New York Wants Green Taxis All Over US

New York, the Big Apple, is a trendsetter when it comes to just about everything. For years, New York has been one of the major driving forces behind all American enterprises on the East coast, perhaps in a bigger degree than Washington itself, where all is sliced and diced.

For the automotive industry, however, New York is nothing compared to Detroit. But what it lacks in terms of auto knowledge, New York makes up in ideas. Like the one which will soon turn it into the single city on the planet to have a single-make type of taxi roaming its streets.

It is exactly this idea New York, led into battle by mayor Michael Bloomberg, wants to export and enforce all over the US. This is why the mayor, backed by federal legislators Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, plan to introduce the Green Taxis Act.

The idea behind the bill is simple, probably simpler than in New York's taxi of the future competition. It would allow each city to decide what type of cars to use for the taxi fleets operating in its cities. Meaning that if Seattle, for instance, wants only EVs as taxis, then EVs as taxis it may have. Sort of.

The bill would allow each city to impose its own efficiency standard for taxis, one that would, however, not be allowed to be stricter than federal ones. The taxis they can impose must not require a significant effort to be introduced (meaning they can't ask for a type of vehicle that must be purpose-built for the task at hand.