Taxi Partitions, May Be Set for a Makeover

It emerged in the 1960′s as an invention born of fear: the taxicab partition, meant to spare the lives of drivers at a time of gunfire, armed robberies and murders. Over its lifetime, it would become yellowed and defaced; its contraption for safely passing money to the driver would often break down. And with the partition closed, the classic cabbie conversation – the one about politics and local lore, current events and competing theories about the best way from, say, Midtown to Kennedy – would become all but impossible.

Now, however, the partition is being rethought, in a New York City where crime is down and passenger demand for legroom and other comforts is ever greater. The Taxi and Limousine Commission has issued a proposal seeking new ways to design and install the partitions, which have been required in most yellow cabs since 1994.

There is talk of new plastics that can withstand scratches and ultraviolet rays, partitions that can accommodate credit-card readers and video monitors, and restoring some of the legroom that partitions took away. The money slot, long viewed as counterproductive because it is so cumbersome, would have a sleeker profile.

“Everything in the taxicab-riding experience has changed except for the partition,” said Matthew W. Daus, the commission’s chairman. “It’s time for the partition to catch up. It’s the last frontier – but an important one.”

Some cabbies, however, believe the best solution would be to do away with the partitions altogether, a proposal the city agency is not willing to entertain.

The dividers generate strong reactions from drivers and riders alike. Most drivers who work daytime shifts do not bother to close their partitions, leaving the sliding door open to allow for conversation with passengers and easy exchange of money. Riders, in turn, believe the grimy plastic barriers discourage them from giving directions (not a bad thing, from the driver’s perspective) and make them feel as though they are in the vestibule of a battle-scarred liquor store.

“They say they feel like they’re in a cage,” said one driver, Aly Hens, 41, a Haitian immigrant who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He spent $729 – more than twice the cost of a partition – to put a security camera inside his new Toyota Sienna minivan.

The commission got proposals last month from 18 companies and plans to choose a new partition design by early next year. Five municipalities – Boston; Atlanta; Miami-Dade County, Fla.; Edmonton, Alberta; and Fairfax County, Va. – have also expressed interest in New York’s redesign of its partitions.

The partitions have a long history. In 1960, the Police Department, which long regulated the industry, gave cab owners permission to install clear partitions to deter holdups. In 1967, the city required bullet-resistant partitions in cabs driven at night, and in 1971, all cab owners were required to install the dividers. Later in the 70′s, the commission, which was created in 1971, made the partitions voluntary.

The current requirement dates to 1994, after another crime wave, fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic, claimed scores of lives. In 1997 it was expanded to include fleet-owned livery cars. Drivers who operate their own vehicles were exempted at first; now they must use either a partition or a security camera.

But from the start, the partitions have been controversial. Skeptics questioned their deterrent effect, noting that robbers could point a gun through a side window or even the windshield.

Nonetheless, the commission declared the partitions a success: No yellow cab driver has been killed in a robbery since 1997.

“Whatever goes through the brain of somebody intent on physical violence, partitions seem to stop them,” said Fidel F. Del Valle, who was the commission’s chairman from 1991 to 1995. “The attractiveness of robbing a cab is that it’s basically a piggy bank on wheels. You don’t want to make the opportunity for crime any easier than it is.”

Even so, critics were not convinced, saying that whatever benefit they were to drivers, the partitions were a potential menace to riders, if they were not wearing seat belts in a cab that stopped suddenly.

“Those partitions create a plastic surgeon’s dream,” said Jack S. Lusk, the commission’s chairman from 1988 to 1991.

He also expressed a common complaint about the money slot. “It depersonalizes the relationship between the passenger and the driver,” he said.

Then there are the aesthetic objections. “People get into a cab and still stare at a gritty, scratchy partition that prevents them from seeing the wonderful city around them,” Mr. Daus said.

Each partition, which should be able to withstand a blast from a .38-caliber handgun, consists of a plastic shield at least 0.375 of an inch thick and, below it, a steel plate at least .085 of an inch thick. Most of the plastic shields are made of Lexan, a lightweight, shatterproof thermoplastic developed by General Electric. The company has developed a coating that is intended to protect the plastic from scratches and ultraviolet rays for up to 10 years, although few drivers are likely to buy coating unless it is required.

The city’s hopes extend well beyond making the partitions less opaque.

It would like the new dividers to carry fare and passenger information not on stickers, but on video monitors that will offer advertising and electronic maps that show the progress of the trip. Already, more than 2,000 cabs have credit-card readers, and those, too, could be incorporated in the partitions.

The proposals met with measured support from drivers interviewed yesterday afternoon in the Central Taxi Hold at Kennedy International Airport. Most said the existing partitions enhanced safety.

Yuriy Semanduyev, 44, who lives in Midwood, Brooklyn, and is from Azerbaijan, credited a partition with saving his life four years ago during an attempted robbery in Long Island City, Queens.

“The guy reached around through the partition and knocked me in the head with a wrench,” said Mr. Semanduyev, who pointed to a faint scar on his forehead where he had gotten four stitches. “If I hadn’t had the partition, they could have killed me.”

Manjit Singh, 27, of Richmond Hill, Queens, a native of India, said he shut his partition each night at 8. “I feel safer when it’s closed,” he said.

Ryszard Belc, 45, a Polish immigrant who lives in Elmhurst, Queens, said he thought the partitions kept out germs during the flu season.

And Mr. Belc said he had little nostalgia for the lost art of taxicab conversation.

“With cellphones, nobody wants to talk to the driver anymore,” he said. “Even on a five-minute trip, they always think of some long-lost aunt they can call.”

NY Times