Hi! Welcome to my theme.Now you may replace my photo with yours (180px wide is apt) and write down some texts about you.This will let your visitors to know who you really are.You can do this by editing the about.php file in the theme pack...
Conversation between John Moore a Harvard architect and a Boston Taxi Cab driver part 2.
in case you missed part 1 there is the link.
My comments are in BOLD
Michael,
I do not agree that I made a “gross error in judgment.” Of course, I knew owners did not pay for gas! The idea was for the owners to charge a lease rate that effectively “shared” the gas savings. That is why I proposed the lease rates I quoted to you, not the $18 (plus other charges) which eventually got passed.
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree here I would say that the gross error in judgement was in not being experienced enough in the industry ignoring the valuable input of others who offered you that experience. What you accomplished is tantamount to me undertaking an effort that mandated no architect in the Commonwealth have plans for a home or office building approved that was not powered by Nuclear,or wind energy and pulling it off.
You get that you cost us millions with this great idea right?
I would like to work with you to reduce the lease rate. However, I need you to do a couple of things:
1) Reduce your rhetoric and attacking sarcastic tone. I won’t communicate with you if you continue to use foul language and attack everyone involved. Nothing can be achieved with this strategy.
I am sincerely sorry for offending your delicate sensibilities. If you found my language vulgar I again ask you to take into consideration the severae economic hardships you caused me personally and my fellow drivers. Do you understand that the way the law stands now a Cab owner can place a 2010 Crown Victoria into service and get the $18 extra a shift for it for it until 2014? This actually is happening on a daily basis.
2) Revise your numbers to reflect the meter increase enjoyed by drivers. As you know the meter increase was approved in conjunction with the hybrid lease rate increase. It was a package deal- you cannot look at one without the other.
Why can we not look at one without the other. When my fellow drivers and I begged and pleaded with the city bowl in hand for a raise we had no idea the raise would be granted and then taken away by a requirement to buy some other guy a new car. If every set of plans you sold required you to buy new drafting tables for everyone studying at Gund Hall… try to find a way relate to this please!
3) Acknowledge the benefits of hybrids. My data is real world from Boston, New York, and San Francisco, where hybrids have been in use as cabs for years. The bottom line is this: Camry Hybrid average 32 MPG, Old Crown Vics average 10 MPG when used as cabs. Tire inflation means nothing as the Crown Vics are not inflated either! Hybrid cabs achieve the following:
I will cave in and admit to the few advantages hybrids offer when you admit they provide hugely insurmountable obstacles to the daily Boston Cab driver. Also please understand that the geography of Manhattan as well as traffic patters volume of customers meter rates etc etc are completely different here compared to New York. You are comparing Oranges and tangerines. While both citrus fruits similar in texture and color they are not in fact the same are they ? I would further venture an uneducated guess that although building and fire safety codes in the 2 cities are probably similar they are not exactly the same are they? When these facts and figures you keep shaking in my face were offered to city officials who also have never driven a taxi how many actual Boston Taxi hybrids were they based on? 5 10? Was the huge lease rate factored in ? Was how a hybrid runs after 3 years of non stop service factored in? No right? Did a guy who was going to try to make another million off of them help come up with the rates?
A) 60% less gas=60%less money going to the Middle East=60% less greenhouse gas emissions (did you know 19 lbs. of CO2 is put in the atmosphere with every gallon of gas burned?)
Its really not 60% less gas. The only thing I can think of that is presenting the dratic difference in your figures vs. mine is age and upkeep of the cars or were perhaps your tests only conducted while transporting 1 person at a time in a hybrid with me transporting 3-5 people in a Crown Vic on a Saturday night downtown?
B) 60-80% less air pollution=better air for driver, customer, and public at large (the reason the Boston Public Health commission was involved in the hybrid effort-did you know Boston has among the highest asthma rates in America?)
I agree to the environmental benefit and if it makes you feel better as someone who spent many of his toddler years in an O2 tent at Mass general
suffering from what was later diagnosed as environmental Asthma I appreciate all efforts like this. Again you miss my point sir why did this have to come at the expense of the poorest people in the industry as it did? My anger with you is that you can not see that the environmental impact is completely and totally dismissed by the economic effects on poor people. Do you understand that there are other factors we consider when choosing a car also? Like is it safe? Meaning will I and my customers walk away from a crash laughing? Will it hold the required number of people comfortably? Etc. When you put the Crown Victoria police interceptor against a Toyota Camry hybrid the Camry hybrid loses in every category except fuel efficiency and pollution. I am welcome inside every radio room in Suffolk county and am inside them frequently when there is no supervisor around ask the radio room people about the hybrids. All kidding aside they will laugh and tell you that people are calling up for cabs and saying “please dont send the little car I want the old one”
C) Even at today’s gas prices, there is plenty of savings in order for both owners and drivers to benefit-and once gas prices rise again, the drivers will be fighting for the hybrids as they did when gas prices were pushing $4 per gallon a couple of years ago.
I dont know how to make you understand this but we are not saving enough gas to off set paying the extra $18.00 plus plus plus plus that the owners are asking for the figures you are quoting to me are not real world..
When we were fighting at $4.00 we still did not think we were going to pay for them 4 times over. Why was it not stipulated that once the cars were paid for the extra lease rate was done? Why was “doing something goog” allowed to make millions more for rich people? Also why was it allowed to be corrupted into a nightmare were drivers are now paying extra for NO GAS SAVINGS on brand new Crown Victorias? Were is the outrage for this rule change that was delivered.. the week before Christmas?
Look Michael, I do not want to fight with you, but your precious used Crown Vic is a public health hazard and needs to be retired for good. I want to help find a proper balance and a proper lease rate. I would like to meet with you if you think you can be open to the points I make above. If not, there is no point in meeting. However, I am going to meet with my contacts at City Hall about this issue in any case. I will keep you informed.
I will admit the crown Victoria police package was never designed with fuel efficiency in mind. I will even say that The Toyota Camry hybrid is far more fuel efficient then the Ford CVPI one problem the Camry Hybrid really makes a shitty Cab. It cant hold enough fat American People it feels like its going to fall apart when your driving fast on the highway. Conerns about its safety have risen several times now that present too much of an argument to be detailed here. The trunk space sucks for use as a cab. It doesn’t have comparable speed off the line when trying to pick someone up before the other guy does on Boylston st. In every way shape and form except for pollution and gas mileage the used Crown Victoria is a better choice for use as a taxi in Boston. Especially economically for drivers as shift rental prices along with gas prices make them cheaper for the actual taxi drivers to operate.
I can even give you a specific example where Ford Redesigned the car to make it a bit cheaper and less fuel efficient. In 1997 the proliferation of DVDs and CDs caused a spike in Aluminium prices. Until this point the Hoods and Trunks lids of Crown Vics were made out of Aluminium to save like $8.00 a unit Ford started making them out of steel instead and then every year sold 200,000 plus units and we dragged around steel for no reason. Compared to say.. the ships that sit in Boston Harbor for a week idling their engines or the Coal fired power plant in Salem I’ll never say it presents much of a health risk. Do you know there are only about 4,000 taxis and 9000 livery cars in the whole state? I would venture a solid guess there are more pounds of pollution coming out of the crappy old pick up trucks that get used to plow the driveways of the idle rich tub-o-lards that live in Shrewsburry.
I’ll make a deal with you.. from here on out ill consider you the single best architect in the world. You make IM PEI look like he played with freakin Lincoln logs. I’ll even concede that when compared with you Ralph Nader looks like a Corvair driving polluter who dumps motor oil down sewer drains in his spare time.
Provided you take my word that I am one of very few people who is intimately familiar with all levels of the Metro Boston area Taxi cab business and you just take my word that the forced transitions to Hybrids 17 months in has been an absolutely fantastic hardship for the average cabbie in the city of Boston. We can say.. oh maybe gas will go up to $11.00 a gallon and it will be good again but.. it probably won’t happen so will you use the pulpit you created to help me get the costs associated with your wonderful idea back under control for the poor people who are paying for it?
If you really have the ear of people in city hall I can even give you a script of a compromise that would make everyone involved from Mayor Menino to me and you and every shift driver and everyone that has to breathe taxi exhaust happy.
I am fine with you emailing me occasionally, but if you do so everyday, I will not likely read them.
Thanks again for writing,
Sincerely yours,
John
PS I never got a clear answer to this question from anyone. Why us? Why Cabbies? Why not the cops/post men/some other state/local/federal employee? The largest buyers of fuel and cars in the entire world are the combined branches of the U.S. Government. Why not make them buy the hybrids first and then by the time I got one… or bought one for some other rich jerk.. it would have not been a hardship as it is now The v8 is good enough for the Governor and his men?
No responses yet
Add A Comment