An online community for Jewish moms

City's disabled hailing $2.25 cab ride

Many disabled New Yorkers will be able to take a taxi for the cost of a subway ride under the city's new pilot program; transportation authority picks up the tab after $2.25.

The $2.25 cab ride has arrived for disabled riders.

The city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority formally announced Wednesday the launch of a long-anticipated program to offer disabled riders taxi rides for the price of a subway trip.

The taxi program, first reported by Crain's this summer, is part of an ongoing effort to use the city's taxi and livery infrastructure to reduce the skyrocketing costs of the state's federally-mandated Access-a-Ride program.

Disabled riders will be given prepaid debit cards to use in taxicabs south of 96th Street in Manhattan. As is the case with any Access-a-Ride trip, the rider will pay $2.25, the cost of a subway ride, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will pick up the rest of the tab. The average cost per Access-a-Ride trip ranges between $50 and $60, while a cab ride from 96th Street to the southern tip of Manhattan is likely to cost half that. The MTA estimates that an average trip under the pilot program will cost $15.

The 90-day pilot program, announced Wednesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, MTA Chief Executive Jay Walder and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, is expected to save the Access-a-Ride program 70% per trip, and 400 customers will be eligible to enroll.

The MTA's paratransit costs have more than doubled to $472 million in 2010 from $190 million in 2006. Access-a-Ride costs are expected to grow to $694 million in 2013—a 47% increase from today—as the city's elderly population grows and as more residents become immobilized by chronic illnesses such as diabetes.

Cabs are ubiquitous below 96th Street in Manhattan, making them a quicker alternative for Access-a-Ride participants, 80% of whom do not use wheelchairs.

The program will not be a boon to the city's approximately 60,000 wheelchair-users, for whom there are only about 240 accessible cabs. They will continue to rely on the MTA vans equipped with wheelchair lifts.

The city has embarked on a project to redesign its iconic yellow taxi and last month announced three finalists. Only one manufacturer, Turkish car maker Karsan, has proposed a Taxi of Tomorrow concept that is wheelchair-accessible. The Taxi and Limousine Commission has opposed City Council legislation requiring any new taxi to be wheelchair-accessible.

Mr. Bloomberg proposed using taxi cabs to support the Access-A-Ride program in his 2009 campaign.