Not Riding on the Metro, nor walking, in LA

By Yukon: Instead, the mayor is usually driven around the city by a Los Angeles police officer. (Gary Friedman / LAT)

From the LA Times article, "Mayor rides the SUV, not the MTA: Villaraigosa promotes the use of public transit, but he doesn't spend much time on the city's bus and subway system":

From the moment he took office nearly 18 months ago, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made traffic gridlock a cause celebre — exhorting Angelenos to help solve the problem by forsaking their cars whenever possible.

"You've got to use public transit," Villaraigosa said just last week while unveiling an automated signal system to help unclog busy intersections. "You can't keep on pointing to someone else and saying it's their responsibility."

But Villaraigosa's own travel habits don't match his public pronouncements.

The mayor rarely, if ever, takes the bus or the train to work. Instead, he rides around town in a GMC Yukon chauffeured by a Los Angeles police officer who doubles as a bodyguard.

Unlike many others in Los Angeles, Villaraigosa has easy access to public transportation. He lives just one block from Wilshire Boulevard, one of the city's most accessible and heavily traveled public transit corridors and one where, he often says, he would like to extend the subway.

Speaking of Mayors and transit, go Mayor Bloomberg!
Newsday photo. Mayor Bloomberg on the subway.

Speaking of Los Angeles, yesterday, the WMATA system named James Catoe, of the LA transit system, the new president. See "Metro Picks L.A. Official, D.C. Native As Manager." I was a little disconcerted that while the DC region, much smaller than LA, has more subway riders by comparison, LA outspans the DC region for bus usage (although I do wonder what the total ridership is of the County- and City-based bus systems in the region that complement the WMATA services).
Washington Post graphic.

Index Keywords: transit