Finding the Magical Pink Unicorn: On Taxis and the Power of Transportation

I remember my first morning in England many months ago. I was sitting in my wheelchair outside of Heathrow Airport getting ready to take the journey to Kings Cross station, so I could go begin my adventure at the University of Leeds. In that moment a magical thing happened.  To me it was like a scene out of Harry Potter,  so foreign to anything I had experienced before in my 23 years of living. I found an accessible taxi! It took no planning ahead, no arguing with somebody that there had to be an accessible taxis somewhere, no searching and almost no effort on my part. The most amazing thing was there wasn’t just one accessible taxis in front of me, there had to be at least 20. This was surreal for  a girl who had once lived in our nation’s capital, which often had only  two accessible taxis working. If I could have, I literally would’ve jumped for joy. I hailed  a taxi and then drove off to my destination just like anybody else. In that moment I felt equal. In that moment I felt free.

I learned later that every black cab in the city of London is wheelchair accessible, something no city in the United States can claim.  Don’t get me wrong, traveling in London still has  challenges, the tube, for example has a long way to go to be fully accessible, but the ability to hail a cab like an average person on the street revolutionized my life. It meant that when I visited London again many months later I could get off the train and get a cab to my hotel by myself.  It meant I could go to dinner and explore the far reaches of the city.  It meant adventures without having to plan hours or even days in advance,  how I would get back to my starting point . It meant doing what I wanted when I wanted. It meant more choices more self determination. It meant, at least on this one issue,  not feeling like the other, or the outsider which is something I’ve experienced  my whole life.

It was astounding to me that in London, Paris, and Leeds accessible taxis were more visible and readily available than anywhere in my own country, the United States. It always surprised my cabdrivers and my friends when I would begin to say how amazed I was about the availability of accessible taxis. “Surely, it must be like this in America,” they  would say, “don’t you guys have laws about that?” Then, I would have to explain, that while we do have laws around disability, such as the ADA, so far none of them seem to cover taxis. They were also surprised when I would tell them that laws to increase the number of accessible taxis have been shot  down in places like New York City.

Explaining this over and over to  people who just couldn’t understand how it could be this way in America really made me think. How is it that 25 years after the ADA there is still a sentiment in America that disabled people can’t reasonably expect to get a taxi just like everyone else? While  arguments against the expansion of accessible taxis often claim that specialized forms of transportation such as Paratransit or Metroaccess serve as reasonable alternatives to accessible taxis, these arguments fail  to consider the restrictions put in place for these programs.

 These type of specialized transportation are not alternatives to taxis because they’re only available to disabled people actually living in the area where they are provided, and they need to be planned well in advance. Having to plan every journey out days, sometimes even weeks in advance and being restricted to a certain distances away from your home is not the same thing as being able to hail a taxi on the street.  Not to mention that many of these programs have a set of qualifiers which may not include all people who could benefit from accessible taxis and often times prevent disabled people  from traveling with friends and family.  More importantly, separate specialized transportation will never replace the ability to access standard transportation. It’s astonishing to me that in 2015 complicated specialized transportation is still being suggested as an alternative to universal accessibility.

The point is that wheelchair accessible taxis shouldn’t, and don’t need to be a special thing. These type of taxis are usable by wheelchair users and non  wheelchair users alike.  We need to stop thinking about accessibility in terms of “special treatment” because it’s not. I know that universally accessible taxis won’t appear overnight, that’s not how it happened in London. It was a gradual process that took about 20 years, but now  in  London, there’s nothing special about taking one of the  20,000  black cabs as a wheelchair user;  it’s just having the same opportunity as everybody else.

There’s nothing special or out of the ordinary about wanting to be able to travel as a visitor to different cities in America, that’s what everyone else gets and what everyone else expects. When I call for universally accessible taxis I’m not asking for anything unreasonable or out of the ordinary, I’m simply asking that we stop making accessibility a magical pink unicorn, something that doesn’t exist, something that's impossible to find.  So, I’m not asking for special treatment I’m just asking for options like everyone else.