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(NaturalNews) New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that the city will immediately begin replacing all of its signature yellow taxicabs with hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles.
"The benefits of this policy are going to be felt by generations of New Yorkers," Bloomberg said. "Implementing tougher standards for the more than 13,000 taxis in this city will provide the same clean air benefits as removing 32,000 privately owned cars from our streets."
Effective immediately, every taxi that is removed from duty will be replaced by a hybrid vehicle. Because the city's taxis see no more than five years of use each, this means that the entire taxi fleet should be composed of hybrid vehicles by 2012.
The current, all-gasoline taxis average about 14 miles per gallon. By contrast, the hybrid vehicles are expected to get approximately 30 miles to the gallon.
Bloomberg announced plans to begin making city buses and garbage trucks hybrid as well.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg announced a plan to cut New York City's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent before the year 2030. This plan is part of a wider environmental effort on the part of the mayor, who announced 127 policy initiatives in April aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions, increasing park access, reducing water pollution and reclaiming unused industrial land. Among these initiatives were plans to reduce car use by charging all drivers who enter Manhattan and to plant one million trees within the city in the next 10 years.
"Climate change is a national challenge, and meeting it requires strong and united national leadership," Bloomberg said.
Some analysts have speculated that Bloomberg's new environmental effort is meant to situate him for a 2008 presidential bid. Bloomberg has denied that he has any plans to leave his current job before 2009, but recent reports have suggested that he has set aside $1 billion for a presidential campaign.
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