NYC and TLC Making Mess of Taxi and Transit Systems

On top of a trial court decision yesterday that claims that the payroll tax used to fund the MTA is invalid, the Taxi and Limousine and New York City are doing their best to screw up the transportation system in the region.

The TLC has been updating the look for the ubiquitous yellow cabs. They've already signed off on a new design that isn't fully ADA compliant - because not every new cab will be required to be accessible.

Now, the TLC has decided to streamline the logos and information provided on the side of the cabs by stripping away all extraneous information.

T is for taxi, and that's good enough for the TLC. The look of the New York City taxi cab is changing again, and no we aren't talking about the Taxi of Tomorrow. Five years after the Taxi & Limousine Commission turned to Smart Design to create a new logo and graphics for NYC cabs they've gone and streamlined their work. We hope you don't like checking the current price of a taxi ride on the door of a cab!

Yup, going forward the fare panel on the side of taxis are no more. After all, we now have Taxi TVs to tell us that information (sigh). Also going away are the last vestiges of the checkered cabs as those black and white checks on the back are going away. Oh, and the word taxi. Yup, now cab doors will simply say NYC T (with the T in a black circle), not NYC Taxi.

"We have no doubt that a yellow car with a roof light with a big T will be understood as a New York City taxicab," TLC chair David Yassky explains. "Even the greenest of greenhorns will know that it’s a taxicab."

The cabs will now have a logo "T" and the cab identifier, but no other information.

They used to have Taxi written out, along with rate information.

Okay, they're trying to play around with branding, and a logo can be branded, but the word taxi can't. If that's part of the plan, then I get that.

But why drop the rate information? At a time when Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been pushing restaurants to include calorie counts on menus, he's allowing a policy that takes relevant information to commuters off the outside of cabs? How is that customer friendly? It's an asinine consideration, and the design team that came up with the plan spent just how much to revise the logos and information? It was a waste of money.

Meanwhile, back to the payroll tax. Ben Kabab highlights the multitude of problems with the ruling invalidating the tax. It is a huge hit to the MTA, which is funded in part from the tax. If it's upheld by the Appellate Division or State Court of Appeals, then the MTA would see a permanent loss of more than a billion dollars annually. That's money that can't be made up without slugging commuters or spreading out the costs to all taxpayers in the form of a new tax.

At the same time, a separate ruling invalidated the Mayor's plan to bring cab service to the outer boroughs. In that instance, the Mayor sought to make the changes in the state legislature rather than go through the City Council. The big problem is once again money. The Mayor bet a billion dollars on revenue raised from the sale of new medallions, and the court decision throws the city budget out of whack.

Taxi medallion owners have an inordinate amount of power to block any changes to the medallion system. They're vested in maximizing the costs of medallions, where the sale of an existing medallion can reach a million dollars or more. Allowing more medallions would dilute the value of existing medallions. The problem is that the medallion owners have the city council in its collective pocket and they've thwarted prior efforts to expand cab service to the outer boroughs where transit service is more spotty. The Mayor sought to change the status quo by going to the legislature, but this is a home rule issue. So, the Mayor has to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to expand service and close the budget hole of his own creation.

While he's at it, he better get on the TLC to make ADA compliance required across all cabs, not just a small fraction. And he could further assist in the transit policy by allowing disabled persons to use ADA-compliant cabs instead of Access-a-Ride buses that are costing the MTA far more than it ever imagined ($500+ million annually and growing). Since most cab rides are for far less than the cost per passenger for Access-a-Ride, a solution can be found here if the mayor, TLC and MTA can hash out an agreement.

But that means getting the medallion owners to back the changes.

Taxi of Tomorrow But Not Handicapped Accessible?

A funny thing happened on the way to New York City arriving at its decision to use a Nissan design for the Taxi of Tomorrow. ADA compliance went out the window and only a fraction of the new vehicles will have to meet accessibility requirements.

That's total nonsense.

You see, London has chosen a design for its new taxis, and they've chosen the same Nissan design, except that all its vehicles will be accessible.

But in at least one one fundamental way the two taxis diverge: In London, all of the vehicles will be wheelchair-accessible. In New York, only a small fraction of them will be.

“London has the most accessible taxi fleet in the world with every licensed taxi being fully wheelchair-accessible,” explained John Mason, Transport for London’s Director of Taxi and Private Hire, in a statement emailed to Capital.

In its recent press release unveiling the new vehicle, Nissan boasted that, “A particular focus was also placed on providing for passengers with mobility issues," and included a very supportive statement from Assist UK, which runs a network of homes for the disabled.

Contrast that with New York City, where only 233 of the city's more than 13,000 taxis can accommodate wheelchairs. The mayor's new taxi overhaul plan would put another 2,000 wheelchair accessible cabs on the street, but that plan is facing some serious legal hurdles at the moment.

Meanwhile, the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s very selection of a so-called "Taxi of Tomorrow" that cannot accommodate wheelchairs has left disabled advocates, and their political allies, enraged.

Comptroller John Liu has vowed to hold up the city’s contract with Nissan (though it’s not clear that's within his power).

“The Mayor should take a cue from our friends across the pond and ensure that the Taxi of Tomorrow is a taxi for everyone," said Liu's spokesman, Michael Loughran, in an email.

A spokesman for Taxis for All, a group of disabled advocates fighting for greater taxi accessibility, wondered why New York could not replicate London, where taxi accessibility has been mandated since 1989.

Accessibility is a huge problem for getting around New York City. The subway system has only a fraction of its stations that are ADA compliant. Buses have lifts, but Access-a-Ride is how the MTA tries to deal with its ADA compliance. Access-a-Ride is costing hundreds of millions of dollars a year - and each trip costs $60 per rider. That's unsustainable. It would be cheaper to simply give those people a cab ride, but the number of accessible cabs are woefully low and are all but impossible to find in the outer boroughs.

There's no reason that the new taxi design would be fully ADA compliant as per the British design and it would meet the needs for the next generation of cabs around the world.

What we are seeing though is that politics and money are trumping sound public policy. Cab owners (the ones who own medallions - the right to have taxis) don't want to see the value of those medallions diluted by new ones, so they've gotten the TLC to dilute their plans for new taxis, even though the cab drivers (who aren't the owners in most cases) are paying for operating costs out of their own pockets while the owners are raking in profits. The ADA compliance has fallen by the boards even though ADA compliance would be a tremendous step forward in improving transit connectivity throughout the City.

Nissan Wins Taxi of Tomorrow Competition?

This is a decision that makes little sense to anyone but the Taxi and Limousine Commission and Mayor Bloomberg. Nissan's proposal supposedly came out ahead in the taxi of tomorrow competition of its competitors from Ford or Karsan and it is expected to win the right to field the taxi fleet for New York City in coming years.

The Daily News reported last week that the Nissan bid received the highest score in the competition based on design features like interior legroom and durability.

Bloomberg and Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman David Yassky in November revealed that Nissan was among three finalists in the competition, along with Ford and Turkish carmaker Karsan.

At the time, officials said the winner would get a 10-year contract giving them exclusive right to make and sell yellow cabs to city hacks and fleet owners.


An interior shot of the Nissan cab.NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission

The choice is bound to be controversial. While there are 13,200 yellow cabs, only about 240 are handicapped accessible. Advocates saw the competition as an opportunity to increase the mobility for the estimated 50,000 wheelchair users in the city, along with many others who have difficult walking.

Advocates for the disabled have been pushing for the Karsan design because it featured ramps that mechanically extend from both sides of the vehicle. Its design also featured a see-through roof, offering new vertical vistas for everyday riders and tourists.

Large fleet owners wanted the Ford Transit Connect, another van that has been used for commercial purposes in Europe and has been approved for use as a cab in U.S. cities like Boston.

Either way, the taxi of the future won't be on the road anytime soon.

The Karsan was a more flexible interior with the ADA compliance thrown in. Moreover, Karsan had announced that they'd build a factory to manufacture the taxis in Brooklyn, giving a boost to the local economy on top of the features that mean much to those who use taxis on a regular basis.

I expect that the decision will come under tremendous scrutiny and that local politicians will demand a review - particularly those from Brooklyn who lost out on the opportunity for the factory and the jobs and impact on the local economy.

Moreover, the only reason I can see the Karsan project losing is that it simply wasn't a household name among carmakers as compared to Nissan.

A Tipping Point in the Taxi of Tomorrow Design Competition?

Does the fact that Turkish automaker Karsan plan on building their Taxi of Tomorrow for the New York City taxi fleet in Brooklyn mean that the company should get an edge in the competition.

I think it most certainly does. The company plans on building the taxis in Brooklyn's Marine Terminal.

Automaker Karsan, hoping for an edge in the three-way race to design New York City's newfangled cabs, has told city officials it would put its auto plant in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.

Karsan bigwigs claim the Sunset Park assembly line would immediately create several hundred jobs and later "as many as 800."

"Karsan is unconditionally committed to producing the 'Taxi of Tomorrow' at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal," Karsan USA President Bill Wachtel pledged last month in a letter to David Yassky, chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Wachtel also sent a copy of the letter to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Ford and Nissan also are competing to design the city's exclusive yellow cab model for the next decade, but it wasn't immediately clear whether either had made a similar build-it-here pledge.

The city launched the "Taxi of Tomorrow" project four years ago, with a goal of selecting one iconic design that's fuel-efficient and comfortable. The cab will replace the 16 models now authorized, including the Crown Victoria. The Crown Vic is the most dominant model on the road, but Ford is halting its production.

None of the three designs would have been initially built in the United States, let alone in New York. Now, Karsan has proposed building the taxis in New York City, and that could be a major factor in deciding to give the deal to Karsan. It would also mean that the manufacturer could tweak the design as it gets feedback from the Taxi and Limousine Commission and drivers who use the vehicle on a daily basis and incorporate the changes. It would also bring back a manufacturing operation to the City that has been shedding manufacturing jobs for decades.

It would likely take several years to transform the Marine Terminal into a manufacturing plant for vehicle production.

New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow Competition Would Worsen Fleet Fuel Economy

No matter which of the three options in the Taxi of Tomorrow is ultimately chosen to replace the existing fleet of yellow cabs throughout the city, they will ultimately result in a lower fleet fuel economy than the existing mix of hybrids and conventionally powered vehicles.

None of the three options, Karsan, Nissan, or Ford are hybrids, and while only the Ford has announced the fuel mileage on its option at 21 mpg, none are expected to rival the fuel economy of the Ford Escape that is in use more than any other hybrid in the taxi fleet and gets 34 mpg.

The competition, which was focused on getting a distinctive vehicle that provides greater comfort and wheelchair accessibility and visibility put fuel economy on the back burner. That's at the same time that the Bloomberg Administration was pushing to get taxi fleet owners to buy hybrids under a regulatory scheme that would have penalized owners who didn't buy hybrids. That scheme was shot down by the courts, but the competition didn't take hybrid vehicles into consideration for the final three.

The city will live with the consequences of this taxi competition for a generation to come, and the lower fuel economy will end up harming taxi fleet owners and drivers over the long run.

Indeed, this competition once again highlights the tradeoffs between fuel economy and comfort, durability, and fuel economy loses out to comfort and size.

New York City Announces Finalists In Taxi Design Competition

New York City has announced three finalists in the design competition to replace existing taxi models with purpose-built taxis. They include designs by Ford, Nissan, and Karsan USA (which is a Turkish company's US operation).

The three finalists to be the Taxi of Tomorrow were selected from a larger group of submissions, and concepts were evaluated by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, in cooperation with the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities and Ricardo, Inc., an international automotive engineering consulting firm. The winning proposal will be announced in early 2011 and the new vehicle will be on the road no later than the fall of 2014. Total fleet turnover will be gradual over several years as older vehicles retire - New York City taxicabs are typically retired after three to five years of service.

The Taxi of Tomorrow project began in 2007 with the formation of a Taxi of Tomorrow Stakeholder Committee, and a Request for Proposals was issued to automotive manufacturers in December 2009. The project seeks to build a taxicab that is safe, fuel-efficient, accessible, durable, and comfortable.

New York City has 13,237 licensed taxicabs, including the world's largest fleet of fuel efficient taxicabs, with 3,983 hybrid, 5 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), and 17 clean diesel taxi cabs. Today's taxi fleet is comprised of 16 different vehicles, supported by nine manufacturers.

From the exterior the three models are roughly similar in appearance - they're all minivan styled with side door access. Karsan's interior diverges from the standard designs with three forward facing passenger seats and a fourth seat facing the passengers with a driver cockpit. The other two designs are conventional in appearance.

Without knowing the technical details about mileage and performance, it's tough to pick a winner from the bunch. The city had issued a request for proposal, but it didn't get into specifics about performance and mileage requirements.

At a meeting last week, cabbies worried about requiring fleet purchases of the cabs, which means that a recall or factory problem could shut down the entire fleet. It might make more sense to allow cabbies and fleet purchasers to buy one of the three finalists, rather than mandate purchase of the preferred model.

This is a major issue because the Crown Victoria is being discontinued after August 2011, and the Crown Vic has been the backbone of the New York taxi fleet for a generation. Crain's notes that the Ford proposal would get 22 mpg, which is nearly double the Crown Vic's mileage.