MANHATTAN — A few months after the Taxi of Tomorrow and its handicap-inaccessible design sparked a “roll-in” protest in the Flatiron District, disability-rights advocates returned to the pedestrian plaza at 23rd and Broadway Tuesday to test out a new option for New York City cab drivers.
The fully ADA-compliant MV-1, built by a South Florida-based company called Vehicle Production Group, is the first vehicle in the country to be made handicap-accessible from conception to completion, without having to be retrofitted, the company said.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission, which has come under fire lately for its largely handicap-inaccessible fleet of taxis, tested out the vehicle and late last year deemed it worthy of service as a New York City cab.
Fred Drasner, chairman and CEO of VPG, said his company has already sold a few of its vehicles to taxi medallion holders, and New Yorkers should start to see the MV-1 on the streets of the Big Apple in about four weeks.
“What we hope to do here is to develop the new taxi of New York along the lines of the iconic checker,” Drasner said. “The car is durable, designed by taxi fleet owners, built for the taxi duty cycle, and whether you’re on two legs or four wheels, it won’t leave anyone at the curb.”
The city’s taxi system has been the subject of serious controversy in recent months, with a series of political and legal battles culminating most recently in two big victories for disability-rights advocates.
On Dec. 20, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a landmark piece of legislation that authorized the sale of 2,000 new yellow cab medallions to handicap-accessible taxis only. The bill will also sell 6,000 street hail permits for livery cabs, provided that 20 percent of those vehicles are also wheelchair accessible.
Then, on Dec. 23, Judge George B. Daniels ruled that the city’s current taxi system violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, ordering the city to draft a plan that would provide the disabled with “meaningful access” to cabs.
The TLC has already begun drafting such a plan, Commissioner David Yassky told DNAinfo earlier this month. And at Tuesday’s unveiling of the MV-1, Yassky hailed the new vehicle as “a prominent new entrant to the marketplace.”
“We want taxi and livery owners to have as many strong options as possible to determine which accessible vehicles work best in these roles,” Yassky said in a statement. “Along those lines, the MV-1 shows great promise.”
Drasner said the MV-1 can seat up to six passengers and reserves the front seat for those who use wheelchairs or motorized scooters.
The vehicle is manufactured at a former Hummer plant in Indiana and available with either a traditional gasoline engine or one that that runs on compressed natural gas.
“[Building wheelchair-accessible vehicles] was a niche in the market that just wasn’t being addressed,” Drasner said in an interview. “And the converted vehicles have a lot of issues because they are being modified from a design that wasn’t intended to carry the size or the weight of a wheelchair passenger.”
Drasner said the MV-1 costs about $37,000 for the basic model. The upgraded consumer version costs about $39,500, and one that runs on compressed natural gas gos for about $45,000.
To help with that cost, Governor Cuomo recently signed another taxi-related bill that will provide a $10,000 tax credit to cab drivers who purchase accessible vehicles.
Drasner added that the city plans to use funds from the sale of new taxi medallions to provide grants worth $15,000 per vehicle to livery drivers who wish to purchase accessible cabs.
By contrast, Nissan’s Taxi of Tomorrow, which the city recently selected to one day populate its fleet, reportedly costs around $29,000 apiece. As it stands, the so-named NV200 is not wheelchair accessible, and making ADA modifications will likely raise that price an undetermined amount.
Drasner said he received nothing but positive reactions from the people who got a chance to preview the MV-1 on Tuesday.
“We had the drivers crawling all over it,” he said.
Wheelchair users seemed similarly pleased.
In a statement, Edith Prentiss, chair of the disability rights organization the Taxis for All Campaign, called the new vehicle “the right taxi for our city and for the city we want to be.”
“The MV-1 can be New York City’s taxi of today, tomorrow and for decades to come,” she added.
