Last week, Streetsblog NYC's Brad Aaron reported on an advertisement in Metro Newpaper by Subaru calling transit riders "stinking low lifes." The irony of course is that Metro is given out for free in many transit stations across North America.
Via Copenhagenize, comes a television commercial from Portugal that's also something of an insult. In the commercial for Mercedes Smart Cars, we see a lot of the tropes that the car industry is desperately trying to sell to people who don't want to chain themselves to the costs of owning a car. There's a woman pressed up against a Red Line door as she just missed her connection. There's a mariachi band desperately trying to entertain a woman who wants to be left alone. There's a hipster gazing longingly out the window of his bus at a Smart Car while a suited man is loudly eating a hamburger next to him.
Wait a second, did I say "Red Line door?" I did. The makers of this commercial clearly decided to Go Metro! to make their transit hating screed. Reader Erik Griswold, who tipped Streetsblog to the video, fumed rhetorically, "Who approved this self-loathing (manure?)"
But don't worry Angelenos, we don't have to bear the burden of having our beloved Metro system to attack the people who use it. That bus in the second half of the advertisement is from North San Diego County's NCTD.
