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Handicap-Handicapped Taxi Of Tomorrow Meets The Press
By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 4, 2012
Modified Apr 4, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Apr 4, 2012
Modified Apr 4, 2012
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Last night, Nissan and the city held a press conference to show off a model of the new Nissan NV200, A.K.A. The Taxi of Tomorrow. Wine was served, fancy snacks were passed, Nissan execs were schmoozing, Mayor Bloomberg talked and crowds of photographers rushed the single minivan as if it were Britney Spears shaving her head again. Still, despite being mentioned more than once, one group was physically absent from the affair: the handicapped. Though the space where the event was held has wheelchair access, the entrance used was up a steep flight of steps.
"This taxi was designed from the inside out and the result is the safest, most comfortable, most passenger-friendly cab to ever ride our streets," Bloomberg told reporters. "For the first time our city will have a cab designed for those who matter most: the passengers and our hardworking drivers." Well, some passengers!
The charms of the cab that Bloomberg praised include its passenger airbags, safety testing (according to Nissan this is the first cab to be crash tested with the partition installed), USB ports (for charging your toys), sunroof, anti-bacterial seats (!), flat floor (no more hump!), its ability to be modified in the future for full electric power, as well as the built in GPS for drivers (at no extra cost to them, as this is, one exec told us, "a turnkey taxi"). Our diminutive mayor even praised the cab's extra 10" of leg room for passengers.
And—in part due to the initial uproar over the fact that the so-called Taxi of Tomorrow was not wheelchair accessible—the mayor and Nissan took great pains to emphasize that the new car (which will hit the road next October and should replace all cabs by 2018) can be made wheelchair accessible via rear entry (like these cabs). As Carlos Ghosn, chief executive officer of Nissan, puts it, the cab "has been designed so it can be modified for wheelchair users, without compromising the integrity of the vehicle." Yup, these cabs have integrity, people!
Or not? As a counter to the excitement around the new cab inside, a group (two in wheelchairs) waited on the street peacefully holding yellow signs. From the Taxis For All campaign, they were there to express their desire to be able to take a cab like everybody else. Because, right now—with just 232 of the city's 13,000-odd cabs wheelchair accessible—that really isn't possible for them. Ronnie Raymond, who suffers from MS, explained to us what a typical ride on the city's alternative, Access-A-Ride, is like:
It is not very satisfying. You have to make a reservation 24-48 hours in advance. You can't change anything, you can't do anything spontaneously. To give you an idea, the last meeting that I went to at the Taxi and Limousine Commission—I live on the Upper West Side. Their offices are on Beaver Street in the Wall Street area. The meeting was at 10 o'clock. It was a one-hour meeting—In order for me to get there at 10 I had to arrange for Access-A-Ride to pick me up at 7:30. Because oftentimes they come at least an hour late and then they go and pick somebody else up and drop somebody else off. So I leave at 7:30 and the last meeting I got there at 10:15. So I was late. Then I go downstairs to get picked up at 12:30 an they don't come until almost 2 p.m. And I don't get home until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. So it is an entire day, a lot of anxiety, a lot of concern. If they don't come and get me, I have no other way to get home!
Can you imagine if you had to plan your cab rides out days in advance? Still, as the Karsan Kab (which had wheelchair access from both sides) seems to be out of the question, we were curious what the Taxis For All campaign would like to see happen. And of course, it is all in the name: "If he wants to be a true visionary," the group's chair Edith Prentiss said in a statement, "Mayor Bloomberg should end his administration's appeal of our lawsuit and agree to a 100 percent accessible fleet. If it can be done in London, where every taxi now is accessible, it can be done in New York."
Tagged
taxi of tomorrow
katie sokoler
wheelchair accessible
nissan
tlc
taxi
mayor bloomberg
cab
Garth Johnston
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