There's good news, and there's not-as-good news. The good news is, there will be more wheelchair-accessible taxis in the future, thanks in part to disabled advocates' tireless efforts to make cabs more wheelchair-friendly. The not-as-good news is that it'll cost the rest of us a little more to flag down a hack from now on; Mayor de Blasio has proposed a 30-cent taxi surcharge to help fund the new cabs, so you'll have to pony up a few dimes to help your fellow man.
The plan is to get 7,500 wheelchair-accessible taxi and street-hail livery cabs on the road by 2020. Advocates had complained to the Bloomberg administration that the then-mayor's beloved "Taxi of Tomorrow" wasn't accessible for people who used wheelchairs, and even the Department of Justice ruled the taxis were discriminatory. There are only 631 wheelchair-accessible taxis in a fleet of 13,637 cabs.
Now, in order to fulfill a legal settlement reached by the Bloomberg administration and advocates last year, de Blasio says he's committed to making 50 percent of the city's cab fleet accessible to everyone; the proposed surcharge, which will extend beyond 2020, will go into effect on January 1st of next year, provided the Taxi & Limousine Commission approves it. And though the TLC told the Wall Street Journal they're "poised to make this a taxi fleet that is truly for all," not all cabbies seem so psyched about the plan. "You’re gonna charge people that are not using wheelchairs for the people that are using wheelchairs,” one taxi driver told CBS. “All cabs should be wheelchair-accessible, you might as well have the whole fleet wheelchair-accessible."
The TLC will vote on the proposal on April 30th.
