Results tagged “taxicabs”

Yesterday afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg announced that every yellow taxi on the streets of NYC will go green under the hood in five years. His latest implementation of PlaNYC involves using requirements set by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to have cab owners upgrade their hacks to hybrid vehicles so that the entire fleet will be hybrid by 2012. Yahoo! exec Patrick Crane was on hand at City Hall to donate ten of the new hybrid vehicles as part of Yahoo!'s green initiatives, which seemed pretty nice, but proved that purple interiors can be a matter of taste. Council Member David Yassky (Brooklyn) has been hailing this issue for the last five years. We're glad he finally managed to flag it down.

"Our taxicabs will be getting a makeover with graphics that communicate passenger information in a better and more uniform way," Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman Matthew Daus said.

Continue reading "Clarifying Taxi Charges"

The NY Sun reports that doctors believes less people will suffer "craniofacial injuries" during cab accidents because many new cabs, such as the hybrid taxis, don't have the bullet-proof partitions. Drivers of hybrid cabs, especially luxury ones, have been opting for security cameras. Which could mean less business for plastic surgeons, who say that they see some people with "crushed noses, fractured cheekbones and eye sockets, and 'stellate,' or burst lacerations" after accidents.

Update: some late breaking news-- an LIRR train hit a pedestrian in Queens-- all service on the LIRR is shut down between Penn Station and Jamaica, but the subway is "cross-honoring" LIRR tickets.

sends each co-rider an e-mail and an SMS message with the phone number and first name of the other rider so they can connect to share a cab.

Transportation Alternatives is organizing a rally at City Hall tomorrow at 9AM to "urge Mayor Bloomberg to protect the city's growing number of cyclists." In the past few weeks, there have been three bicyclist deaths and one bicyclist injury from cars. From their press release:

Like the Mayors of London, Paris, Chicago and other world class cities that have recently unveiled comprehensive plans to make bicycling safe and a viable mode of everyday travel for all, Mayor Bloomberg must get serious about making New York City a safe place to bike. The City's "Bicycle Master Plan" is ten years old and only 15% complete. It is devoid of targets, timetables and design standards that cities like London and Chicago are using to make streets safe for the growing number of people who cycle and want to cycle.

Continue reading "Tomorrow Morning: Bike Safety Rally at City Hall"

The first, and very possibly best, advice we got when we returned to the Big City after our self-imposed exile to the Midwest was twofold: "Don't take taxicabs and don't pay ATM fees."

Who knew that New York City was a Logan's Run for taxicabs? A lot of people apparently because dealing with "out of date" taxis turns out to be a nice subset of the Taxi business. Since 1996, taxis that are a part of a fleet in New York can be no older than three years old. The catch here is that that age limit is only in New York. In lesser cities like, for instance, Chicago, the age limit for taxis is anywhere from two to four years longer. After their time is up, many cabs are stripped down, reworked and moved on out to other pastures. But what exactly does that mean? In today's City section the Times find out by following a cab on the way out:

Geoff Wolinetz, Freelance Satirist

Scott Lapatine, Stereogum.com

Chris Foster, Bluesman

Buboo Kakati, Filmmaker