The Checker cab is gone, fading from view in 1999 after more than 75 years in the city and a starring role alongside Robert De Niro in “Taxi Driver.” The Ford Crown Victoria, once the spacious stalwart of the fleet, will soon follow, though many stragglers remain.
And the Bloomberg administration’s anointed successor — the boxy but lush “Taxi of Tomorrow,” a Nissan NV200 — was halted on Tuesday by a State Supreme Court judge, who ruled that the city had exceeded its authority by compelling owners to buy the model in a bid to create a near-uniform fleet.
Now, for a city accustomed to slipping into the back seat of a signature cab — they have been rickety, perhaps, but always memorable — the fate of tomorrow’s taxis has become exceedingly muddled.
“For the first time in recent memory, most taxi owners and operators are confused as to what the new fleet is going to look like,” said Michael Woloz, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represents the operators of more than 5,000 yellow taxis. “There’s no car that I’m aware of that is positioned to take the reins as a dominant taxi.”
Maintaining the status quo appears unlikely. The most common cars in the current fleet, according to data from the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, are the Crown Victoria and a hybrid version of the roomy Ford Escape. Ford has said that both vehicles, which account for about 8,000 of the city’s more than 13,000 cabs, will no longer be manufactured.
But an analysis of recent industry data offers hints at what the streets might look like in the years to come. Since June 1, according to taxi commission records, a combination of smaller and relatively inexpensive hybrids, like the Camry and the Prius, both from Toyota, have made up more than 80 percent of the roughly 1,100 new taxis to enter the fleet.
“I don’t know how it feels in the back seat,” Richard Wissak, the vice president of 55 Stan Operating Corporation, a yellow cab company in Queens, said of the hybrids. “It doesn’t feel as good as the Crown Vic, or what this Nissan was supposed to be like.”
For better or worse, Mr. Wissak added, the Nissan resembled “a soccer mom’s car.”
The city has promoted the NV200’s large interior as a chief attraction, and will most likely continue to highlight its comforts, like transparent roof panels and ports for phone chargers, as it prepares to appeal Tuesday’s decision.
The Crown Victoria’s looming retirement was a major factor in pursuing a Taxi of Tomorrow in the first place, said David S. Yassky, the city’s taxi commissioner, adding that alternatives were “not great in terms of passenger service.”
Mr. Yassky expressed confidence that the city would win its appeal, but administration officials have acknowledged that reversing the decision will be difficult. The legal proceedings may not be resolved before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg leaves office. Both the Democratic and Republican nominees to succeed him have opposed the Taxi of Tomorrow and are seen as unlikely to defend it in court.
Its demise could spawn a new chapter for hybrid cabs in the city. Though Mr. Yassky noted that the fleet had become 80 percent more fuel-efficient since 2001, Mr. Bloomberg had once hoped to convert nearly the entire taxi population to hybrids, before a federal judge blocked his plan in 2008. Now, an increasing share of the city’s cabs could soon be hybrids.
More fuel-efficient cars have proved particularly popular among many drivers, who are typically responsible for gas. “In the summer, I had the A.C. on almost 12 hours, and I still only did three or four gallons,” John McDonagh, who has driven for more than 30 years, said of the Ford C-Max Hybrid. “If I were in a Crown Victoria, it would have been 13, 14 gallons a day.”
The NV200, which was criticized for being neither a hybrid nor wheelchair accessible without modifications, could still become a local staple, even if owners are not required to buy it.
At a taxi line outside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, waiting passengers almost universally called for larger back seats in the city’s cabs, narrating the travails playing out before them.
“There’s no room, absolutely no room,” said Larry McCoy, 76, as a woman slid out of a cab, knees at her chest, with a walking boot on one foot.
“She broke it in the cab,” Mr. McCoy guessed.
Another rider, Patricia Foulds, stood behind a group of tourists lugging large suitcases.
“Look at this,” she said, as a C-Max Hybrid pulled up beside them. “It could never accommodate these people.”
And yet, drivers said, each day passengers manage. The city will probably survive without a cab designed to their whims.
“People are in a hurry,” Mr. McDonagh said. “They suck it up for the five minutes they’re in a cab.”
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=15411
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
No comments:
Post a Comment