Philly’s Wheelchair-Accessible Taxi Problem

Philadelphia is home to 1,600 taxi cabs. Not surprising in a city as large as ours. But the number of wheelchair-accessible cabs may surprise you. Take a guess. 100? 50? 25?

Nope. In the entire City of Brotherly Love, there are only 7 wheelchair-accessible taxis. For real. To give you some context, New York has 223 wheelchair-accessible cabs, and Boston (a smaller city than Philly) has 100.

But hopefully that will soon change. The Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) is working with disability advocates to make more taxis accessible. According to the PPA, they hope to issue 45 wheelchair-accessible taxi medallions by this summer. They then plan to issue 15 new medallions every year. That means that over a 10 year period, they could issue up to 150 medallions.

You can read more about the proposed plan here. In the meantime, we want to hear from you! If you are a wheelchair user in the Philly area, what has your experience been with the taxis? Do you think this plan is enough?

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