Chuck Squatriglia, Wired News, has an update on New York’s search for a clean, green, iconic ‘taxi of tomorrow’. The yellow taxicab is the quintessential New York City vehicle, but as icons go, it sucks. The Crown victoria is as uninspired as it is ubiquitous. You’d think the nation’s largest market for taxis - New York has 13,150 cabs carrying 240 billion million people a year…

He also adds that every taxi in new York must be a hybrid by 2012. And he ends with a question. When it comes to to cabs, as goes New York, so goes the nation. So - what’s what does the taxi of tomorrow look like to you?

Read the full article here. Well, if you ask me, the taxi of today is neither clean nor green nor iconic. If anything, it’s mean. And I prefer blue to the dirty yellow. But the article misses the main grouse about a taxi ride in NYC. It’s the cabbies, and not the cab. Ok, so green is good. But who gives a rat’s ass if the cab is yellow or blue. Who cares if it has smooth curves and a great bod. After all, you just want to get from A to B, alive and in one piece. 

Besides, it’s far more important to be able to listen or talk to a cabbie without feeling the urge to rip off the meter and wrap it around it around his neck, than it is to feel good about the color and shape or model of the cab. NYC transit authorities would be better advised to focus on tomorrow’s drivers rather than tomorrow’s taxi.

In other news, the AP reports that corporate travel budgets are shrinking. Corporate travel managers are taking a more active role in keeping on-the-road spending in check:

_ Employees are increasingly being asked to provide an economic rationale for their trips.

_ Rules that require employees to book the lowest fare, stay in pre-approved hotels or double-up in cars and rooms are being enforced more strictly.

_ Executives are pushing alternatives to face-to-face meetings, including phone- and Web-conferencing.

Ack! Economic rationale? Lowest fare? Pre-approved hotels? This is ghastly. Luckily, my editor is a bit too busy too read AP news stories, and hopefully will never see this story about travel managers cutting budgets, and will continue signing off on my luxurious getaways around New York in a state of blissful ignorance.