Review: EnviroCab for Arlington, VA

I had to go to an urgent care facility today because my foot has been hurting and it got really bad this morning. Problematic because (a) I live in D.C. and I walk everywhere, (b) I have two flights of stairs between my bedroom and my bathroom, and (c) my doctor's office is closed on weekends and it turns out that my HMO's oft-touted "Urgent Care" facilities don't actually exist anywhere in the District of Columbia, nor are they metro accessible. So, I needed a cab. Fortunately, Lubna was able to drop me off (thanks, Lubna!!).

Earlier this week I saw someone getting out of a shiny-looking Toyota Camry hybrid taxicab with a web address (www.envirotaxicab.com) and logo emblazoned on the side. I love when a mental note stored away for that blue moon moment actually comes in handy so quickly...

In the end, it was a great service, but I think a little too new... The positives/negatives:

• it was easy to call for a taxi, probably because it's so new I didn't have to wait on hold forever
• the service is targeted to Arlington, so I'm not sure I could make inter-DC taxi requests
• there's a clear 7" LCD screen for the driver that shows the GPS location of the cab, and the call dispatch information -- which is probably why the taxi showed up so quickly, even though I was at some obscure place off the beaten path
• unfortunately, the driver was clearly new and when I asked to be dropped off at 14th & P NW, he asked me how to get there -- utterly bizarre. Especially since he had a GPS thing. Oh well.
• so the clincher is that, aside from driving more fuel-efficient cars than other taxi companies, the company also purchases carbon offsets. And it doesn't charge more to its customers. So I just wonder how sustainable this is.

The end. Check it out: www.envirotaxicab.com. Oh, and my foot will be fine. Yay.