After months of debate, speculation and a trip back to the drawing board, the D.C. Cab Commission is expected to announce that the city's taxis will be standardized as red with a gray stripe, News4's Tom Sherwood has learned.
The commission is expected to make a formal announcement Wednesday.
The city has not displayed a prototype or released a sketch of the new proposed design yet.
Four earlier proposed designs featured multiple colors and were widely met with ridicule. Councilmember Mary Cheh called the designs "ghastly."
In February, a panel recommended that all cabs be red, saying the color is "strongly associated" with the city. Red is already used by the Circulator line and Capital Bikeshare.
The commission will take comments from the public for 30 days. A public hearing is set for May.
Once the final design is approved, all new cabs will have to comply with the new color scheme, Sherwood reports.
Any existing cabs that get a new paint job -- for instance, due to an accident -- will have to get the new colors as well. Cabs in the District aren't permitted to be more than seven years old, so it will take that long for all other colors to be phased out.
A uniform color scheme was part of a package of reforms approved last year by the D.C. Council.
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