After years of missed deadlines, the city has finally met a legal commitment to make 50% of the yellow taxis on the road wheelchair accessible.
Taxi & Limousine Commission officials and advocates for New Yorkers with disabilities on Thursday hailed the latest development in a long-running federal class-action case — whose landmark 2013 settlement initially called for making half of the entire fleet of 13,587 taxis wheelchair-accessible by 2020.
That 2023 extension.
Currently, 5,140 yellow taxis — or 50.7% of those now in service — are equipped with ramps to load people who rely on wheelchairs or scooters, according to TLC. But another 3,000 or so medallion cabs remain in storage and off the road.
“When I first started, almost three years ago at the peak of the pandemic, there were about 7,000 vehicles that were in storage, or half of the medallion fleet,” David Do, TLC commissioner and chairperson said in response to a question from THE CITY. “So we’ve made great strides in recovery, but the medallion fleet still has not recovered.”
TLC ran into repeated roadblocks en route to the trying to meet 50% mark for the entire fleet, including the rise of app-based ride-hailing services such as Uber that decimated the value of taxi medallions and a pandemic that further shrunk the number of medallion cabs on city streets.
“This is real progress and there’s no doubt about it,” said Joseph Rappaport of the Taxis For All Campaign, a coalition of disabled rights advocacy organizations that first filed the lawsuit in 2011. “So you can’t help but say, ‘Hallelujah, we’ve made it this far after so many fits and starts.’”
George Daniels, the federal judge who oversaw the case, initially likened the settlement to baseball breaking the color line, labeling it “one of the most significant acts of inclusion since Jackie Robinson ed the Dodgers.”
But as bewildered judge last year scolded TLC and told both sides to come up with another formula for making it to the halfway point.
That included an enforcement order from August 2024 requiring that all new taxis entering service be wheelchair accessible. The agency also restructured the Taxi Improvement Fund, which helps medallion owners with the costs of transitioning to wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
According to TLC, those costs can climb close to $100,000, a pricey lift for medallion owners still struggling to regain riders after the pandemic.
“That’s just for the vehicle, the retrofitting with the ramp, painting the car,” said Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
At the time of the settlement in late 2013, just 213 taxis were wheelchair accessible, barely more than 1.5% of the 13,587 yellow medallion vehicles.
“I never thought I would be able to get into an accessible cab,” said Milagros Franco, 49, a motorized wheelchair . “Everyone usually takes it for granted that they have options to go on transportation.”
Kathleen Collins, a congenital quadruple amputee, praised Daniels for ordering the two sides to find a way forward after the blown deadlines.
“I love that judge,” she told THE CITY. “He made the impossible possible.”
TLC still faces another deadline in 2028 for making 50% of the entire fleet — and not just the vehicles on the road — wheelchair accessible.
“We have a little bit more work to go and we’re going to meet the deadline in three years,” Do said.
But after enduring years when being able to find a taxi in a wheelchair was a near-impossibility, riders with disabilities said they are grateful for the improvements, despite a slow-lane pace.
“It was a pain that it took as long as it did,” said Dustin Jones, a wheelchair and disability rights advocate. “But in the disability community, when you get something, it’s better late than never.”
Jones recalled the role in the case of Edith Prentiss, a fellow advocate who was involved in the Taxis for All Campaign from its origins in the 1990s until her death in 2021.
“Without her, this would not happen,” he said. “And I wish she was alive to see it.”
