Once upon a time, the Ford Crown Victoria, painted yellow, dominated the streets of New York City. These gas-guzzling behemoths were the darling of the Taxi & Limousine Commission. With spacious trunks and ample space in the back, the Crown Vic proved popular with drivers and passengers alike, and even today, the familiar body, largely unchanged since 1979, still rolls around the city.
In the mid-2000s, though, the character of the taxi fleet began to change. As part of an effort to reduce carbon emissions while modernizing the fleet, the Taxi & Limousine Commission began urging and then requiring the adoption of hybrid taxis. For model year 2006, for instance, the TLC approved the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner, the Honda Accord, the Honda Civic, the Lexus RX400H, the Toyota Highlander and the Toyota Prius for use among cabbies, and since then, the number of different taxicab makes and models has grown to 16.
The hybrid push was part of a larger effort by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to bring PlaNYC to fruition, but the judiciary had other ideas. On a preemption basis, a judge blocked the hybrid cab requirement, and an appeals court has upheld the decision as well. Instead, the request to move to a hybrid remains voluntary. Still, the city is trying to improve the efficiency of its taxi fleet.
Enter the Taxi of Tomorrow. In late 2009, the TLC pulled out a request for proposal for the next-gen taxicab. As London has done with their iconic cars, so too will New York try to unify its fleet. The main requirements are eight fold:
- Highest safety standards
- Superior passenger experience
- Superior driver comfort and amenities
- Appropriate purchase price and on-going maintenance and repair costs
- Sustainability (minimized environmental impact throughout the vehicle’s life cycle)
- Minimal physical footprint (with more useable interior room)
- Universal accessibility for all users with a goal of meeting ADA guidelines (wheelchair accessible)
- Iconic design that will identify the new taxi with New York City
From an environmental standpoint, sustainability is the key requirement. The TLC should be able to make an endrun around the court’s preemption argument by unifying the fleet and special-ordering a new car. The finalists in the RFP competition will be announced early next year, and the new cars should hit the road by 2014 as part of a three-to-five year replacement effort.
Earlier this week at the Museum of the City of New York, the taxi industry presented some preliminary designs and discussed the impetus behind the project. I couldn’t attend this session, but WNYC’s Kathleen Horan did. She reports on the divergent opinions on the one-car project:
The President of the Metropolitan Taxi Cab Board of Trade, Ron Sherman, also worries that malfunctions could cause headaches if there isn’t more variety. “We feel that there should be at least 2 or 3 choices — that stakes are too high to rely on just one provider to accomplish this.”
Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky says the benefits of working with a single automaker are worth the risks. “Only the city government can act on behalf of the entire industry in getting the best deal possible from the manufacturers. I think that’s worth it.”
He says that no other city has ever tried this, but that the only way to meet all the goals is by being pro-active and not picking from what is already on the market.
Reinventing the wheel certainly carries with it substantial risk, and Sherman’s points are a valid one. If the TLC opts for a custom-made car, it’s going to need to ensure that New York mechanics have the expertise necessary to repair these cars when they inevitably break down. These cars will have to be affordable for the city and taxi medallion owners and will have to be both handicapped-accessible and environmentally friendly. How the city resolves this design debate will have an impact well into the next decade.
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