Fleet to Reach Fifty Percent Accessibility by Year 2020
An agreement announced Friday, December 6 between four disability rights organizations represented by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) and the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) will see that New York City’s taxi fleet makes a significant increase in the number of wheelchair accessible vehicles by the year 2020.
The TLC has proposed rules, that if approved, will require the city’s taxi fleets to replace at least 50 percent of their cabs with wheelchair accessible vehicles through attrition over the next few years.
Joseph G. Rappaport, a spokesperson for Taxis For All Campaign—one of the four organizations involved in the agreement including the United Spinal Association, 504 Democratic Club and Disabled in Action—is excited to raise the number of accessible cabs in the city.
“We’ve won a commitment from the City to transition over the years to a taxicab fleet that will be 50 percent accessible. In other words, one out of every two cabs will have an accessibility feature to allow wheelchair users to travel like anyone else. London’s cabs are 100 percent accessible and the transition started in 1989,” said Rappaport. “On one hand we are behind the curve, but on the other hand this will bring us much closer to a system that allows people in wheelchairs to travel with much more ease.”
Right now 231 of the city’s 13,237 yellow cabs are wheelchair accessible, with 2,000 more medallions to be auctioned off within the next few years. According to a press release, these medallions will count towards the city’s 50 percent accessible goal.
TLC’s proposed rules state that medallion owners would begin to transition half of their fleets to wheelchair accessible cabs on January 1, 2016, or earlier if a vehicle that meets TLC’s standards for accessible taxicabs and the Administrative code’s requirements for alternative fuel taxicabs becomes available sooner.
“When you have one in 57 cabs accessible, you are going to make a decision to get around a different way. Even if it is less convenient,” said Rappaport. “People [using wheelchairs] take the bus…people have even paid astronomical sums to get a private driver to go to their own husband’s funeral.”
Edith Prentiss, Chair of Taxis for All Campaign, explained that it is hard for her to find a cab unless she is in a part of the city that is heavily trafficked with yellow cabs.
“Most wheelchair users who find [accessible cabs] on the street are around City Hall or in Midtown,” said Prentiss. “With the present tiny percentage, [accessible cabs] are exceedingly rare.”
Currently wheelchair users in New York City are served by Access-A-Ride paratransit service. According to the TLC, this service provides an advanced registration system “that enables a passenger in a wheelchair to be picked up and dropped off virtually anywhere in the city for the price of a bus or subway ride.”
This system, however, is only for rides that are booked in advance, and according to the TLPA cannot be used “on-demand” like a yellow cab.
“The dispatch program only has so many cabs and it’s not very well known,” said Director of Litigation for the DRA Sid Wolinsky. “I think that once this settlement is implemented, it will make the dispatch system superfluous. If you can stick your hand out and grab a cab, you don’t need it.”
According to James Weisman, general counsel for United Spinal, this will also save the city money as well.
“…this is going to save the City tens of millions a year in paratransit costs,” said Weisman in a press release. “Making cabs accessible is not just the sensible thing to do for the many New Yorkers and visitors to the City who use wheelchairs, it’s fiscally responsible.”
The proposed rules explain that unrestricted medallion owners can submit a Fleet Owner Accessibility Plan to the TLC with a schedule of how he or she will convert at least 50 percent of his or her unrestricted medallions to accessible medallions by 2020. The schedule must show that at least every other one of the owner’s unrestricted mini fleet medallions will be retrofitted as an accessible vehicle until 50 percent of their fleet is accessible.
If a plan is not submitted, the unrestricted minifleet medallion owner will be required to retrofit all of their unrestricted mini fleet medallions until 50 percent are accessible.
Independent medallion owners who have been driving their medallions in compliance with TLC owner-driver requirements for the last two years do not have to retrofit their vehicles. Independent medallion owners who have not been in compliance for the last two years, however, must retrofit their vehicles to be wheelchair accessible.
Minifleet and independent alternative fuel medallion owners will not be required to retrofit vehicles, and owners that already have accessible vehicles must keep operating them.
TLC expects many owners will phase accessible vehicles in as their current vehicles reach their retirement age.
Some fleet owners are worried about the cost of retrofitting 50 percent of their fleet.
“They [large fleet owners] would like a little more certainty. There is no question that an accessible vehicle will cost more than a non-accessible vehicle. They want to know if the City will kick in a subsidy, but we have not seen any other opposition to the accessibility.”
The Associated Press reported that Ethan Gerber, a lawyer for the Greater New York Taxi Association, questioned whether the agreement was legally binding.
“Ultimately, I think we will have an accessible fleet,” said Gerber to the Associate Press. “But we have to do it thoughtfully, not just as a last minute settlement of a lawsuit, just to make something go away.”
Rappaport believes taxi operators don’t realize the opportunities for increased business from wheelchair users, “not just from the casual user who wants to get to a performance on time, or dinner with a friend, but people who now rely on government services for their transport.”
Although plans for 50 percent accessibility are scheduled to be completed by January 1, 2020 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) filed November 27, 2013 states that if vehicles scheduled to be retired and replaced in 2020 are sufficient to get to the 50 percent, there will be an extension to December 31, 2020.
The MOU says the 50 percent accessibility requirement “shall not be considered as a ceiling on accessibility.”
Wolinsky sees many positives to New York City’s economy due to the new agreement and push for higher accessibility in the city’s fleet.
“When conventioneers go to a city these days, they look at the accessibility,” said Wolinsky. “I think this will be a feather in New York’s cap to have an accessible taxicab fleet.”
TLC’s proposed rules pend on being approved at a public hearing that will happen early this year.
Source : Taxicab Times