NYC Doesn’t Need to Offer More Taxis for Disabled: Federal Appeals Court | June 2012

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is not responsible for increasing the number of wheelchair-accessible taxicabs in the city.

Overturning a lower court ruling against the TLC, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that the city’s taxi regulators were not in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and vacated an order that would have compelled all new yellow cabs to be equipped to handle wheelchairs until the system provided more robust access.

“It may be that there is a failure to provide meaningful access to taxis for persons with disabilities,” the ruling read. “But if so, it is a failure of the taxi industry in New York City.”

Neither the district court nor the appeals court agreed with the suit’s plaintiffs, including two wheelchair users, that the TLC is the “operator” of the city’s privately owned taxi industry, despite what the appeals court called its “pervasive” control over individual drivers and taxi owners.

But the lower court had ruled that the commission violated the ADA because so few of the city’s taxis are accessible to the disabled.

Of the 13,237 taxi medallions in the city, only 231 are reserved for wheelchair-accessible cabs, the court said in its decision. The chance of hailing an accessible cab within 10 minutes in Manhattan is only 3.3%, the court noted, compared to 87.3% for any yellow cab.

But the court found that the paucity of accessible taxis cannot be held against the regulators, since nothing in the industry’s rules precludes any taxi medallion owner from furnishing a cab that can handle a wheelchair.

The taxi industry is private, the court found.

“Accordingly, even if private industry (such as the New York City taxi industry) fails to provide meaningful access for persons with disabilities, a licensing entity (such as the TLC) is not therefore in violation” of the federal law, the court wrote, “unless the private industry practice results from the licensing requirements.”

The ruling removes one of the most pressing legal challenges to the TLC’s administration of the yellow taxi industry, even as the city is moving forward with a major expansion of car service.

Still on hold is a plan that would auction off 2,000 new yellow cab medallions, while permitting up to 18,000 livery cabs to convert to a new hybrid model — known as “borough taxis” — which would be permitted to accept street-hail customers outside most of Manhattan and the city’s airports.

That plan, passed by state lawmakers with the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been temporarily stayed by a state judge on the grounds that supporters skirted the City Council to get it approved in Albany. The TLC and the taxi industry are awaiting a ruling on additional challenges to the borough taxi law, whose opponents say it will dilute the value of medallions.

Article By Ted Mann | The Wll Street Journal | June 28, 2012
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/06/28/court-city-doesnt-need-to-offer-more-taxis-for-disabled/