7th Street & Lafayette Street

This is a Saturday night scene on the corner of 7th Street and Lafayette in the East Village. Notice the yellow taxi parked at the bottom left of the photo and another on the adjacent street before the traffic light junction. According to the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), there are over 13,000 yellow taxicabs in New York City. The cost of a taxi ride starts at $2.50 upon entry and $0.40 for every 1/5 of a mile of travel or 60 seconds of sitting in traffic congestions. A quick ride uptown from lower Manhattan can easily cost $12 to $20 (before tips) depending on the time of the day and traffic on the street.

I, myself, rarely use the taxi service because I have an unlimited use subway pass ($81/month) and the subway trains run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The few times I've taken a taxicab are when I was heading to the airport or to any place that is not near a subway station.

A frequent question I get from out-of-towners is, "Won't it be faster to take the taxi?" and the answer is almost always NO. Because of the density of automobile traffic in NYC, it is usually faster to get around the city via the subway.

So have to taken a subway recently? What do you think of it?

Taxi Art

Recently, yellow taxicabs were decorated with flowers to celebrate 100 years of motorized, metered taxis in New York City. The project entitled, Garden in Transit was started by two brothers, Ed and Bernie Massey from California in 2000. Over 27,000 pieces of vinyl sheets were painted by children in schools and hospitals and used to cover the roofs and top surfaces of about 12,700 taxicabs in the city.

Of the painted flowers above, which is your favorite?