It’s Not That No One Else Has A Driver More Than It Is That No One Else Goes To The Trouble Of Acting Like They Actually Take The Subway

Not only does a caravan of SUVs follow his subway commute on surface streets but they first actually take him to the subway stop — and not the local stop, either:

He is public transportation’s loudest cheerleader, boasting that he takes the subway “virtually every day.” He has told residents who complain about overcrowded trains to “get real” and he constantly encourages New Yorkers to follow his environmentally friendly example.

But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s commute is not your average straphanger’s ride.

On mornings that he takes the subway from home, Mr. Bloomberg is picked up at his Upper East Side town house by a pair of king-size Chevrolet Suburbans. The mayor is driven 22 blocks to the subway station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he can board an express train to City Hall. His drivers zip past his neighborhood station, a local subway stop a five-minute walk away.

That means Mr. Bloomberg — whose much-discussed subway rides have become an indelible component of his public image — spends a quarter of his ostensibly subterranean commute in an S.U.V.

. . .

The mayor’s chief spokesman, Stu Loeser, was asked in an interview yesterday whether being driven to an express station distanced Mr. Bloomberg from the experience of the average Manhattan subway rider. Mr. Loeser replied, “Who is the average Manhattan subway-goer? I don’t think it’s an answerable question. The mayor rides the subway like anyone else. Zips his card through, stands on the platform, and waits for a train to come.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chuckled when asked how common it is for Manhattan residents to be driven to the subway. “Where would you drive from in Manhattan to a subway station? That would be pretty crazy,” the spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, said. Told of the mayor’s morning routine, he added, “Most people don’t have chauffeurs.”

And most people don’t have reporters from The New York Times watching their travels, as Mr. Bloomberg did for five weeks. Almost every morning, two Suburbans waited outside his East 79th Street town house, sometimes with engines idling and windows up, until their charge was ready to leave. Uniformed police officers and the mayor’s security detail flanked the doorway as Mr. Bloomberg emerged and ducked into one of the waiting vehicles.

As they head to the express subway, they pass two No. 6 local stops, at 77th Street and 68th Street. They pull up to the 59th Street station, across the street from Bloomingdale’s.

And if you’re still thinking “Presidential candidate,” this is way, way better than any $400 haircut.