Politics & Government
No Wheelchairs in the New Taxis… At Least Not Yet
Taxi Commissioner Yassky indicated said he would not support a bill requiring all newly manufactured cabs to be wheelchair accessible.
This story was posted by Caitlin Nolan. It was written and reported on by C. Zawadi Morris.
New York City’s Taxi Commissioner David Yassky indicated that the Bloomberg administration would not support a City Council bill that requires all newly manufactured cabs be accessible for disabled riders, The New York Times reports.
“While we support expanding access to the taxi system for people who use wheelchairs, we believe acting on this bill would be premature,” Yassky told the Council’s transportation committee on Thursday.
Just last month, Yassky touted the city’s Taxi of Tomorrow, a uniform taxi fleet of Nissan NV200s, even calling recent progress on a wheelchair-accessible version “a game-changer.”
But at a Council hearing on Thursday, Yassky confirmed the city would not be moving forward with equipping all of the new taxis with capabilities for disabled riders, citing fuel efficiency concerns, and price — likely to cost buyers about $14,000 more than the NV200, he estimated.
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