Gas-guzzling cars take New York's 'green' mayor to the subway

Let's face it, no one ever bought the pitch that Michael Bloomberg, New York's media-mogul mayor, was really one of the people.

Even so, a newspaper exposé published yesterday into his "commitment" always to ride the New York subway with the rest of us will be a tad embarrassing.

For several weeks, reporters from The New York Times were surreptitiously stationing themselves outside his Upper East Side townhouse, just off Central Park, to spy on the Mayor's early morning routines.

Ever since Mr Bloomberg, who founded the Bloomberg news service and is reportedly worth in the teens of billions, took office, the fiction of his subway riding has held fast. Each day, he would take the Number 6 line all the way down Manhattan to his office in City Hall and ride back again at night. Well, it is sort of true. In reality, he makes the journey roughly twice a week nowadays. But what definitely sets him apart from the crowd is the part that is not on the rails.

According to the Times, two black Chevrolet Suburbans wait each day to pick up the Mayor, for whom walking to the local subway stop would apparently be too much. It could be, of course, that the walk is ruled out for security reasons. But once in the air-conditioning cab of the car, why not linger a while?In other words, they do not take him to the nearest stop, but twenty blocks south to the 59th Street station, across the road from Bloomingdales. It cuts about a third of his commuting time, mostly because at 59th Street he can hop on an express train to City Hall. No local stops for him.

His chief spokesman, Stu Loeser, shrugged off the investigation. "Who is the average Manhattan subway-goer?" he asked the Times when confronted with their findings. "I don't think that's an answerable question."

But you can be sure your regular subway Joe in New York does not drive to his neighbourhood subway stop. Certainly he is not taken to it by chauffeur.

Mr Bloomberg, who enjoys sky-high approval ratings these days, may have set himself up for this kind of media treatment. As he unveiled plans in recent months to slash carbon emissions in New York to help tackle global warming, he has harped on with particular zeal about the need to take mass transit - like himself. However, the hulking Suburbans are about the worst gas guzzlers on the road.

Scrutiny of his habits and his past is going to intensify, moreover, as rumours persist that he may jump into the 2008 presidential derby on an independent ticket. Just last week, stories were being recycled in the press about 10-year-old sexual allegations made against him by female ex-employees of his company. It comes with the territory.

The sexual harassment charges proved little more than a nuisance to him when they first surfaced during his original run for mayor in 2000. Nor is it likely a few economies of truth about how exactly he gets to work every day will be enough to dissuade him from running for the White House.

Still, it could be that this week sees him beneath ground in Manhattan a little more regularly. It's sweaty down there Mr Mayor, but, like you say, we have to save the planet, one mass transit ride at a time.