It took 10 years, but Michael DiGonis, owner of MetroKing Motors, which builds wheel-chair-accessible taxis at its factory in Poughkeepsie, was able to keep a promise made to a friend struggling to get home from the hospital.
But now that the promise is ready to be met in an ingenious way that could bring jobs and cleaner air to the city and the region, implementing it may be snared in bureaucracy.
MetroKing makes ultra-roomy, energy efficient, reduced-emission cabs that could fill a growing need in the city while bringing manufacturing jobs to Poughkeepsie and even stoking work for General Motors”™ plants as far away as Michigan. It seems a valuable addition to cities with aging populations.
But before MetroKing can sell any cab in to a New York fleet, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) must issue a clearance on its cab design. Though the TLC, received the application in January, it has yet to issue a response of any sort.
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg could not say what was taking so long nor even describe what process was in progress, if any. He promised to look into the situation, but had not provided any additional information by press time.
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The MetroKing cab has already been approved by the state Department of Transportation and a few models have been sold and received rave reviews. DiGonis is clearly frustrated by the snag, though he says he has sought answers as high up as the office of TLC Chairman Matthew W. Daus. But he shrugs philosophically and says bureaucracies are like that and says his cab will eventually be approved for city fleets because it is so necessary and so superior to what is now being used. Â
“It”™s a terrific product,” DiGonis said, showing off a completed taxi outside his factory in Poughkeepsie. “There is a desperate need for a wheelchair accessible taxi. It”™s not a question of meeting special needs; it”™s a civil right.”
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He said he began developing the vehicle a decade ago, while trying to get a close friend in a wheelchair home from a hospital in New York City. “I”™m looking around and there are 13,000 yellow cabs and I can”™t even pay one of them to bring him home,” DiGonis said, adding he vowed then to make a cab people in wheelchairs can use.
He said everyone would do well by doing right by those in wheelchairs. “This will bring jobs, sustainable jobs for young people,” he said, showing off operations at his 30,000-square-foot factory that combines modern computer-guided machining and common sense engineering to create MetroKing cabs. They are roomy, hi-tech,, energy-efficient taxis with a patented energy saving feature called ”˜Idle Stop”™ that reduces gasoline use by 20 percent and emissions by 50 percent.
“This is practical, very practical very inexpensive technology,” he said of the Idle Stop, which he invented himself and which can be attached to most vehicles. “You don”™t modify anything; you add a small electric module about the size of a car alarm.” The system uses electronics to regulate circuitry for idling and accelerating the cab.
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“Yes, unfortunately I”™m an inventor,” DiGonis chuckled ruefully, noting he holds 27 patents as he showed a visitor the electric and hybrid engines he has invented in partnership with New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
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He says results so far are heartening. “This electric machine will propel a future taxi cab,” showing a prototype electric engine on a dolly at his factory. The technology involved, “is ready,” he said, adding the missing ingredient to producing it is investment capital.
The passenger compartment of the MetroKing cab is a steel cage frame equipped with seats inside a compartment that is finished and enclosed in a resin and polyester composite. “It”™s easily repairable and never rusts,” DiGonis said. It is designed to be quickly detached from the body for cleaning, refurbishment or replacement. “Ten bolts,” DiGonis said, asked about the process. “Remove ten bolts and an electrical linkage.”
The passenger compartment is a limousine type design, with sofa seat facing forward and two backward facing seats attached to the front wall of the compartment that fold away to accommodate a wheel chair. A heavy-duty ramp unfolds from a curbside door large enough to allow rolling access. Another large door on the street side allows also passenger access, but without a ramp. The cab is roomy and comfortable for passengers withor without wheelchairs. And DiGonis, noting he piloted cabs in the city in the ”™70s, said it is designed to be safer for drivers by separating them from fares.
DiGonis said he moved his factory up from Queens to Poughkeepsie almost three years ago “For space considerations and the ability to expand.”
His cabs cost about $45,000 each as compared to about $25,000 for a new low-rent cab, but he said the MetroKing model will be worth the investment due to their energy efficient operation, dual use that allows for handicapped access calls as wells as ordinary passenger runs to the airport with loads of luggage.
Additionally he said the rugged chassis and drive train is built to last in a business where vehicles go 75,000 miles annually of city driving. MetroKing cabs are designed specifically for the job. “These could last like the old Checker cabs,” DiGonis said, but producing less smog in a manner that doesn”™t discriminate against wheelchairs.
