Hey, cabbies, follow that hybrid
An architect's drive leads to a green taxi
For nine hours Cambridge architect John Moore shadowed the cab ahead of him. No stops for food, no bathroom breaks. Just driving: from Somerville to Logan Airport, to bumper-to-bumper traffic in the Fenway, to downtown's busy intersections, peppered with some curbside idling.
One hundred miles later, he had his data. Moore had been driving a hybrid car, a Ford Escape, while the cabdriver captained a late model Crown Victoria. The Crown Vic burned through 10.25 gallons of gas. The hybrid? Fewer than 4 gallons. Moore didn't measure emissions. But, he said, ``The whole time I followed that car, I smelled it."
So a two-year crusade kicked off in October 2004. Moore's idea -- to reduce pollution and save energy by converting many of Boston's taxis to more efficient hybrids -- came to fruition last month, when Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the Boston Cab Association unveiled Boston's first ``green" taxis.
``I had no idea it would snowball like it did," said the 52-year-old Moore. ``I thought I'd hit a brick wall somewhere along the way."
But he didn't. Instead, he met with receptivity from Boston's Public Health Commission, City Hall, Environment Department and Hackney Division. His idea cruised along.
After his father died two years ago, Moore, an architect and environmentalist, stepped back to reflect. Although he'd been designing affordable housing, he felt the need to make a greater contribution to society. He'd been reading about pollution and energy inefficiencies in the transportation sector and decided to actually try to do something about it.
Moore said he thinks people would have been less receptive to the idea even just five years ago. ``The general attitude now is that we have to do something," he said. ``People want to help. There are few practical opportunities out there."
At first, Moore wanted to do a study. About 150 phone calls later, after talking to Harvard, MIT, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Conservation Law Foundation, he hadn't gotten anywhere until he came upon the Massachusetts Clean Cities Coalition. At one of their meetings, Paul Shoemaker from the Boston Public Health Commission offered to help, and the two put together a grant for a study. ``It fizzled," said Moore. ``No one wanted to give us money for this."
Another member of the public health office, Jalal Ghaemghami , suggested that he just follow a cab around for a day, said Moore. So he did.
``I called a Ford dealership and they were very supportive," Moore said. ``They lent me an Escape for a week. I contacted the cab company closest to me, Green Cab in Somerville, and they said sure, I could follow one of their veterans around."
``I was amazed how much ground he covered," Moore said. ``I made a graph and found one-third of his driving time was spent at a stop, either in traffic or waiting for a fare. That's why a hybrid does so well. In stop-and-go traffic, it switches over to the battery, which also means no emissions."
Moore went back to the Public Health Commission with the data. They met with Boston's environmental department. He flew to San Francisco and New York to gather data from their fleets of hybrid taxis.
He and staffers at the two city agencies prepared a presentation for the head of Boston's Hackney Division, Mark Cohen. ``We knew he was the key," said Moore. ``And no one knew him that well. There were seven or eight of us there, surrounded by piles of paper."
``Mark walked in," said Moore, ``and told us, `You don't have to show me anything. I'm already convinced. . . . My wife's been bugging me to do this.' "
Cohen's inspectors checked out possible vehicles: a Crown Victoria retrofitted to burn compressed natural gas, the Ford Escape and two smaller hybrids. They chose the Crown Vic and the Escape because with a partition installed, the others would not have enough room in the back seat for passengers' legs.
``Cohen said he liked it and if someone wanted to get a medallion for a hybrid car, he'd approve it," Moore said.
The final piece in Moore's process was convincing Edward Tutunjian, the owner of the Boston Cab Association.
``At first it was hard to reach him," Moore said. I spoke with others in his office who were very negative, saying why would we spend $28,000 on a new hybrid when we could get four used Crown Vics for that?"
``Finally I was riding in a Boston Cab one day and mentioned the problem to the driver, Vinny. He gives me a number and tells me to call Ed there at 6 p.m., and to say that Vinny told me to call."
``I was so nervous," Moore said. But Tutunjian told him, `` `My wife has been talking to me about this. I really should do this,' " Moore said.
Together they flew to New York to meet with the taxi company there that had been using hybrids. They also caught a Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium. When they returned, Tutunjian put in an order for the new
And on Sept. 22 , Menino rolled out his newest sustainability initiative, Boston CleanAir Cabs. The hybrid Boston Cab, with its signature green stripe, hit the streets.
Although Moore wanted to tackle Boston's 1,800 cabs before turning to the few hundred taxis in Cambridge, he's already met with Cambridge City Councilor Henrietta Davis , who, he said, was receptive to the idea.
Davis, a hybrid owner herself, said she plans to submit an order to the City Council at its Oct. 16 meeting to hold a public hearing about getting hybrid taxis in Cambridge.
