WE WON!

Salt Lake City to make taxicabs accessible.

By Jerry Costley

The Salt Lake City attorney did a magnificent job defending the city's new ordinance that requires the cab companies to provide at least one accessible van per fleet of vans. Proceedings began at approximately 9:30 AM and the judge delivered his decision at approximately 6:30 PM. 

The judge found that Handivan does have a property interest in their certificates of convenience and necessity, but then found that introducing competition from the taxi companies does not constitute a taking of that property. The judge also found no conflict between the new ordinance that was passed and the one that creates a license for specialized transportation. 

What this means - as of this moment, Salt Lake City has a valid ordinance requiring all cab companies that own vans (I believe this is City Cab, Yellow Cab and Checkered Cab) to provide an accessible van. Thus, if you call these cab companies today they must offer you an accessible ride, within twenty minutes that costs the same as all other fares. If, for any reason, you call for a cab and don't get this service, give us a call immediately. 

Caution- In the hearing yesterday, the manager for Yellow Cab stated that he doesn't believe the city has the authority to require that he pick up anyone outside of the city limits who uses a power chair or to extend a trip that begins within the Salt Lake City limits to outside the Salt Lake City limits. Therefore they are warning us that if you call and say you need to be picked up in South Salt Lake they will probably tell you they don't provide accessible taxi service in South Salt Lake. 

Also, the manager said that they may just drop us off at the County line if we ask to be picked up in Salt Lake City and then want to travel to South Salt Lake, or they will switch the meter over at the County line and start charging us exorbitant fees. We obviously have some work to do. 

If anyone has “ins” with Salt Lake County, you may want to start hitting them up for support of a companion ordinance. All the cab companies’ arguments about how they can't afford a lift would be moot because the City ordinance already required that they provide the service one way or another. A county ordinance would just require that they extend this service so that people with disabilities outside of Salt Lake City aren't discriminated against based solely on where they live. 

Lee Anne and the taxi companies have talked about wanting to take this to trial, but they would be going before the same judge who just found most of their legal arguments to be without merit. However, we don't ever want to underestimate them the way they have so badly underestimated us. 

Jerry Costley