Accessible Taxis Leave Wheelchairs Stranded

After many years of the Taxis for All campaign, there are now enough wheelchair-accessible taxis and for-hire vehicles in New York City to properly serve people with disabilities. However, this doesn’t mean that they are getting equal service—far from it. The problem is that most cabbies are willing to drive a wheelchair-accessible vehicle, but that doesn’t mean they are willing to pick up a wheelchair user. Much like the experience that people of color have when they try to hail a taxi, wheelchair users can have the experience of being denied rides, even by cabbies driving wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

I am a motorized wheelchair user myself, so I know the extra time that it can take to properly secure a wheelchair: the cabbie has to get out of the car, pull out the ramp, and strap in the wheelchair. And then at the passenger’s destination, the cabbie has to get out of the car and pull out the ramp again and unstrap the wheelchair. The procedure at either end can take a few minutes, time that the cabbie could be using to drive an able-bodied person to their destination while the meter is running.

One thing that such cabbies fail to understand is that because they are providing more services to the wheelchair user, they may get a larger tip. I think cabbies may not realize this because there is still the impression that all people with disabilities are poor. Many are, but there are also many who have plenty of money, and even poor people sometimes take taxis—and tip well.

I do not usually take for-hire vehicles—it’s too expensive and I like the camaraderie of taking the subway or bus. However, some of my friends with disabilities do, and a week ago I came face-to-face with discrimination in the taxi industry.

Last Friday, I went into New York to meet a friend, who is also a motorized-wheelchair user, and go to the movies near Times Square. The movie, Space Jam: A New Legacy, was silly but fun, a treat after more than a year of quarantine. My friend had come into Manhattan via commuter train from the newly accessible Murray Hill train station in Queens, near where she lives in Whitestone, into Penn Station. However, on the way back she decided to take a taxi, because there are still limited trains due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially late at night. Because I needed to get back to Grand Central Terminal to catch a train, she decided to accompany me to the station, knowing that there was a taxi stand there. It took about 15 minutes to roll from the movie theater, on 8th Avenue and 42nd Street, to Grand Central. It was 10 p.m., and I felt like I had plenty of time before my train at 10:20, so I decided to see my friend off.

Upon arriving at the taxi stand, an available wheelchair-accessible taxi soon pulled up. However, when my friend approached the taxi, she was told that her wheelchair would not fit. I knew this was nonsense—my friend’s wheelchair is a standard size and the taxi driver had barely looked at her chair. My friend shrugged it off, telling me that this happens all the time. But I was livid; I began to argue with the cabbie, contending that he was lying and asking him to reconsider. He ignored me and picked up an able-bodied passenger and drove off. Luckily, I had noted his medallion number and swore that I would make a complaint to the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). This was followed by another accessible taxi that wouldn’t pick her up—the excuse this time that the wheelchair ramp wasn’t working. Again, I found this hard to believe—I have owned wheelchair-accessible vehicles for years and I have never experienced a broken ramp that made them impossible to use. Even when the electric mechanism fails to deploy, a ramp can be used manually. And the ramps on wheelchair-accessible taxis are all manual to my knowledge. I tried to argue with this cabbie as well, but he soon drove off as well. I did not take note of the medallion number this time because it was impossible to prove discrimination—it’s possible, though unlikely, that the ramp was in fact broken. At this point, my friend decided to e-hail a wheelchair-accessible taxi. While she was in the process of e-hailing a taxi, however, another accessible taxi arrived that agreed to take her. I saw her off and ran to catch my train, which I barely made—the ordeal with the taxis had taken more than 20 minutes.

As I had planned to do, the next day I put in a complaint to the TLC about the taxi I had recorded the medallion number of. I am not sure it made a difference; I am still waiting for a response more than a week later. However, I felt it was my duty to make a complaint. I encourage anybody else who experiences or witnesses such discrimination to make complaints as well. Hopefully, if there are enough people who complain to the TLC there can be real change and wheelchair users can finally have equal access to taxicabs in New York City.