Tag Archives: taxi life

After a year-long contest to pick a replacement for the discontinued Ford Crown Victoria, New York City has selected a boring-ass Nissan minivan as its new “taxi of tomorrow.” Passed over was the much cooler futuristic entry from Turkey’s Karsan, which had pledged to manufacture its taxis in Brooklyn. Nissan now gets a ten-year exclusive contract to provide taxis to …

Gothamist reports that the thing New Yorkers most hate about cabs (other than high fares) is those miserable televisions that won’t even turn off half the time. And if you take multiple cabs in one day, as I usually do on weekends, you get treated to the same five 30-second news stories plus ten commercials. Ditch the TVs and bring …

As I’ve blogged about several times, New York City has been holding a contest to replace its taxi fleet of about 12,000 Crown Victorias as Ford has discontinued the line. Today the Daily News reports that the top two finalists are an as-yet unseen Nissan “vanette” and the above model made by the little-known Karsan out of Turkey, which “features …

Hailing a fabulously roomy Crown Victoria taxi is getting rare as the city phases them out in anticipation of Ford ending the line’s production next year. In the last week or so I’ve been stuck with a Prius, a Camry, and a Honda SUV. Yeah, yeah environment something something. Boo. There’s nothing like that post-club drunk sprawl as you bounce …

The WBNA’s New York Liberty have been posting a YouTube series on NYC etiquette. This one’s about evil taxi stealers. (If only all cab thieves were so cute.) The last time I gave a cab thief a piece of my mind, her ginormous boyfriend materialized from the shadows to show me his switchblade. True story. West 28th Street.

New York City plans on replacing all of its cabs by 2013 and is soliciting design concepts. Above is the Unicab as proposed by an Australian company. The futuristic Unicab is all electric, has room for seven people, space for luggage and a ramp for disabled passengers. The front passenger seat is spun around, to let the rider face his …

The NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission has uncovered a massive scam on the part of the city’s taxi drivers, many of whom are are charging out-of-borough rates to unsuspecting riders. The drivers’ scheme, the commission said, involved 1.8 million rides and cost passengers an average of $4 to $5 extra per trip. The drivers, officials said, flipped switches on their …

NYC’s experiment with cab sharing begins this Friday. Cab rides in New York City are about to get a little less expensive. If you’re willing to scoot over a bit, that is. Group ride rates will become available in certain New York City taxis starting Friday. Like a bus route, those cabs will have designated start and drop-off locations for …

NYC launches its latest and strongest campaign against cell-chatting cab drivers today with a three strikes system that will cost a driver his his hack license upon the third violation. Taxi and Limousine Commission agents and NYPD officers will be on the lookout for drivers using any electronic devices while not legally parked, including iPods, GPS devices and satellite radios. …

The NYC cab driver who made national news yesterday for kicking two hugging gay men out of his cab now says he did so because he was afraid they were about to have sex. “I wanted to pay attention to getting them to their destination instead of worrying if they were going to have sex or not,” said Medhat Mohamed, …

A gay NYC couple was abruptly booted from their taxi Monday night by their driver, who told them they were not allowed to hug in his cab. Paul Bruno and his partner hailed the yellow cab Monday night at 13th Street and First Avenue and sat close, Bruno told The Post. But the driver, identified by Bruno and city records …

If you hurl, blow chunks, and/or spew in a Chicago taxi, the city’s drivers union wants to you have to pay them $50. “If somebody throws up in the back of a cab, it’s no laughing matter to that cabdriver, who now has to take a couple of hours to detail the cab. It’s hard to get that smell out …

Times Square, Sunday, 8:30pm Outside a tavern….. Tourist 1: Do you want to go in? The music sounds OK.Tourist 2: Ugh. World music. You didn’t get enough of that in the cab?

Here’s the monster that Ford is trying to sell NYC, which is looking to replace its entire fleet of Crown Victoria taxis. Aside from being super fugly, the thing only gets 19 mpg. Ford is calling it the “taxi of the future.” Well, everyone has been saying the future won’t be pretty.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg will announce today that all city taxis must be converted to gas/electric hybrids by 2012. Approximately 20% of the fleet will be converted every year until the target date. While I’m certain that taxi owners will transfer the cost of this conversion to city riders, with the exception of a couple of major missteps, Bloomberg continues to …

Last night we happened to catch a cab outfitted with the new seat-back TV screens. The right side runs video ads for Broadway shows and other touristy destinations, while the left side contains a GPS map showing the cab’s location. You can also scroll the NYC Zagat guide. I suppose the location marker could be handy, except that our map …