Mayor’s Green Taxi Plan Leaves Disabled, Aging New Yorkers Without Transportation
Jackson Heights, NY—Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement today that the city’s yellow taxi fleet will become completely hybrid within five years callously ignores the immediate transportation needs of persons with severe physical disabilities who cannot enter/exit currently available hybrid taxi vehicles, as well as New York City’s growing aging population who are much more likely to acquire a physical impairment in their golden years.
“Wheelchair users and seniors are once again ignored in the plans of the Bloomberg Administration,” said Terence Moakley, United Spinal Association’s Taxis For All-North America project manager. Moakley continued, “Despite the availability today of a half-dozen minivans that can be modified for wheelchair access, and the ongoing development of a factory-built wheelchair accessible sedan which will be available for purchase next year, the Mayor chooses to ignore those citizens most in need of additional transportation service.”
United Spinal Association also points out the purchasing power that exists in the city and in the yellow taxi industry. Moakley stated, “More new yellow cabs are acquired each year in New York City than anywhere else in the nation. If the Mayor were to require hybrid and accessible yellow taxis over the five-year time frame which he specifies for hybrids only, manufacturers would meet this deadline. There is money to be made in New York City, it’s that simple,” Moakley concluded.
Successful accessible taxi services exist in more than 100 U.S. communities, including large cities such as Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas, and Portland. In New York City, however, less than 50 accessible taxis are in operation, out of a fleet of more than 13,000 yellow cabs, and accessible for-hire vehicles do not exist at all in the 25,000 vehicle neighborhood car service industry—the “taxis” of New York’s four other boroughs. These conditions prevent many aging and disabled New Yorkers from fully participating in the communities in which they live.