The 150-year-old New York City tradition of a horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park may soon be consigned to the history books, as horsepower is replaced by battery power. The battery-electric horseless carriage is a vehicle that hearkens back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Mayor Eric Adams threw his support behind animal-rights activists who want to retire the horses and help carriage drivers transition to electric alternatives.
[Update November 19th: NYC’s proposed horse-drawn carriage ban fails in City Council committee hearing.]
A bill before the New York City Council would have wound down the horse-drawn cab industry by prohibiting the issuance of new licenses for such operations, which are sometimes referred to incorrectly as hansom cabs. (A hansom cab is a horse-drawn, two-wheeled carriage with a distinctive high-backed seat for the driver located at the rear, allowing passengers to sit in a low, two-seat compartment entered from the front.)
This bill would require humane removal of carriage horses, prohibiting their sale or transfer for the purposes of slaughter or use with another horse-drawn carriage.
Currently, there are approximately 1,024 electric yellow cabs in the city, representing about 7% of the total New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission medallions—a figure that hovers around 13,942. Various sources show that there were approximately 800 electric yellow cabs before the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, or around 6.5% of the total. That’s far from the percentage of electric taxis the industry had 125 years ago, which was 90% of the total.
The first electric taxis were introduced in the Big Apple in 1897 and by 1900, nine out of 10 taxis were operating on battery power. The technology was not quite ready for widespread deployment and operation, however, and two events led to a resurgence in the use of horse-drawn carriages and internal-combustion engine (ICE) powered taxis became the standard.
One event with immediate effect was a major fire in 1907 that destroyed part of the fleet of the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, a New York-based electric taxi service that operated the largest electric taxi fleet in the city, leading to its collapse.
The second was the Panic of 1907, also known as the Bankers’ Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis, a three-week-long financial crisis that took place in the US in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange suddenly fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year.
Meanwhile, what remained of the electric-taxi industry in New York City lost ground to gasoline-powered taxis. Harry N. Allen famously ordered 65 gas-powered automobiles from France, painted them red and green, and the New York Taxicab Company—which charged passengers based on metered fares—was born. Allen took this action after having to pay a five-dollar (equivalent to $171 in 2024) fare for a quarter of a mile ride in a hansom cab. He painted his fleet yellow a year or so after starting the business to improve visibility, setting a color standard that has endured through the years.
Tourists in coming years might find themselves taking leisurely rides through the park in a horseless carriage, according to industry experts.
“While horse-drawn carriages have long been an iconic fixture of Central Park, they are increasingly incompatible with the conditions of a modern, heavily-used urban green space,” Mayor Adams said. “It has become abundantly clear that these horse-drawn carriages no longer work for our city.”
Source: New York City Office of the Mayor
from Charged EVs https://ift.tt/5fUCwEA
No comments:
Post a Comment