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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person under a train at East Fordham Rd. and Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, a shooting on Henry and West 9th Sts. in Brooklyn, and a homicide on Roosevelt Ave. in Queens. New Yorkers found guilty of repeated incidents of ignoring recycling laws may be required to throw out their trash in see-through bags for easy inspection. Ads soliciting the perfect ass might not make it onto city......

The New York Times recently dispatched no fewer than five reporters to the streets of the city in order to uncover the latest piece of breaking news: cab drivers can be rude and will attempt to take financial advantage of you if given the opportunity. The investigation uncovered a citywide fleet of yellow taxis in which just over half are compliant in installing credit card readers, and many that did have them falsely told passengers......

The Taxi and Limousine Commission has made it official: Cabs purchased after October 1, 2008 must get at least 25 miles per gallon. Then, after fall of 2009, newly purchased cabs must get at least 30 miles per gallon. As the AP puts it, this means "taxi fleet owners, who must replace their cabs every three to five years, will probably be forced to buy fuel-efficient hybrids, which run partly on electricity." The Taxicab Board......

It's good to see that not all New Yorkers are out to run wheelchair riders off the road. The Taxi and Limousine Commission voted this week to create a new special service that will allow wheelchair users to order cabs by calling 311. While some advocacy groups oppose the new program, arguing instead that all taxis should be handicap accessible (like they are in cities like London), others are lauding the move. The service will......

News that the same man may have raped women he stalked outside the downtown club The Box is alarming New Yorkers who regularly hang out on the Lower East Side. The police released a sketch of the suspect, a white man between the ages of 25 and 40, up to 200 pounds, and taller than 5'8". In the first incident, which occurred on September 30, the suspect grabbed a woman from behind and "made her......

Taxi workers held another strike starting at 5AM this morning over demands to remove the new GPS systems, for there to be a healthcare and retirement pension fund, and union recognition. However, it's unclear how many of the tens of thousands of taxi drivers actually struck. The Metro Taxi Cab Board of Trade says that 95% of the 13,000 taxi fleet was on the streets and the Office of Emergency Management did not notice......

A federal U.S. district judge decided not to block the City of New York from requiring the installation of GPS and credit card equipment in taxis. The Taxi Workers Alliance went to the courts after a strike by its members earlier this month had a less than dramatic impact and failed to sway public and political opinions. Some drivers are opposed to the installation of the equipment because they say GPS tracking invades their privacy......

Reader Ben sent us this picture of a cab on fire at West 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. This is odd, but made odder by the fact there was a taxi fire outside Rockefeller Center on West 50th on Tuesday. What's going on with the Crown Victorias? It's unclear if anyone was injured. If anyone knows, can you tell us if taxi fires are fairly normal? Or car fires, for that matter. And a......

Here we are - day two of the taxi strike by a group of taxi drivers upset with the changes that the Taxi and Limousine Commission has enacted. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which organized the strike, claimed that 90% of all drivers were on strike yesterday, but Mayor Bloomberg contradicted that claim, saying the strike had a "limited impact, if at all." To combat the strike, the city has added buses and......

Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city was prepared for the possible two-day taxi strike that some taxi driver groups have threatened for tomorrow morning, starting at 5AM. About 7,000 of the city's 44,000 taxi drivers (there are about 13,000 cabs in total) have reportedly promised to strike over new technology that the Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to install in all cabs. Some drivers' issues with the technology, which includes GPS tracking systems and......

If you rely on taxis, you may want to adjust your transportation plans: The Taxi Workers Alliance says that drivers it represents will strike on September 5 and 6 to protest the Taxi and Limousine Commission's decision to add GPS systems to all yellow cabs. But then the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, another advocacy group, said that there would be no strike (with spokesman Fernando Mateo saying, "Read my lips: There......

Photographs of frustrated subway riders by md76 on Flickr While this morning's commute seems better, most mass transit riders are still confused, frustrated and even betrayed by the subway system and other rail service coming to a stand still during the Wednesday morning rush hour. The MTA admitted that the service was not acceptable on many accounts, from the flooding to the fact that the MTA's website was overwhelmed. Then there's also the fact......

The NY Taxi Workers Alliance says that its drivers will strike in September over GPS tracking systems will be coming to taxis starting in October. The city has said GPS systems will help passengers retrieve lost items (even if they don't have receipts or medallion numbers) because the Taxi and Limousine Commission will be able to find the taxi that dropped them off at a certain location. But taxi drivers worry that GPS will be......

After the success of our Gothamist-A Hamburger Today QBQ BBQ last year (that's quality before quantity), we've decided to team up with Serious Eats/A Hamburger Today for another burger event at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City. At last year's event, Chef Harry Hawk served up four regional burgers from around the nation. This year, you get to choose what burgers are served, with the top three vote-getters across Gothamist, Serious Eats, and......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

They might lack the plush interiors with overstuffed seats and satellite television, but a NYC taxi may be the most expensive ride you'll ever sit in. A Pakistani man who'd owned a cab for 25 years recently auctioned its medallion off and the winning bid came in at $600,000. The medallion was originally purchased in 1981 for $30,000. That's almost a 13% annual return on the owner's investment, which isn't outrageous, but pretty darn good......

Yesterday in Bed-Stuy, the NYPD arrested a man accused of robbing eight cabbies in a two week period. Earl Evans, whose driver's license said he was from Nashville, is described as a "hulking country bumpkin" by the Daily News. For good reason too - his license said he's 6-foot-3 and 320 pounds. As if his size wasn't intimidating for the cab drivers he robbed, he also had a very realistic looking 9mm Glock. Evans would......

A bicyclist and three pedestrians were injured as a man driving a stolen van jumped a curb in an attempt to escape the police. The incident occurred on Eighth Street, as the police - driving one of those undercover patrol cars that look like taxis - were pursuing the van up University Place. The driver "made a hard right onto Eighth," according to the Post, which also has pictures. That "hard right" the van made......

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......

New York City could be considered the Big Green Apple for the rest of the week. Bill Clinton and Mayor Bloomberg are hosting an international climate summit this week, beginning today and running through Thursday. And as part of other environmentally friendly festivities, Matt Dillon was on hand for the issuance of a challenge from Yahoo! to see which U.S. city was the most green. The winning city, that will be announced following the......

Come October, your experience in the backseat of a taxi could be a little more high-tech. The Taxi & Limousine Commission unanimously approved touch-screen "passenger information monitors" for all 13,000 yellow cabs on the streets. In addition to showing information, entertainment, and advertising, these monitors will show a map of the taxi's current location using GPS. The new systems would also accept credit card payments. Some cab drivers expressed their opposition to the systems,......

Earlier this week we wrote about Taxi '07, the weeklong celebration commemorating the 100th birthday of the taxi. In addition to taxi-themed movies, the Empire State Building illuminated taxi yellow, and future taxis at the New York International Auto Show, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is unveiling new door-side graphics that will become standard on all NYC yellow cabs. "Our taxicabs will be getting a makeover with graphics that communicate passenger information in a better......

Car makers are flocking to the city with the New York International Auto Show opening this weekend (media previews start tomorrow) at the Javits Convention Center, and there's one particularly NYC-focused exhibit: Taxi '07. In honor of the taxi's 100th birthday, the Design Trust for Public Space has corralled many taxis "transformed" for the future to be displayed outdoors in an inner roadway at the Javits Center. There's “The World’s Fastest Taxi" (a hydrogen-powered......

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. Now, we......

New York magazine has an extensive New York vs. London features package. Apparently, now is the time to wonder which city is better, although the International Olympics Committee decided that almost two years ago. There are immediately controversial stories like where is the sex better, where real estate obsession is greatest, which lit scene is more stuck up and who is having more fun. There is an obligatory London sucks essay, but regarding which......

Hybrid taxis are more and more common these days, but one hybrid model is represented by just two taxis. It's the Lexus RX400H, and Samuel Pekoh and Cliff Hammon-Adler are the only hacks with them. Even though the cars cost $46,000-52,000 each, Pekoh tells the NY Sun that his gas costs have dropped $45 to $20 daily. (Still, insurance is more expensive on the hybrid.) The cars come with DVD navigation systems and sun......

After Monday's mercaptany-smell attack on our noses, various city officials tried to reassure New Yorkers that the odor, however disgusting, was completely harmless. That conclusion was based on various tests conducted as well as the chemical detection systems at different locations. Above is a photograph of one sensor at Penn Station (yes, that's what the thing is!). The MTA says, "We do have very good, sophisticated devices in place" to detect biological agents. Apparently......

The days of the checkered cab are long gone. Last month, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) announced its vision of the future: a high-tech fleet of taxis that will include touch-screen monitors, text-messaging capability, and a global positioning system. On Thursday, the City Council discussed the details of a plan that would make this vision a reality for the city’s 13,000 taxis, inciting protest from taxi drivers who claim these e-amenities would decrease profits......

If you see a cab with horns and fake brown-and-white fur, hail it! The Professional Bull Riders are offering free rides in special "bull taxis" to promote their invitational at Madison Square Garden this weekend. The Versus Invitational will showcase the "world's top 45 bull riders will clash against the best bulls in the industry," according the PBR website. All right, but those bull taxis are sort of awesome. There are five bull taxis......