Yesterday the city announced that the Taxi of Tomorrow will be a bulky box from Nissan or, as one commenter put it, "more like the minivan of yesterday." Even before the announcement was made, fans of the design from Turkish automaker Karsan, the popular favorite, were grumbling (Bloomberg even reportedly had trouble showing enthusiasm for the Nissan offering at yesterday's announcement, acknowledging it looked like a soccer mom's cab). In response to the decision, not only did Marty Markowitz and Bill de Blasio ask Comptroller John Liu to investigate the whole process but assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner is calling on the Justice Department to see if the new vehicle violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Which isn't to say that the Nissan doesn't have its charms. It does have a few. Cyclists will like its sliding doors, large people will like its leg room, phone freaks will like the built in power outlets, suckers for safety will like the passenger airbags and tourists will like the transparent roof for city views. But that's about it. Aesthetically the new vehicle is ugly and familiar, not to mention huge and inaccessible to those in wheelchairs.
Also, in a point that has really pissed off Brooklyn's Beep Marty Markowitz, Nissan's cab will be built in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Turkish manufacturer Karsan was promising to open a plant in Sunset Park for its cabs, eventually hoping to employ 800 workers. That plan was hailed by local pols (and the United Auto Workers) but was dismissed yesterday by Bloomberg as wishful thinking. "I don’t think between now and two years from now we could site a new school, much less a new industrial plant,” he said.
So is the Nissan cab really going to happen? Nothing is going to hit the streets until 2013, so there is still lots of time for the decision to be changed. The investigation into the Taxi of Tomorrow's selection process, which included a consultant that also works for Nissan and Ford, may well be a real issue (as could the wheelchair access issue). But, this being a government contract, it may not. We may all just be stuck with a decade of an all-minivan fleet of cabs.
In the meantime, Nissan is choosing not to comment on either debate, leaving that to the TLC to eventually discuss, and Karsan seems to be taking the high-road. They sent out a statement yesterday in which they guilt New York for not picking their Karsan Kab and throw down the gauntlet for some other city to take it on: "We fervently believe that there is a strong market and an acute need for a true Taxi of Tomorrow, and we look forward to working with other forward-looking cities around the globe to make the Karsan vision a reality.”
If those things start showing up in San Francisco we will not be amused.
