Hopp believes Toronto needs more VFH

Because 85,000 VFH are not enough to completely annihilate the Wheelchair Accessible program?

Toronto media is beyond ironic this week. First, the CBC covered the fact that 98 of Beck Taxi’s 100 wheelchair accessible vehicles will be off the road this year.

Then, the Star does a1500-word interview with newly-arrived rideshare operator Hopp GM David Riggs and manages never to mention the word “accessible” even once. Apparently, Hopp is working to become IPO-ready and probably expanding to gridlocked Toronto could help with that effort.

It’s nice of Toronto to sacrifice its own poverty-stricken Vehicle for Hire drivers AND passengers with disabilities to help Hopp with its Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Rideshare killed Toronto’s on-demand Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) Program. Industry warned staff and politicians for a decade that this would happen, and it has happened.

This is terribly sad news for all of the members of the community of the disabled community who had hoped on-demand accessible service would exist by now. It doesn’t, and it won’t, so long as there are 85,000 plus Vehicles for Hire fighting over every scrap of business in the city.

Few, if any, drivers can afford to buy, convert, insure, and maintain a WAV. Staff told stakeholders at last year’s VFH review that “Uber and Lyft have, between them, maybe one accessible vehicle.”

Toronto has NO PLAN to fix this problem; truthfully, I tell you from my heart, they don’t even understand the problem.

During last years’ VFH Review, when it became blatantly obvious that L&S staff have absolutely no grasp of the Law of Supply and Demand, I offered to hire and pay a business school professor to deliver a short workshop on the concept. I was told such a thing could not occur because it would be considered lobbying. We are in real trouble when universally-accepted, helpful, factual information is considered “lobbying.” It’s better to base important public policy on absolute nonsense, I guess.

So, here we are. The last creaky, wobbly, wheezy “buckets of bolts” Wheelchair Accessible Vans are rolling toward the final possible moment of their roadworthy usefulness (no matter how many two month extensions Toronto grants in a panic) and there is nothing to replace them. Toronto’s grant program will not solve the problem; per-trip fees will not solve the problem, SO LONG AS THERE IS NO CAP ON THE NUMBER OF VEHICLES FOR HIRE ON THE ROADS.

But hey, Hopp, welcome to Toronto. Hope the expansion helps with your IPO. Meanwhile, how many Wheelchair Accessible Vans will you be running?