25th May 2007
New York Cabs To Be Hybrid In Five Years
The average cab in New York currently gets 14 miles per gallon. According to a new law put into effect by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg the entire fleet of 13,000 cabs will be required to go hybrid by 2012. With 1,000 required by 2008 and increasing by 20% each year. This is yet another step in the Mayors effort to have New York achieve a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. New York City produced a net emission of 58.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2005 which is a massive amount by any standard.
While I applaud the leadership Mayor Bloomberg is taking on this issue it begs the question “can they do more?”. Consider that the most typical taxi cab in New York (and in most major American cities) is the Ford Crown Victoria and almost every police car is also a Crown Victoria it begs the reasonable assumption that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. There are over 7,760 vehicles in the NYPD – the largest in the nation. If as the mayor states the conversion of the cabs to hybrid cars will save the cab drivers money and help the environment it seems to logically follow that converting the cities fleet would also have the same win-win effect.
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