If Mayor-elect Sam “Plastic Bag Tax” Adams, Commissioner “Sustainable” Dan Saltzman or Randy “B-10” Leonard are looking for a new crusade, here’s a suggestion: Green the taxi fleet.
Yesterday, the Seattle City Council passed a rule requiring that all new taxi cabs get at least 30 miles per gallon. Apparently most of the taxis up there are old Crown Vics that get something like 18 miles per gallon, tops.
Seattle calculates the environmental benefits thus:
(Here’s a neat primer explaining what all those tons of carbon dioxide are about.)
In May, before the primary election in which minority partner Sho Dozono was running for mayor, Portland’s Broadway Cab swapped six cars for hybrids. That left 219 ordinary cars in the company’s fleet.
Portland doesn’t regulate the fuel economy of private taxis, according to Frank Dufay, who runs the city’s “private for-hire transportation program.”
“It sounds pretty interesting,” says Dufay.
Yeah, we thought so too. Anyone?
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