NEW YORK — Perpetually rushed New Yorkers have been telling cabbies to “step on it” for as long as there have been taxis, but the city wants to brake that hurry-up habit, in part by attacking the financial incentive to speed.
Cabs could be outfitted with black-box-style data recorders and devices that would sound warnings — or even pause the fare meter — for going too fast, even as speed limits on most city streets would drop from 30 to 25 mph.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who made the proposals as part of his broader safe-streets plan, said drivers of New York’s signature yellow cabs should play a particular role in his push to curb traffic crashes.
“They set the tone on our streets,” de Blasio said.
While traffic advocates applaud the ideas, they are getting a bumpy reception at taxi stands. Cabbies fear friction with passengers and feel they’re being scapegoated, and riders say they’re torn between the drive for safety and the need for speed.
“When I’m in a rush, anything is appreciated,” said New Yorker Emily Baltimore as she waited in a cab line outside Penn Station this week.
New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission says it is still exploring the ideas, which would require a range of approvals. The traffic safety plan includes more taxi-rule enforcers, stiffer penalties for cabbies’ driving violations and many provisions aimed at all cars, not just taxis.
Deadly auto wrecks have dropped in the nation’s biggest city, from 701 in 1990 to an all-time low of 249 in 2011, as officials redesigned dangerous intersections and made other changes. But recent pedestrian deaths have pushed the issue to the forefront.
