3/7/2019 Should AOC's Public Transportation Choices Matter?

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seen here in a vehicle aſter a campaign event in October, is facing criticism for using cars instead of public transportation. //
Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Should AOC's Public Transportation

Choices Matter?
LAURA BLISS MAR 6, 2019

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has come under fire for using cars instead of the subway.
Some of those critics are right.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ transportation choices are rightly ge ing a ention.

The freshman congresswoman representing Queens and the Bronx was called out by the New York Post
over the weekend for “tripping over her own giant carbon footprint.” The Post detailed her use of rental
cars and ride-hailing services while promoting the Green New Deal, her much-discussed package of
environmental reforms. The piece also reviews her congressional campaign’s spending on transportation
and finds nearly $30,000 spent on vehicle trips, “even though her Queens HQ was a one-minute walk to
the 7 train.”

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The story triggered a good old-fashioned Twi er pile-on, with observers on both the left and right
dinging Ocasio-Cortez for eco-hypocrisy.

“AOC's staffers are presumably taking so many Ubers for the same reason everyone else does: unless
you’re in a very dense, very congested urban core, it’s way more convenient than transit,” tweeted
Megan McArdle, the libertarian-leaning columnist for the Washington Post. “It is, in fact, worth noting
that while AOC is preaching that the world is shortly going to end, her staffers are prioritizing personal
convenience over environmental benefit.”

“It would be be er if AOC was taking the subway especially since she reps NYC,” chimed in Streetsblog
journalist Angie Schmi .

Gawking at high-profile politicians riding public transportation is an old American spectator sport.
People tend to notice it when it happens—when former Mayor Michael Nu er rides SEPTA to the
Phillies game, or President Obama tours the new Minneapolis light rail line, or Beto O’Rourke pedals
around El Paso on his Surly. (OK, bicycling stretches the limits of “transit,” but you catch the drift.)
Joining the straphangers is a classic man-of-the-people move: Like eating, doing yard work, or going to
the supermarket, ge ing around is just about the most normal-looking and thus relatable thing political
figures can appear to do. In a county that’s long elected presidents based on the “beer test,” such
moments of down-to-earthiness are occasions to connect with voters and constituents.

But in a country where less than 5 percent of Americans take public transportation to work, such stunts
may be of diminishing political utility. Especially because, like Cynthia Nixon’s weird-bagel-order
scandal or disturbing revelations about what John Kasich does to pizza, they’re also opportunities to
mess up. When Hillary Clinton fumbled with a stubborn MetroCard on the New York subway during
the 2016 campaign, it served as an unwelcome reminder of just how long she’d been ferried around in
black cars.

But seemingly only in New York City do people yell when politicians screw up by riding transit and by
not riding transit. Mayor Bill de Blasio, frequently harangued for taking his limo to his favorite Park
Slope gym from Gracie Mansion on the regular, seems to be stunningly oblivious about the experience of
riding the subway in 2019. After riding and talking to passengers a bit last week, “what I gleaned is
people really depend on their subways,” the mayor said at a news conference afterwards, as if he’d seen
none of the countless headlines screaming about the system’s increasingly dire state during his term.

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In New York City, where a majority of residents use the scoliotic MTA to get to work, being a leader of
the people means following those commute-paths, at least some of the time. But for Ocasio-Cortez, there
is a nation-sized bone of hypocrisy to pick. The Green New Deal policy resolution she has drafted
alongside other Democratic lawmakers calls for a vast remake of the U.S. economy, in large part through
a massive build of alternatives to fossil-fuel-burning transportation modes, including high-speed rail,
electric cars, and lots of public transit. If she’s opting not to ride in the best-connected transit city in the
U.S., critics say, how can people trust her to lead national transportation policy? Tucked into that
criticism is, perhaps, a legitimate fear: What hope is there for rest of the country to move towards a
greener future if even she would rather take a car?

A few things here are true. One is that many of those Twi er wags are right: AOC should take the
subway as much as she can. Se ing aside the hoary PR benefits, there is no be er way to maintain a
grasp on the needs of her Queens constituents who heavily rely on transit than to continue to take
transit. Likewise, Bill de Blasio should weather the MTA’s inconveniences and frustrations from time to
time.

So should all local leaders, in every city, even if transit’s mode share is tiny. Look at Toledo, Ohio, where
only 2.5 percent of commuters ride to work. Since Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz took office in 2018 he’s
been making a once-weekly bus trip to city hall. It’s half a political stunt, and half a genuine a empt to
grapple with his city’s mobility needs, he told Streetsblog: “It is a big deal for the future of our city that
we get public transportation right. I am doing this to lead by example… I’m not saying me taking the
bus to work once a week is going to solve all our problems.” It won’t, but if Kapszukiewicz gets a sense
of which routes never show up on time, there’s a decent chance it’ll make life a li le easier for Toledoans
who are all too familiar and, maybe, keep that many more cars off the road.

No doubt, the stakes are different for a celebrity-status politician like AOC, who has been the target of
stalker-grade a ention from the conservative media since arriving in D.C.: If she took the train, she’d
draw a swarm of fans, critics, and cameras, making her and everyone else’s journey aboard already-
crowded trains that much more cramped and arduous. The security issues are considerable. And yes, if
AOC took the subway on occasion, she’d be guaranteed to miss a few important meetings. But that
might make her all the more driven to improve transportation for the rest of New York. And her fame is
less of an excuse for transit-avoidance among her staffers.

But, in any event, AOC’s ability to keep step with Queens is a separate issue from her qualifications to
fight for the environment on a national, even global stage. In that context, if her every MTA swipe (or
lack thereof) is interpreted as a brick in the ethical foundation for her climate advocacy, AOC will fail—
because everyone who aspires to live by an environmental ethic 100% of the time fails, too.

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To transform society, after all, you still have to live in it: consume food that has traveled hundreds of
miles, use technology that has huge environmental footprints, and travel aboard a vast network of fossil-
fuel-burning vehicles and aircraft when walking or transit isn’t an option.“Hypocrisy is the gap between
your aspirations and your actions,” George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian in 2008. But the alternative is
cynicism, he explained, not moral purity, because removing oneself from industrialized society would
mean disengaging from the fight for planetary survival.

As an elected official, AOC should try to stand on a higher moral ground than the people she represents.
But to serve those constituents—at home and abroad—she should ride the modes that best serve her
fight.

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