EON

New York – The gas-guzzling yellow taxicabs that have been part of New York City’s traffic life for decades would be replaced within five years by environmentally friendly hybrid cars, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday.

Bloomberg, who wants to change the Big Apple into a “Green Apple,” said the fleet of roughly 1,200 Crown Victoria taxis that are painted yellow, will be gradually replaced with the new cars. The Crown Victoria taxis make up about 90 per cent of taxicabs in the city.

The new cars will run on a combination of gasoline and electricity to double their fuel efficiency.

“There’s an awful lot of taxicabs on the streets of New York City obviously, so it makes a real big difference,” Bloomberg said in announcing the new programme. “These cars just sit there in traffic sometimes, belching fumes. This does a lot less. It’s a lot better for all of us.”

Bloomberg last week told mayors and governors of 40 of the world’s largest cities that plans are underfoot to reduce the city’s greenhouse gases emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 to fight climate change.

He said his programmes to fight climate change would make the city one of the most environmentally friendly place in the world. The city’s current population of 8 million people is projected to grow by 900,000 in the next 20 years.

The city has been experimenting with hybrid cars in the last two years and some 400 vehicles manufactured by Toyota and Ford are now operating. Bloomberg’s programme calls for 1,000 hybrid taxis by 2008 and will increase by 20 per cent every year until 2012.

The city’s fleet of 4,000 public buses are also slowly being shifted to natural gas or diesel-electric hybrids, which produce lower amounts of nitrogen and sulphur oxides.