For years, if you were a person with a disability living in Toronto, metered, on demand, wheelchair-accessible taxis weren’t a possibility for you.
Instead, a dispatcher gave out a number – seemingly forgetting to disclose that you were actually calling a different company from the one you’d actually contacted. After dialing that number and requesting an accessible cab again, a new person agreed to the job, but it would cost you a minimum flat-rate of $30.
“The whole practice had been so messy and embarrassing,” admits Kristine Hubbard, operations manager for Beck Taxi.
Until now.
Following an industry review in January 2014 and the passing of a new bylaw in August of that same year, the city began issuing the new Toronto Taxicab Licence, mandating that all vehicles with one work with a brokerage to provide metered, on demand, accessible service to everyone, regardless of mobility.
The city’s goal is 290 newly-licensed accessible cabs on the street by July – just in time for the Pan Am and ParaPan Am Games. This is six per cent of the nearly 5,000 cabs in Toronto, but new licenses are being issued so frequently that the city now predicts 10 per cent accessibility by the summer.
“We’re so happy that everything has changed. I cannot tell you how happy Beck is to be able to offer on demand metered service for wheelchair users,” continues Hubbard.
Sure, some things have changed. Since accessible cabs are no longer restricted to picking up only wheelchair users, drivers will have an easier time covering the increased cost of accessible vehicles. Plus, unlike in the past, these new licenses can be sold and are transferable. The biggest change though, is that drivers have to work with a brokerage, so the majority of the city’s accessible cabs will no longer be tied to a Wheel-Trans contract– the TTC’s para-transit service that must be booked a minimum of 24 hours in advance.
But, not everything has changed. Like the old licence, The Toronto Taxi Licence is not issued to taxi brokerages according to demand. Instead, it is issued to owner/operator drivers who have the freedom to decide which company gets their vehicles.
Beck Taxi has 70 licences in their company – on pace to meet their goal of 100 by July – while Royal Taxi struggles to meet theirs, with only 35 licenses when they need about 60 to meet the demand.
“We understand us companies have an obligation to serve the community, but how can we do it if you don’t give us licences?” asks Spiros Bastas, Royal Taxi’s general manager.
Thanks to this disparity, it seems old habits die hard.
As a guy with cerebral palsy who drives a mobility scooter, Beck and Co-op offered their new accessible cabs when I called recently asking for metered service. But the dispatcher at Royal gave me a number which turned out to be for AQuality Mobility Inc. – an affiliated, private accessible transportation company that still charges the $30 minimum and has the same owner as Royal Taxi.
“The dispatcher must’ve misheard that you wanted an on-demand taxi,” says Bastas. “Every call that comes in we try to service ourselves. If we cannot service it then we refer to the affiliate which is AQuality.”
Regardless, a vehicle acting as a taxi and charging above the metered fare is, and has always been, breaking the law. Even before the new licenses were issued.
“If you call a company like Royal and they can’t provide the service, then they have a responsibility to refer you to a taxi company that can in a lawful manner,” says John DeCourcy, director of the Municipal Licensing and Standards Bylaw Enforcement Unit.
“If you contact Royal, and they set you up with someone who can pick you up, but whatever shows up is not a metered vehicle, whoever’s transporting you at that point is breaking the bylaw.”
Still, the city hopes that once the number of new licences reaches critical mass, there will be enough accessible taxicabs on the road that referring customers to these flat-rate operators will be one more thing of the past for wheelchair users.
“We need to take a look at these companies operating flat-rate vehicles and consider a licensing regime to bring them within the Toronto taxicab license. Right now, they operate outside of it, so that’s ongoing work that we are scheduled to take a look at,” says Vanessa Fletcher, project manager of the Toronto Taxi Industry Review.
Until that happens, DeCourcy encourages all wheelchair-using patrons to report anything their not comfortable with through 311 so his Bylaw Enforcement Unit can investigate.
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