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New Taxi Design Will Kill Last Vestige Of Checkered Cabs
By
Garth Johnston
Published Aug 23, 2012
Modified Aug 23, 2012
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TLC
By
Garth Johnston
Published Aug 23, 2012
Modified Aug 23, 2012
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T is for taxi, and that's good enough for the TLC. The look of the New York City taxi cab is changing again, and no we aren't talking about the Taxi of Tomorrow. Five years after the Taxi & Limousine Commission turned to Smart Design to create a new logo and graphics for NYC cabs they've gone and streamlined their work. We hope you don't like checking the current price of a taxi ride on the door of a cab!
Yup, going forward the fare panel on the side of taxis are no more. After all, we now have Taxi TVs to tell us that information (sigh). Also going away are the last vestiges of the checkered cabs as those black and white checks on the back are going away. Oh, and the word taxi. Yup, now cab doors will simply say NYC T (with the T in a black circle), not NYC Taxi.
"We have no doubt that a yellow car with a roof light with a big T will be understood as a New York City taxicab," TLC chair David Yassky explains. "Even the greenest of greenhorns will know that it’s a taxicab."
And here we have yet another example of New York city making its symbols as international as possible for all those millions of tourists (first they came for our "Walk/Don't Walk" signs...). And before you chime in and point out that a T in a circle as an NYC symbol is going to be confusing for tourists once the Second Avenue Subway (a.k.a. the T Line) opens, the TLC has already thought about it—and are pretty sure that the difference between the subway's teal color and taxicab yellow should make it clear: "Nobody will confuse a yellow car with a 75-foot-long train car that runs underground," Yassky joked.
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