06/04/07 Green Cabs

New York City is awash with them, in fact at last count there were thousands flitting to and fro, funny though when I needed to catch one, there was nary a one in sight. I am talking about big yellow cabs, otherwise known as "taxis" and while they are a virtual lifesaver for New York City commuters they have also been dubbed a danger by the American Lung Association of New York City who believe urban dwellers' lungs are in peril from pollution attributed to the fumes spewed when the taxi's idle in traffic, sometimes for hours. So in a move sure to set precedence for the rest of the nation, Mayor Bloomberg announced that by 2012 New York's fleet of big yellow taxis, 13,000 of the yellow beasts will be converted to hybrids. The Big Cheese of the Big Apple boasts that his fleet of taxis will soon be "the largest cleanest fleet of taxis anywhere on the planet". He could be right as the switch to green taxis in NYC alone is basically equal to removing 30,000 gas powered vehicles of the streets of New York.