NYC Mayor Bloomberg needs to see reason about wheelchair-accessible cabs : NY Daily News Editorial Oct 22, 2011

Mayor Bloomberg keeps driving farther around the bend as he tries to explain why there's little sense in making New York City's fleet of yellow cabs wheelchair-accessible.

His rationales, as the price of a taxi medallion hit $1 million - indicating that a hugely healthy business is capable of absorbing the cost of accessibility - have verged on the irrational.

The Justice Department has concluded that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires conversion of the city's 13,237 cabs to vehicles that can accommodate wheelchairs. Bloomberg strengthened the notion by selecting a nonaccessible van to be the single Taxi of Tomorrow.

After resisting efforts to increase the proportion of wheelchair cabs beyond 1.7% of the fleet, where it now stands, the mayor prefers to create a telephone dispatch system for accessible taxis.

The concept has been aborning for years without progress. Now, facing the probability of a federal court order, the mayor is invoking danger, comfort and, unbelievably, bad tips to fight back.

Among his pearls:

"You just can't take a wheelchair out into the street and try and hail a cab."

"A lot of drivers say the passengers sit too far away and so they can't have a good dialogue and they get lower tips."

"What happens, apparently is, No. 1, it's more expensive. No. 2, it's heavier, so it uses more gas and there's more pollution and it's more expensive to run. No. 3, if you stay on the seat, you really have to get up and reach way over to pay the driver, and that's difficult for people who aren't as mobile but still would be better with wheelchairs."

"Fewer people may use cabs because the suspension is worse, and I think you're going to see suits about people getting up, trying to get to the front, across the divide. You know there's so much more space between the backseat and the divider, you're going to have people getting hurt."

That hasn't been the experience in other cities, and, to this point, the mayor has offered no workable alternatives. As they say, it's time for him to put up.

#Source: NYDailyNews.com October 22nd 2011
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/10/22/2011-10-22_mikes_bumpy_ride.html