New York City Subways & Car Services To Get Free Wi-Fi

by Jennifer Johnson
from: http://hothardware.com/

After three years of stalled progress, New York subway riders will soon be able to surf the Web via free Wi-Fi. Transit Wireless, a conglomerate of wireless and construction companies that was awarded a contract back in 2007 to embark on a Wi-Fi project with New York Transit, has come up with the money it needs to move forward with the project.

Broadcast Australia will foot the bill that is expected to cost $200 million. As part of the deal, Broadcast Australia will take a majority stake in Transit Wireless. In 2007, Transit Wireless promised to complete the job in 10 years. Now, it will have two years to wire six subterranean stations near 14th Street on Manhattan’s West Side to transmit mobile-phone signals to passengers on the platform. It will also have as many as four more years to complete the remaining 271 underground stations.

The Wi-Fi will come by means of smoke detector-size antennas which Transit Wireless will begin installing within the next two months. Once the project is complete, riders will have mobile service on the platform, mezzanines and portions of the tunnels. Because the work on the subway system is limited to the platforms, it is not expected to interfere with regular train service.

As early as this fall, car passengers and anyone else who happens to be within 400 feet of Internet-enabled vehicles may be able to surf as well. Venture capitalist Alex Mashinsky plans to outfit 1,000 livery cars in New York City with free, ad-supported Wi-Fi. The mobile hotpots will enable car passengers as well as anyone who is within 400 feet of the Internet-enabled vehicles to surf the Web.

In the beginning, cars from LimoRes Car & Limo Service, UTOG Corporate Car Service, and Velocity Limo will get the Wi-Fi service. Eventually, Mashinsky hopes to be able to offer Wi-Fi beyond just the inside of cars. Since livery cars idle extensively, many people on foot will be able to take advantage of the initial free Wi-Fi offering. Once a person walks beyond the range of the hotspot, however, the individual must find a new hotspot or stop surfing. Mashinsky hopes next-generation wireless technology will address this and make it easier for cars to provide Wi-Fi to the streets of Manhattan.

New York City’s Green Taxi Program Red Lighted By Federal Judge

Written by Jerry James Stone

A federal judge has stopped Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to clean up the air in New York City by using fuel-efficient hybrid taxis.

The judge, Paul A. Crotty, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, issued a 26-page ruling (PDF) to stop the city from enforcing the rule because, he said in a written order, the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in a key legal argument — that only the federal government has the right to set fuel efficiency standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, which bars state and local governments from setting their own, competing standards.

The hybrid-cab requirement was the centerpiece of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 package of environmental initiatives. It required all new taxicabs to be fuel-efficient hybrids and that all yellow cabs would be green by 2012. The initiative which would have started on Nov 1, specifically required a new cab coming in to service to get 25 miles per gallon, and the following year the standard would be 30 miles per gallon.

The standard yellow cab gets about 14 miles per gallon. Considering there are about 13,000 cabs in NYC and only about one-thousand of them are hybrids, this could’ve had a large positive effect on the city’s pollution.

Bloomberg said he was “very disappointed” and blasted the ruling for relying on “archaic Washington regulations” that keep New York and other cities “from choosing to create cleaner air.” He said the city was exploring options to appeal.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade — they represent about a quarter of they city’s taxis – sued to block the enforcement. They argued only federal government could impose such restrictions, not the city’s Taxicab & Limousine Commission. They also noted that Hybrid’s aren’t safe enough to use as cabs.

“Millions of people who ride taxicabs and the thousands of drivers, owners and other participants in the New York City taxi industry can breathe a sigh of relief today,” Trade association president Ron Sherman said in approval of the decision..

“Greening the taxi fleet is a major priority, and we are going to use every mechanism at our disposal to make New York a cleaner, healthier city,” Bloomberg vowed.

Hopefully Yahoo doesn’t mind donating a few more of those green cabs…

Image source: Yodel Anecdotal on Flickr