By Jill Colvin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The next generation of yellow cabs will be marked with a scarlet letter.
In addition to the standard "off duty" signs, the city's new "Taxi of Tomorrow" fleet will be equipped with lights that flash whenever a cabbie honks his horn.
"When you hit the horn, the light on the roof goes off," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday on his weekly radio sit-down with WOR’s John Gambling.
"Right now, when you have horns in traffic —"
"'It wasn’t me. It was the other guy!'" Gambling interrupted.
"Right. Exactly right. This would solve that problem," Bloomberg said.
The mayor had been responding to a comment submitted via Twitter that complained that "no honking" signs were not being enforced.
"My street (E. 65th) is horrible!" @thelarry7 wrote.
In addition to the new lights, the mayor also confirmed the city is now negotiating with taxi and livery cab drivers to develop a second kind of taxi medallion that could better serve neighborhoods in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs where cabs are hard to hail.
The mayor had vowed to improve the system during his State of the City address. But he said that finding a solution has been a challenge.
"We’re trying to find some balance. And we haven’t gotten there yet, but we are getting closer," he said, adding the plan would be a welcome revenue boost.
"I’ve never understood why we sell medallions," he said. "We should rent them and still own them. But we don’t."
The city estimates the new generation of cabs will start hitting the road by the end of next year.
