By doubling mileage requirements for city taxicabs, Mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to have locked in one piece of a potentially historic environmental legacy — not the most ambitious piece, but a significant one nonetheless. His action will transform New York’s taxi fleet from the most polluting in the nation to one of the cleanest, and do so in five years, making the city a leader as municipalities compete to cut carbon emissions.
Most city cabs are Ford Crown Victoria sedans, which get a measly 10 to 15 miles a gallon in city driving. Taxis will have to get 25 miles per gallon by the end of next year and 30 miles per gallon the following year. Because individual taxis are replaced every three to five years, the new vehicles will need to be high-mileage hybrids, the only car that currently meets the stiffer mileage standard and is suitable for the work demanded of a taxi.
The idea of an environmentally friendly fleet is not new, but Mr. Bloomberg’s full embrace of it is. The Bloomberg administration had been at best deliberate in moving on a City Council mandate two years ago to bring some green into the yellow cab ranks. In that time, only about 375 hybrids have joined a fleet of more than 13,000 cabs.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission had long defended the status quo, noting the extra legroom in the Crown Victoria. But that’s just two inches more than the hybrid Ford, and the commission’s latest message is more positive. It tells drivers who worry about the higher initial cost of hybrids that they’ll save as much as $10,000 a year in fuel.
The Mayor deserves credit for seeing the green light, and for acknowledging those who helped him see it. Chief among these is David Yassky, the Brooklyn City Councilman, who has waged a long campaign for cleaner-burning cabs and who encouraged the mayor to set a faster target of five years instead of 10.
Until the city’s announcement, New York lagged behind other large cities, including San Francisco, which aims to have all hybrid or clean-burning compressed natural gas vehicles by 2010. As impressive as that may sound, San Francisco total fleet is just one-tenth the size of New York’s.
The shift to hybrids will cut the city’s carbon dioxide emissions by 215,000 tons — a figure that pales compared to New York’s annual total of 58.3 million metric tons. But it is just one piece of what can be accomplished by a determined mayor and a cooperative City Council without having to appeal to the state or federal governments.
And of course it fits perfectly with Mr. Bloomberg’s lofty vision of putting New York in the vanguard of the global effort to stabilize and eventually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As he noted at a recent convocation of mayors, cities are responsible for a significant percentage of these emissions. His strategy for reducing New York’s share includes — in addition to cleaner cabs — more efficient heating and cooling systems in buildings, cleaner power plants and a system of congestion pricing that aims to reduce inner-city traffic during the daytime. And there are other municipal vehicles that could stand a bit of cleaning up, not least school buses.
If the city can accomplish all this, Mr. Bloomberg’s ambitious goal of reducing the city’s greenhouse emissions by 30 percent by 2030 could well be attainable after all.
Copyright (c) 2007 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with Permission.
