less road space for autos, far fewer personal cars, and a smaller fleet of fuel efficient taxis driven CALMLY on functional streets.

I hadn’t even considered the effect of driving style on the drive and braking, either.

More than anything else it’s the way professional drivers slam on the gas and brakes that make a Prius impractical for them. The hybrid drive and regenerative braking absolutely would not survive that kind of treatment. So? Maybe they should try driving less aggressively. Maybe we should pay them more for that too.

I would like to see: less road space for autos, far fewer personal cars, and a smaller fleet of fuel efficient taxis driven CALMLY on functional streets. Currently I hail a taxi only in the most desperate circumstances. If the fleet were reformed I would happily take them more often, even at a higher cost, and I’m sure I’m not the only New Yorker. The people taking them all the time already because they are lazy, don’t like subway diversity, or want to be on the cell phone, they would have to reevaluate the costs and benefits.

Suspension is pretty heavy (ask any mountain biker), and I believe that a car like the Prius that is engineered to be fuel efficient probably has a pretty lightweight suspension. The bounces and jounces that you get from driving our pitted and potholed streets probably mess up the lighter, more rigid Prius more than the heavier, better-suspension Town Car, just as the Indian roads are expected to degrade the Nano’s emissions controls.

It’s possible that the design needed to get the Prius’s efficiency is just too delicate for NYC taxi service. If that’s the case, we have a different question: how can we allow our streets to be such a war zone that any vehicle made of steel is too fragile for them? There are people made of flesh out there too, taxi drivers!

I think there’s a reason why that letter isn’t in use. An olfactory reason.

Yup. I’ve ridden the P Train more times than I care to remember.

I know the vehicles are different sizes (my ad agency launched the Prius in the U.S.), but the current-model Prius has a pretty roomy back seat, and I would guess it would accommodate three adults. Regardless, what percentage of cab trips do you think actually carry the maximum four passengers? I’ll bet it’s low single digits.

And if you’re right about cabbies being better drivers, than the safety argument is even more extraneous. How often does one see a rolled vehicle in NYC?

Lastly, if you have a bike, why do you even care about the size of a cab or livery car’s trunk?

Larry is spot on with the point that motorcar assembly, even for hybrids, takes a lot of energy as well.

And as for the taxi driver safety: I believe that private motorists are worse drivers than taxi drivers. It’s just that all the taxis look alike and there are so many of them, so observers tend to aggregate the individual instances of taxis running lights and menacing pedestrians more easily than one does with private motorists. Are there comparative statistics anywhere?

I think there’s a reason why that letter isn’t in use. An olfactory reason.

If teacher parking in the public interest, then let’s give them reserved on-street spaces. But parking on the sidewalk or in playgrounds is unconscionable.

Re: Markowitz

Nice work, uncivilservants.org — you rock!

Okay, but just east of the building is more sidewalk. If THAT’S the area where Phil Abramson of the Parks Department says “permit parking is allowed,” then I still doubt that the Parks Department has any authority to allow permit parking there, tradition notwithstanding. I believe that the highest law on the subject, never mind Parks Dept. history, is that you don’t park on sidewalks, end of story.

If, however, Abramson of Parks Dept. is referring to the parking lot as the place where permit parking is allowed, then fine.

I can almost hear some permit holder saying, “well then what’s the point of having a permit?!” And to that I say, “Yeah, exactly.”

Preservationists are trying to make the same argument about buildings — when you replace an existing building with an energy efficient “green” building, you save on operating energy but throw way all the energy used to create the old building. It’s a argument for retrofits.

And at 42nd and 6th, you’ve got a new tower and a rebuild going up side by side. Intersting case study.

And the borough president would like to add that with all of the worthy news that needs to be covered in the borough of Brooklyn, is this the best the Brooklyn bureau of the Daily News can do?

You mean a lame greenwashing attempt like Markowitz Supports Mulching?

Maybe he’s right; they should be spending more time covering all the subsidies going into the unsustainable traffic nightmare better known as “Atlantic Yards.”

If cab fleet owners are truly concerned about safety, maybe they could start with some driver training. And speed-limit enforcement.

I would have to agree with the yellows here; not a bright future for that industry if Americans’ waistlines keep expanding and congestion gets worse. No fun being stuck indefinitely on the Van Wyck with your knees tucked under your chin.

That’s the only deal that makes sense to me — transfer the bridges, and the money borrowed to fix them, to the TBTA. Then the city would at least be spared the cost of maintaining the bridges.

If the MTA had owned the bridges, subway service over the Manhattan Bridge probably would not have been disrupted for 20 years. And tolls might have been used to build faster subway tunnels. If we’re not lucky, we may face the same situation again 20 years in the future.