income. They came up with some insane number (over $200 I think, but maybe it was $400) for what each ticket should cost. To some people it ended up being an extra two or three thousand dollars of taxable income a year, pushing some into higher tax brakets.
So that is what makes it different than being in the suburbs.
Parking at satellite DC Metro train station lots is actually pretty affordable.
For example, I used to live right near the Forest Glen metro station (Right near the DC beltway in Silver Spring, MD) and parking there is just $45 a month.
Of all the cities and suburbs I have lived in over the years Savannah and NYC were the only cities I didn’t have to go 2 miles to find any form of public transportation. I never used Savannah’s because the bus only operated in the worste parts of the city and typically stopped EVERY BLOCK. Who has the time to spend traveling 90 minutes on a bus to get to the mall 5 miles away and then 90-120 to get back.
The funny thing is I am all for public transport just not this mess that only works for 1% of the population.
I’m from DC and a mayor that is merely dishonest and not a sociopath crack addict is progress.
BTW, missing here is that he is sort of correct. The Metro and buses are pretty good. Maybe not car replacements, but most people can get to and from work easily.
RyanK02:
I don’t know about other cities, but here in Dallas, the Park part of a Park & Ride is free. And, if your city chose to be forward thinking & participate in DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) with part of their sales tax you may not even have to drive very far.