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 I Thought Cabs Were Yellow?
Emily Clinch
Lancaster
County's Friendly Transportation provides taxis, vans, limousines,
and busses. It also provides what may be Lancaster's "greenest" ride
this side of the horse and buggy. One of their 70 vehicles is a natural
gas-powered Ford Crown Victoria, the area's most environmentally friendly
taxicab.
Co-owner Tim Schwartz has even suggested that, if the cab succeeds, he may consider buying more. "This is an experiment for us," he said.
Schwartz found the taxi at the Manheim Auto Auction, and was particularly pleased to learn that it had been built specifically for natural gas, not retrofitted to accommodate natural gas as well as gasoline. In order to compress natural gas to 3200 pounds per square inch, enough to make it into a liquid fuel for the taxi, Friendly Transportation had to install a Fuelmaker system to press the gas — there's nowhere in Lancaster to buy the liquid fuel. The machine is slow, however, converting the gas at a rate of only about one gallon per hour.
The gas they compress costs perhaps 79 cents per gallon, as opposed to $1.29 for gasoline. The financial benefits please Schwartz — even if the taxi doesn't pay off with "an increase in ridership, hopefully it will help in decrease in maintenance and a decrease in fuel."
Natural gas vehicles produce 70 percent less carbon monoxide, 87 percent less non-methane organic gas, and 20 percent less carbon dioxide than most standard gasoline-powered vehicles, according to the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition.
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