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Yesterday, the Design Trust for Public Space and Parsons held the Redesigning Taxi Cab discussion, and Newsday's Ellis Henican has a funny column about reactions and thoughts. He says that no one "seemed too eager yesterday to sing the praises the industry's current workhorse, Ford's 12-mile-a-gallon Crown Victoria, famous for its sunken seats and stringy legroom," but Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew Daus said, "They're not that horrible. They're selling them on 42nd Street as Matchbox cars." Ha. Daus did emphasize "I feel very strong about the taxi staying yellow," and from Newsday's slideshow of images, it seems like most people agree. But this effort to discuss a redesign sounds lofty Gothamist, as much as we love it, because it seems that the TLC has some bureaucratic problems to deal with. Like auctioning discounted taxi medallions for fuel-efficient cars, but not actually approving fuel-efficient cars for use as cabs, as reported by the NY Times. That is seriously hilarious. Daus claims the TLC does want hybrids, just hybrids with lots of legroom, since passengers complain about legroom most, and not many of them have that much.
One taxi feature Gothamist would like to see: A way to nicely tell the cab driver not to get into fights with other cars, because that's scary.
Image from Antenna Design
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Traffic side doors should remain locked. Passengeres should never be able to step into traffic. That would be excellent.
Traffic side doors should remain locked. Passengers should never be able to step into traffic. That would be excellent.
it would be cool if they had plumbing... so i would never again have to listen to the driver pee into an empty plastic jug while stopped at a traffic light.
The link to the slideshow of images is broken.
--Stephen
problem with door locking comes up in case of an accident or a fire.
it's a metaphor for the technocratic state, in one sense.
Accident/Fire Vs. danger to the passengers and others caused by exiting into traffic. I think the looking at numbers leaving the door locked would be safer. There are a number of technological solutions to unlocking the door in cases of emergency.
certainly. of course, this also assumes that this is economically feasible, or necessary.
we could also just trust people not to be stupid, rather than take overly-complicated steps to prevent people from stepping out into traffic. i know that this is probably the craziest idea of them all, in this day and age of the supernannystate, but i think it's worth a shot.
not to mention the problem of mechanism failure, driver unconsciousness/death, etc. fire v. traffic...i'll take my chances with traffic any day of the week.
The city that has Taxis figured out is London.
* You don't have to pop open a trunk
* their taxis can u-turn in the middle of a block (not that I am suggesting that for most of Manahttan)
* more leg room
The London taxi is the ready made answer to New York's taxi problems, for all the reasons that dhex mentions. Also, the cars get better gas mileage, you can stow your luggage in the back compartment (calling it a seat doesn't do it justice) without using the trunk, there's PLENTY of headroom as well as legroom. The TLC, and others who have a vested interest, have pooh-poohed the idea because of the cost of the vehicles. What they don't tell you is that a properly maintained London cab lasts twice, even thrice as along as the crappy GM and Ford products. So, in the long run, the London cab is a better deal and is certainly better for us the consumers. And isn't that what should really matter in the end?