Coquitlam mayor speaks out after resident stranded while waiting for wheelchair-accessible taxi

The mayor of Coquitlam, B.C., says he spent Monday evening trying to help a resident who uses a wheelchair find a ride home after being stranded at a restaurant for hours when an accessible taxi didn't show up. 

Richard Stewart said he spent hours on the phone with Bel-Air Taxi, the company the resident had called earlier that night. 

The dispatcher told Stewart there were no wheelchair-accessible taxis on the road that evening. 

"This company continues to not put its wheelchair cabs on the road," he said.

He said not having a wheelchair-accessible taxi goes against licensing requirements. 

According to the Ministry of Transportation, taxi company licences include a minimum number of wheelchair-accessible taxis that must be on the road when operating a full fleet during operating hours. 

"To tell me on the phone you don't have any tonight, that's ridiculous," Stewart said. 

"We have licensed you. The province licensed you. The city acquiesced to those licences and therefore wheelchair cabs need to be on the road."

'Misunderstanding'

Stewart said a cab did eventually pick up the resident, who is also his neighbour.

Bel-Air manager Inder Naan says the incident was all a "misunderstanding." 

He said that there was a wheelchair-accessible taxi on the road Monday night, but demand was high. 

He said they had a lot of calls in the queue and asked a neighbouring company to pick up the customer. He claims the company contacted the restaurant the customer called from to confirm whether they had in fact been picked up, and were told they had. 

Naan says the company doesn't have a shortage of accessible cabs — there's a shortage of trained drivers for those vehicles, and a shortage of drivers in general. 

"There's a taxi industry-wide problem," he said. 

He said there's been a sharp decrease in drivers since Uber and Lyft arrived in the Lower Mainland. Not only that, he said, but it was also a long weekend and fewer drivers were working. 

Naan did say they are licensed to have a wheelchair-accessible taxi available. 

When asked why all drivers aren't trained to drive a wheelchair-accessible vehicle to ensure there's always an accessible cab on the road, he said they can't train them all because they "need regular cars too." 

Human rights issue

Accessibility advocate Helaine Boyd said it's no surprise to hear of yet another wheelchair user waiting a long time for a cab. 

She said that while she understands the challenges associated with running a taxi service, those who need accessible transportation can't be forgotten. 

"If [taxi companies] really cared about accessibility for their passengers, they would advocate themselves to the provincial government to solve that problem rather than just making excuses," she said, suggesting cab companies should voice any concerns about driver shortages and training to the provincial government. 

Six months ago, the province announced $3 million to retrofit cabs to make them more accessible. 

"Accessibility is a human rights issue, so when it comes to human rights issues, we should take every measure to ensure that we're not perpetuating harm by excluding wheelchair users from accessing wheelchair-accessible taxis," Boyd said.