Six weeks after hinting that the city might support efforts to make the entire yellow taxi fleet accessible for disabled riders, New York's taxi commissioner seemed to walk back from his position — indicating that the Bloomberg administration would not support a City Council bill requiring all newly manufactured taxicabs to be wheelchair-accessible.
The specialized cabs have long been sought by environmentalists and advocates for the elderly and disabled, but their introduction into the taxi fleet has been rocky.
But proponents of taxi accessibility quickly add that the demand exists for fleet owners to make money serving disabled passengers.
A more sensible alternative would be to set up a small fleet of wheelchair-accessible cabs that disabled passengers could call upon, through a centralized dispatch system, at any time of day or night, as part of the region's mass transit system.
The fleet includes 60 wheelchair-accessible taxis and minivans for disabled clients.
Its fleet consists of single-decker, double-decker, vestibule, low-floor, disabled-friendly, air-conditioned and Euro III compliant diesel and Compressed Natural Gas powered buses.
With 200 non-standard cycles – the largest fleet in London – Wheels for Wellbeing has already helped more than 5,000 disabled and older people discover or rediscover the joys of cycling.
Burns, for instance, points out that shared fleets of driverless cars could give greater mobility to poor, elderly, blind and disabled people.
Sometime next year, they are to be replaced by a modern fleet of light rail cars, a necessary evil dictated by the old fleet's inaccessibility to disabled passengers.
"If you're old, disabled, with kids or heavy shopping, it's impossible … You can't expect to run a bus fleet where 10% of Londoners can't physically board".
