From UrbanReview | CHICAGO: Abundance of MV-1 Accessible Taxicabs
Today’s post first appeared on UrbanReview | CHICAGO, my new blog started on Saturday.
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One of the things we love when we’re in Chicago is the wide variety of vehicles used for taxicab service. In St. Louis most are old Ford Crown Vics. St. Louis has three accessible vans for wheelchairs — not three types, but three total! Last year this was down to just two.
In Chicago we often see the MV-1 on the streets. This vehicle was built to be accessible:
In the past, if you needed a wheelchair-accessible vehicle you had to start with a completed minivan, cut it apart, put it back together and hope for the best. The result was an after-market vehicle with questionable durability and passenger safety concerns. Enter the MV-1, a completely new concept that has been a long time coming: build a wheelchair accessible vehicle from the ground up that is designed for commercial fleet use. Take a tour of the Mobility Ventures MV-1 and see how we’re revolutionizing passenger safety in accessible fleet transportation.
I’ve yet to ride in one — with or without my wheelchair. We see them often, will need to hail or schedule one on a future visit.
— Steve Patterson
And the question is why? The evil, incompetent, Taxi Commission, here (and the enlightened one there)? Or, the private sector seeing an unmet demand and meeting it?
Taxicabs in Chicago are regulated through the city government, not a state-created commission. Long list of approved vehicles gives owners to ability to differentiate from the competition. https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/bacp/supp_info/approved_vehiclelist.html
And there’s a short list of approved vehicles, here?!
Can’t even find the list on the website, but did find a list of “premium vehicles” http://www.stl-taxi.com/documents/PREMIUMSEDA2.pdf
From what I’ve seen, most taxis, here, are old police cars or minivans – you can run whatever you want to / can afford to, but most choose proven, affordable, durability/cheap to repair. The one requirement that I do know of is that taxis picking up at the airport need to be white, not a distinctive livery. And I’m pretty sure that the reason there are few accessible vehicles on the street street, just like there are far too many missing curb ramps, is that no one has really made an issue out of it, the disabled community is just too nice (or too silent) to push the taxi companies and local governments to meet the well-established requirements of the ADA. Since it’s complaint-driven, and there aren’t many formal complaints, much less any in-your-face protests, not much gets done . . .