Cabs Go Cool… and Green

The first time I rode in a hybrid taxi, I couldn't even believe it was running – so quiet! It's great to see big cities adopting these green changes, but isn't a surprise, considering NYC is already a beacon of green living (by necessity). Take that LA!

I rented a hybrid recently and after about 10 minutes spent trying to figure out how to turn the car on (it's keyless), I realized it WAS on… you're right; it's quiet.

Wow. That's awesome guys. Although I still think that the most important thing we can do is to learn to live without cars, not develop new ones that run on alternative fuels – there is no such thing as an environmentally friendly car and probably never will be.

I'm all about reducing our dependence on cars – no one in my immediate family even owned one from around 1990 to 1997 or so, which is nice, although I can't say I enjoyed walking a few kms to hockey practice with all my gear – but like the planes, Tim, I can't see getting rid of them entirely.

For one thing, we're always going to need ambulances, school buses, fire trucks and police vehicles – which means we're always going to need reasonably well-maintained roads for them to travel along. (Which means we're always going to need dump trucks, cement mixers, construction vehicles…) And even in the cities that are most well-served by public transit, taxis are a huge part of the equation.

Urban areas can (and should) go a long way to reducing car culture, but the simple fact is that in the country, cars are a lifeline. And how about tractors and other engine-powered large-scale farming equipment?

Finding ways to make engines burn cleaner and do less damage seems like just about the only way forward to me – doing away with the internal combustion engine entirely gives me visions of women dying in childbirth in their homes and near-slaves working in the fields, because low-cost labor is the only way to turn a profit on a manually-harvested crop. Unless I am missing something huge here?

I recently saw a green cab in DC! Hopefully there will be more in coming months.