What About The Cabbies?

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his environmental strategy with 127 ideas to help the city become greener and more energy efficient. Yet there was one obvious idea that was not included, New York City taxicabs. There are nearly 13,000 of those yellow hunks of steel, rubber and glass zipping through the city and most of them barely get 18 mpg.

Most of the cabs are Crown Vics with crummy mileage ratings, with a few here and there that are slightly more fuel efficient. They traveled a combined 800 million miles last year, so there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to curbing the city's carbon emissions. Some cabbies have complained that the first few hybrid taxis were terrible for the rough and tumble street of Manhattan. Yet when it comes down to it, would you rather keep all the vicious gas guzzlers out there or safer, more efficient hybrids?

In my experience, I would prefer to take the greener route in this case. Not only would hybrids be better for our environment, it might make the streets safer for all of the pedestrians walking around. Being hit by a cab myself last year, the thought of reducing their reckless behavior is a huge plus.

When it comes down to the economics, switching out the fleet is a smart dollars and sense move. On average, a hybrid costs $2,500 more than a current standard Crown Victoria. Yet the savings in gas is about $3,700 dollars. Since all of the cabs out there are generally replaced every three years, we could effect serious change in emissions in a relatively short amount of time. So memo to the Mayor: If you want to start cleaning up the city, why not add taxis to your list of trees, congestion pricing and everything else on there.