From the NyPo editorial board:
Mayor Bloomberg’s taxi-fleet overhaul has been slapped down by the courts.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shlomo Hagler declared this week that the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission exceeded its authority with a plan that would make the Nissan NV200 — the so-called “Taxi of Tomorrow” — the only taxi yellow-cab operators could drive.[...]
Now the idea that the 51 members of our council would design the one cab for a city of eight million brings to mind the old saw about the camel: that it is a horse designed by committee[...]
How about laying out the must-haves for any new cab and then letting taxi owners buy whatever cab they want, so long as it meets the standard?
That way, passengers and cabbies alike could see which cars work best. Automakers would have an incentive to improve their cabs to make sales. And bureaucrats wouldn’t be effectively handing a juicy monopoly to a favored car-maker.
That’s the real taxi of tomorrow. And it can’t come too soon.Pretty good NyPo, but how about allowing standards be left to the market also? It seems to be working pretty well for the cell phone industry?
Good joke about the camel, except the camel is a very specialized long range, desert crossing animal that puts the horse to shame in that environment. It was also chosen by the market for thousands of years for just that purpose.
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