• July 25, 2011

Ford's Transit Connect vehicle was designed as a van for small businesses such as florists -- but the company has, since the vehicle launched, played with the idea of turning it into a people mover, largely based on consumer interest. That is happening already, as the vehicle is being used in different cities for taxi service. But if it can make it in New York...

The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) approved the Ford Transit Connect Taxi for use at a regularly scheduled public hearing. New York joins Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia on the list of big cities where officials have approved Transit Connect Taxi for use.

The approval in New York comes less than a month after the compressed natural gas (CNG) version of the Transit Connect Taxi was approved by the California Air Resources Board for use in California.

The first Transit Connect Taxi was delivered last December to a taxicab company in Boston, according to Ford. Since then, more than 100 have been sold to companies in Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, St. Louis and Orlando, Fla., to name a few. But a hundred taxis is just a drop in the New York taxi ocean, where the Crown Vic was, for years, the dominant vehicle.