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.

Crazy Tesla Taxi Takes Customers On Delusional Journey

A New York taxi company owner makes enough money to not only live near Monaco but also to buy a Tesla Roadster. More shocking? He wants his neighbors to actually know how he made his money with a taxi-liveried Tesla.


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The anonymous exploiter of lost tourists and underpaid immigrants alike apparently owns a fleet mostly made up of Escape Hybrids, so in his mind we're sure the connection between not-terribly economical taxis and an electric supercar painted to look like a cab makes total sense.

Missing the Humor, Le Blog Auto points out the electric-two seater wouldn't make a very practical taxi, largely due to the inability of magnetic signs to stick to the carbon bodywork. We'd add that the lack of trunk space and long recharge time should also be considered before any enterprising individuals attempt to make a business out of this. Also, there's the whole "no back seat" thing. [Le Blog Auto via Green Car Reports]

Boston, Other Cities Debate Hybrid Taxis

By Kate Galbraith

Uli Seit for The New York Times It’s not easy — or cheap — being green, some cab drivers in New York and Boston have complained.

New York is not the only city to encounter stiff debate over how to deploy hybrid taxis.

In Boston, an association of taxi drivers and medallion owners filed a lawsuit last Friday to block a measure requiring that the city’s 1,825 cabs go hybrid by 2015, according to the Boston Globe.

“The owners are essentially saying, ‘Look, we’re not against going green, we’re against going broke,’” said Andrew Herbert, a manager at U.S.A. Taxi Garage, according to The Globe.

The owners complain that the requirement comes at a terrible economic time — particularly given that it requires the purchase of new hybrid vehicles. Taxi companies want the option of buying used hybrids, which are substantially cheaper.

(Hybrids already account for about 10 percent of Boston’s taxi fleet, according to The Globe article.)

In New York, owners filed a similar lawsuit last year following Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to hybridize the fleet by 2012. In October, a federal judge ruled against the mayor, and The Globe reports that Boston drivers are employing arguments similar to those used in the New York case.

Mr. Bloomberg has rebounded with another tack: tax incentives for hybrids (as well as financial penalties for owners of relative gas-guzzlers like Ford Crown Victorias).

Elsewhere, the introduction of hybrids has gone more smoothly.

The Los Angeles Times reports that in San Francisco, where 14 percent of the fleet is made up of hybrids, one hybrid-driving driver crowed that he had the “carbon footprint of an Ethiopian child.”

Denver also has at least one cab company whose fleet is comprised of 10 percent Toyota Priuses, according to the Denver Post.