Here's a little green initiative that caught my attention. In August, Town and Country did a little piece on taxi companies across the country making the transition to fuel-efficient hybrids. New York City is seeing small fleets of hybrids hitting the road and they have begun to appear in Las Vegas, New York, San Antonio, Chicago, San Francisco, and elsewhere. Ideally they will make their way everywhere.
Presently, the ubiquitous New York taxi, the Ford Crown Victoria, gets a measly 17 miles per gallon (less if you factor in how lead-footed all the cabbies I've ever taken in NY drive). The Ford Escape Hybrids which are being slowly introduced, average 36. With numbers like that, taxis may save as much as $8,000 a year on gas per vehicle - a plus for drivers who usually have to pay for their own gas. Will this translate to savings on the meter? Probably not. But it's a step in the right direction.