New York City Hybrid Yellow Cabs

You learn a lot watching the local news in the New York area. For instance, I was watching the news at noon yesterday when they had a feature on Yellow Cabs in New York. Yellow Cabs make up a HUGE amount of traffic in the NYC area, everybody knows that. Well, Mayor Bloomberg wants to get rid of the current gas guzzling Crown Victorias currently in use and put in place hybrid vehicles. And he wants the whole enchilada complete by 2012. Interesting.

The deal is part of the mayor’s lofty goal for the city, PlaNYC, which intends to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Greenhouse emissions are certainly important and the reduction of those is the hot topic of the day. But it’s my understanding there isn’t a good recycling program for residences available in Manhattan. Isn’t that important, too? Bloomberg did initiate a 3-month public space recycling pilot program in March. Hopefully that will work out well.

Of-course I think using hybrid vehicles is a FANTASTIC eco-friendly alternative, but what exactly are they going to do with all of those cabs? If the metal is recycled, good. If it’s sent to some Taxi Graveyard or landfill in Jersey, bad. I’m sure they have some sort of brilliant plan for the Vics.