Since assuming the city's highest office, Mayor Sheila Dixon is usually driven around town in a bulky Ford Expedition, a bodyguard at the wheel.
And yet there she was yesterday in the back of a taxi. A cost-cutting measure?
Not quite. The cab was unusual, the first of its kind. It was a green-and-yellow Toyota Prius taxi, an environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient, gas-and-electric compact vehicle that is to be one of many such cabs on Baltimore's streets.
"Nice ride," Dixon said as she stepped out of the Prius at a trail entrance in Druid Hill Park, where she announced a series of events tied to Baltimore's Green Week, which kicks off Friday.
A second Prius cab was parked outside City Hall, where Dixon began her ride, and Yellow Transportation is converting an additional eight cars to taxis for rollouts in coming weeks. The company hopes to have 20 on the road by the end of the year.
Eventually, Veolia Transportation, which owns about 600 cabs in Baltimore under several subsidiaries - as well as hundreds more cabs in other cities, including Denver and Kansas City - plans to replace all of them with environmentally responsible cars.
The very first was the one ridden by Dixon, said Mark L. Joseph, chief executive of Veolia. As the car pulled up and stopped, there was a brief hitch in unlocking the rear doors so Dixon could emerge. She hit a button she thought was the lock and the window rolled down instead. Finally, someone reached in and released the door.
Asked whether she had planned to pick up any fares, Dixon responded, "I could have, I would have - I drive."
Joseph, a Baltimore native whose family started the Yellow Cab Co. - now a subsidiary of Veolia - in the city 99 years ago, said, "You'd need a taxi license if you're going to pick up fares."
"Damn," Dixon replied with a smile. The job, she added, would have meant "extra money."
Technically, the mayor was the car's first fare, although, Joseph said, "she got a free ride."
The car's driver, Joe Matthews, a 12-year veteran of Yellow and a local tour guide, said the three-passenger Prius was comfortable but not quite as large as the Ford Crown Victorias he normally drives, which can carry four fares.
"But this one has more leg room up front and more knee room in the back," said Matthews, who was getting used to some new gadgets, including a push-button ignition and a computer screen on the dashboard that shows the performance of the car's two propulsion systems - one run by gasoline, the other by electricity.
