I get disability, you get nothing
SKYDIVING STATE SEN. Martin Golden receives an NYPD disability pension — but is leading the charge on legislation that would reduce new wheelchair accessibility requirements for the city’s black cars and e-hail apps.
Golden’s bill, submitted March 1, would roll back Taxi & Limousine Commission rules set to go into effect next month that require a percentage of vehicles in each fleet of black cars, limousines and e-hail rides to offer wheelchair-accessible service.
Golden (R-Brooklyn) argues that the new regulations impose untenable fines and expenses on black car companies. The livery car industry has been thrown into disarray by competition from companies like Uber and Lyft.
Accessibility advocates saw irony in Golden’s opposition to the rules. He’s received over $1 million from an NYPD disability pension since his retirement from the force in 1983.
“Sen. Golden has shown repeatedly that when it comes to disability questions, he’s not looking out for a community that he apparently belongs to,” said Joe Rappaport of the Taxis for All Campaign.
Last week, the Daily News exclusively reported that Golden received the NYPD disability pension for a knee injury, yet participated in a skydiving for charity event in Long Island.
Jean Ryan, a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, resident and activist who uses a wheelchair, said she’d long criticized Golden for holding events at sites inaccessible to people with disabilities. She supported the TLC rules.
“He’s the one who’s supposed to have a disability!” Ryan, 73, said of Golden’s opposition to the regulations.
Ryan, who lives near the 77th St. subway station, said the closest wheelchair-accessible subway stop to her is on Atlantic Ave.
“(Golden) probably gets driven around in a car so he doesn’t have to use the subway. He doesn’t realize how inaccessible our transportation is,” Ryan said.
A spokesman for Golden said he has long been an advocate for the disabled, citing his fight for weekend express bus service in his district to compensate for the lack of accessible subway stations, as well as the installation of wheelchair ramps in Coney Island, among other efforts.
“It’s preposterous to suggest that Sen. Golden is anything but a passionate champion of disabled New Yorkers, and his record proves it,” the spokesman said.
“The injuries sustained by Sen. Golden, a decorated police officer, while on patrol meant he couldn’t stay on the force. It did not mean he couldn’t engage in all physical activity,” the spokesman added.
“Connecting Sen. Golden’s recent veterans charity tandem parachute jump with a policy debate involving for-hire vehicle ride accessibility is inaccurate, reckless and unfair.”
The TLC rules Golden opposes require that 5% of dispatched trips from each fleet of for-hire cars be made in wheelchair-accessible vehicles, regardless of the customer. The requirement builds up to 25% over five years.
“From a public policy standpoint, repeated waves of heavy fines levied against forhire bases may have helped the city’s coffers, but it has failed to benefit the disabled community which is not being properly serviced,” he says in a memo arguing for the legislation.
Golden proposes a city-controlled central dispatch system of wheelchair-accessible vehicles. Rappaport said such an idea has already been tried and failed. It would create a “separate and unequal system,” Rappaport said.
The rules have been bitterly opposed by the black car industry and ehail companies like Uber and Lyft. Black car companies dropped a lawsuit in Manhattan Federal Court last month to block the requirements after a judge ruled the TLC had not acted unlawfully.
Uber and Lyft are pursuing a similar case in state court.
“The bill’s passage would be a huge setback for people with disabilities, and seems solely designed to undo New York City’s work to require for-hire companies like Uber and Lyft to provide safe and reliable wheelchair-accessible service to New Yorkers with disabilities,” a TLC spokesman said.
A coalition of for-hire operators said the TLC “passed an unachievable mandate without any analysis whatsoever.”
“The for-hire vehicle industry is committed to providing (wheelchair-accessible) service,” the coalition said in a statement.