Future Taxis May Take Metrocards and More

Last week we learned that all New York taxis will soon be held to higher fuel efficiency standards; starting next October new cabs must get at least 25 miles per gallon. But the cab changes don’t stop there – in addition to upcoming GPS and touch-screen video technology, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is considering selling an unlimited card for cab riders, which may feature “fare integration” with buses and subways. Over half the city’s 13,000+ cabs are equipped with credit card readers; the TLC expects all of them to take your plastic by spring ’08 – and Metrocards are being proposed as a next step.

The proposal is part of a 163 page report produced by the non-profit Design Trust for Public Space, in a partnership with the TLC. The study also suggests “ride-share fares” for commuters headed the same way; customers would get a 25% discount for sharing. Kick off your shoes and curl up with the whole PDF document – part of the report is dedicated to a comic book style “day in the life” of a cab driver.

Other proposals from the Trust include:

Ripping out the old cab upholstery, which contains PBDE, a toxic flame retardant, and leaving the back seat bare like the subway seats.
Identify low-demand bus routes and replace them with an MTA-integrated taxi service; identify popular subway stations underserved by taxes, especially during off hours.
Drivers should be able to work a nine-hour shift and earn, on average, an amount equivalent to the state minimum wage, when all expenses are taken into account. (Most drivers currently work 12 hour shifts and many cough up $1,500 a month in finance payments on their taxi medallion, which, because of high demand, is currently valued at half a million dollars.)
Meet the high demand for cabs during rush hour and storms by selling “peak time” medallions that would only be usable for a limited part of the day and not overwhelm the market at other times.

The end of the report also includes some survey results, which reveal that while most people take cabs because they’re in a rush, a peculiar 4% do so because they “want some private time”! And at yesterday’s press conference announcing the report, TLC commissioner Matt Daus’s boast that taxis will “continue to improve for the next 100 years,” was met with derision by Jean Ryan of the Taxis for All wheelchair-accessibility campaign, who screamed “We can’t wait 100 more years! We can’t get a cab now!”

Peruse some slick graphics about New Yorkers' taxi proclivities and other fun facts that came to light during the study, after the jump. (Top photo of a demo “Standard” taxi by Michael DiVito on display last spring at the Javits Center.)

Here are just a few of the factoids the thorough Trust for Public Space report came up with:

85 percent of taxi rides never leave Manhattan.
The average taxi ride is 3.7 miles in length and 13 minutes in duration.
Riders take more than 170 million taxi trips per year.
52% of taxi riders are female.
25% of taxi riders earn less than $25,000 a year, another 25% makes $150,000. The average taxi commuter’s salary is 85K.
Soon the TLC will be able to transmit messages like lost property alerts to all taxis using short messaging service devices.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on December 19, 2007 5:01 PM

Comments [rss]

John Del Signore

@ Steven: Thanks for your diligent commitment to accuracy! But I welcome you to peruse the 163 page report yourself, linked in the post above. Therein it is reported that, according to the 2000 Census, "52 percent of all taxi users are female."

Steven

in the timeout NY article it says 60% of taxi riders are females NOT 52%.

(4) Sixty percent of all taxi riders are female. One quarter of all taxi riders report an annual income of $150,000 or more; another quarter earn less than $25,000 per year.

nivek

More like "I got intimidated by the map because I'm a dumbass".

Dave Hogarty

I think what that last panel of the cartoon graphic is actually saying is "I thought I might take the subway on my trip to New York, but I became intimidated by the map all of your foreigners and ethnic types."

jenon

Cab time is definitely cherished alone time. I love riding in the back of a cab on a rainy night all the way down an empty Amsterdam Ave.

JMH

I don't buy for a second that it isn't very profitable to operate a taxi if people are willing to pay half a mil (or the equivalent in finance payments) for a medallion.

Snoopy

Sorry to say but what cab driver in his right mind would pull up to a handicapped person, especially in a wheel chair, on a cold rainy day and get out of his warm dry seat to unfold a ramp so the individual can get on board and then again at the passenger's destination do the same? Since when did mother Theresa start a cab company? That kind of service unfortunately is covered by car services. I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice if that service ramp would miraculously appear out of the bowels of your normal cab, but I doubt it will be in the forseeable future. Perhaps someone should refinance the Checker Cab company and see what they can do.

matty

whoa. i just saw the SUPER TERRIFFIC MAPS btw!

matty

sadly i'm with snoopy. things don't come out of radical ideas. what will probably happen is the cabs will upgrade their fleet to a new better gas milage caprice or crown vic and they might, MIGHT accept metrocards, but that sounds extremely doubtful.

samsamsam

The last time I took a cab, the driver tried to refuse my credit card payment because he "didn't get the money, it's not my cab." - Now they'll all start saying they're leasing the medallion by the hour to avoid the finance charge.

Snoopy

Same old crap that they were doing 40 years ago. MOMA had an exhibit of new taxi concepts I believe sometime in the early seventies. Did anything come from that? Nope. Same shit with newstands and bus stands and public toilets. Same old, same old. The people that generate these design exercises do not know the difference between rubber thumbs and a hammer.