During the MTA strike of 2005, people picked up random passengers and New Yorkers shared cabs with each other because it made sense. As soon as necessity for such activities dwindled and the MTA started (haggardly) running again, people stopped. It was kind of like when folks jammed into commuter trains and mass transit when gas prices were high. And as soon as they were (foolishly) low again, people stopped.

This week, a new era of common sense begins. Taxi sharing is back. The city is rolling out a plan on Friday to make certain cabs run like buses. They will have designated pick up stations with specific drop off regions. Those all happen to be on Park Ave right now, which I can’t quite make sense of. But I guess they had to start somewhere. From 6AM to 10AM during weekday rush hours, you will be able to utilize this service.

Stops are:

- W. 57th St. and Eighth Ave. with dropoffs allowed on Park Ave. between 57th St. until 42nd St.

- W.72nd St. and Columbus Ave. with dropoffs on Park Ave. from 72nd St. to 42nd St.

- E. 72nd St. and Third Ave. with dropoffs on Park Avenue from 72nd St. to 42nd St.

While this is only a very small slice of the city, it might be a good indication of how this could work on a larger scale. Crosstown traffic = painful experience. And the lack of underground transportation options (the 7 and S excluded) makes above ground situations intense. And half the time it seems that the majority of street traffic is taxis. So perhaps this will help alleviate some of that. Drivers will make more from less driving, which hopefully means they can eventually work less hours, which means fewer taxis on the road at once. And as far as passengers go, we save money and time, which are synonymous in this city. I am however curious about etiquette. I can just see the campaign for, “No cell phone usage in shared taxis!”

I am maybe getting ahead of myself here though. Let’s see how Friday goes.

I have a pet peeve. When Californians brag about how much local produce they rely on, I want to say, “Really, that’s funny–the entire country relies on your produce, but it just happens to be local for you.”

Today’s article in the Economix blog on the NY Times, Keeping China (Relatively) Green made me think about this, as it  discusses geographical factors that weigh into environmental impacts. California, for example has the 3 metropolitan areas with the lowest carbon emissions in the nation. Part of that is because they have a moderate climate.

Chengdu from Above. Source: NASA

New Yorkers, who generally like to think of themselves (ourselves) as energy efficient urbanites, are still res ponsible for 10 times the amount of carbon dioxide than the most car intensive cities in China. So where is the gap?

For one, China’s energy use seems to be similar to what ours was 100 years ago, when industry was the major polluter. And in their households, heating from coal are the major source of pollution. In their stage of development, heating is more important than cooling.  And in general, appliances that require electricity are still a luxury. But that might be changing as air conditioning starts to look more attractive with rising incomes.

The article is full of specific emission levels in different Chinese and American metropolitan areas, but overall, the point of the article is that China, while now the largest overall polluter of carbon dioxide, pales in comparison to American, per capita and per household pollution levels. But their energy usage outlook for the next 50 years will change drastically. Can technology move as quickly?

From Clarence Eckerson of Street Films:

Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce his verdict on Times Square’s new pedestrian spaces very soon. Will the changes be permanent? This morning Bloomberg told radio host John Gambling that we’ll find out sometime next week. In the meantime, it seems like the media has decided to fixate on rumorsthat Midtown traffic speeds may not have increased across the board, without paying much attention to the tremendous difference this project has made for hundreds of thousands of pedestrians every day.

It’s been eight months since this part of Broadway went car-free, and maybe it’s hard to recall just how bad Times Square used to be for everyone walking around. To really appreciate what we have today, you’ve got to take a trip back in time to see the crowded, dangerous mess that used to fester at the crossroads of the world. Naturally, the moment calls for a Streetfilms retrospective.

Toyota FT - CH via Inhabitat

Many of our readers may not have needed an official report to affirm this, but New York City is ready for electric cars according to the consulting firm, McKinsey.  Green Inc., conveying the report’s findings in advance, says that one fifth of New Yorkers are “early adopters” who are likely to buy an electric car.  This is good (if obvious) news for folks here in the big apple, but the impact on emissions might not be as drastic as we would hope.  Even if 70,000 E.V.’s took to the street in the place of standard gas guzzlers, we would only see a net decrease of 2 percent in carbon output.  One of the major sources of this dismal projection is traced to NYC’s power plants and out of date grid system which would be fueling these new vehicles.  There’s still plenty to be excited and optimistic about, especially if some of the electric cars bound for the streets of NYC are coming from this weeks Detroit Auto show:

The Wheels blog at the NY Times features an amazing piece on the the Show’s “Electric Avenue”–a large space on the convention’s main floor dedicated to small-time electric vehicle producers.  A Korean company called CT&T, for example, is showing off a highway-legal two seater “that will be capable of more than 90 miles per hour and have a 155-mile range.”  They claim their products are headed for the States but it’s not clear when or how.

Meanwhile, the folks over at Grist have a great slideshow of some of the more traditional (but still tiny) cars debuting in Detroit.  Toyota, for example, unveiled the FT – CH (pictured above) as the smaller and sportier predecessor of the Prius.

Finally, looking away from Detroit, having more EV’s on our streets doesn’t have to mean more private owners adding to congestion.  If this electric car-share in Baltimore works out well, maybe Zipcar will take notice and begin to update their fleet?

from Earth Policy Institute Report

For the last week, a number of blogs (Green Inc. and Inhabitat each feature notable pieces) have been covering a new report published by the Earth Policy Institute which found that the auto fleet in the U.S. shrank by 2 percent in 2009.  While more than 10 million new vehicles were shed, 14 million were scrapped.  Some of the more interesting bits of the report (pasted below) concern predictions for the future of the American car fleet.  They draw parallels to Japan’s peak in car use in the 1990’s and foresee a continued decline in the U.S. from here on out:

Japan may offer some clues to the U.S. future. Both more densely populated and highly urbanized than the United States, Japan apparently reached car saturation in 1990. Since then its annual car sales have shrunk by 21 percent. The United States appears set to follow suit. (See data.)

The car promised mobility, and in a largely rural United States it delivered. But with four out of five Americans now living in cities, the growth in urban car numbers at some point provides just the opposite: immobility. The Texas Transportation Institute reports that U.S. congestion costs, including fuel wasted and time lost, climbed from $17 billion in 1982 to $87 billion in 2007.