Oh Well Whatever Nevermind

So when Bloomberg takes the subway, it’s not really about reducing congestion, saving time or fighting pollution — in that respect, it’s sort of like how congestion pricing really isn’t about the environment either:

Mayor Bloomberg took the subway yesterday to a news conference about a new green-car initiative — but he also brought along his SUV.

After his small, fuel-guzzling motorcade arrived at the Museum of Natural History on West 79th Street to join a Hertz Corp. announcement about adding 3,400 hybrid cars to its fleet, the mayor insisted he and his aides had driven only a short distance.

“We drove here from [the] 86th Street [station],” Bloomberg said, pointing out that he wasn’t inside the SUV that took the trip from City Hall, but instead had hopped on the subway.

That raised the question: If the mayor rides the subway uptown but is met by an SUV driven from City Hall — with or without him in it — where’s the carbon-emission savings?

An aide later explained that the NYPD tails Bloomberg wherever he goes and has his specially equipped SUV at the ready in case of emergency. Also, Bloomberg’s SUV is equipped with “flex-fuel” tanks and runs on a mixture of ethanol and gasoline, the aide said.