2018 should be the year we fix accessible transportation in Halifax

UPDATE: (7:50am, January 12, 2018) This story has been edited to reflect improvements to bus stop accessibility, potential changes to tie down systems, and comments from Councillor Waye Mason.

On one of the first cold days of this winter, I was leaving the Central Library at closing time, bundled up for a chilly walk home. A man outside the library beckoned and asked if I could call him a cab. I obliged, but unfortunately, I did not succeed. This particular guy was using a wheelchair, and none of the companies I called had any accessible taxi drivers on duty.

It’s no wonder. There are only about 20 accessible taxis licensed in Halifax, and the number is dropping rapidly. When I wrote about one driver’s challenges just over a year and half ago, there had been 39 licensed vans on the road. And as their numbers dwindle, they become even less sustainable as they get spread thinner across a large service area.

It’s a situation that is leaving plenty of people, like my library friend, without a ride, and it’s getting worse all the time.

But accessible taxis are only part of the problem in accessible transportation in Halifax.

Most people are likely familiar with Access-A-Bus, Halifax Transit’s paratransit service, which is both the most expensive and least convenient service that Halifax Transit runs. Despite that, Access-A-Bus has seen continuous growth in ridership even in years when conventional ridership had dipped, thanks to a healthy waiting list of people who qualify for and need the program.

The average cost per trip on Access-A-Bus is about 10 times that of Halifax Transit’s conventional bus service. And while users are able to book door-to-door trips, they must book those trips seven days in advance for time slots within a 30-minute window. Just pause for a moment and try to imagine your week’s travel under those constraints… Preposterous, right?

Gerry Post thinks there’s a way to fix both these problems with one move: start contracting accessible taxis to take on Access-A-Bus service.

Post is a Halifax disability rights advocate whose advocacy work at the provincial level recently landed him a position heading up Nova Scotia’s Accessibility Directorate, guiding implementation of the province’s new Accessibility Act. But on this issue, he speaks strictly as a citizen, and a transit user who happens to use a wheelchair.

Minimum service contracts for accessible taxi drivers would give them a bankable source of income, says Post, one that would help cover the cost of an accessible vehicle. Contracts could even be offered by zone, which could help mitigate drivers’ issues with being spread thin. By bulk-purchasing accessible taxi service, Halifax Transit could ensure a base demand for these taxis and help turn around the current supply problem.

And while helping fix the accessible taxi supply, the contracting out of Access-A-Bus service could also help improve that service. “It could double the number of trips with the same budget,” says Post, and provide more flexibility for riders.

Post’s proposal presentation, which he’s made to “everyone from the director on down” at Halifax Transit over the past four years, compares the costs of the average Access-A-Bus trip based on how it’s done: a trip costing Halifax Transit about $37 would cost about $14.50 in a taxi.

Post is not a lone voice on this. In 2010, Halifax Transit paid IBI group to write an Access-A-Bus strategic plan. One of their recommendations was to supplement Access-A-Bus service with contracted accessible taxis. Starting out with just six per cent of rides, slowly ramping up to 18 per cent at the end of the five-year plan, IBI Group predicted that using supplemental taxis would bring the overall average cost per trip down by about 12 per cent. Without using supplemental taxis, they predicted cost per trip would go up just under five per cent.

So just where do those efficiencies come from? My worry whenever anyone points to the efficiency of the private over the public sector is that the savings comes in the form of reduced wages and benefits. But in this case, the “private” sector is not completely private. The taxi industry, argues Post, is more a regulated utility than an independent marketplace. Halifax city council sets the rates and the rules for how taxis operate.

“HRM sets the income for that industry, so if they want, give them increased rates and better incomes,” says Post.

Aside from labour costs, there are plenty of efficiencies coming from the use of smaller vehicles and the integration with the rest of the taxi market. Accessible taxis, after all, are not exclusive to people using wheelchairs. We all take them.

In some places, large percentages of regulated taxi fleets are wheelchair accessible by regulation. New York City committed to getting 50 per cent of its Yellow Cab fleet accessible by 2020, up from two per cent in 2013. And all of London’s famous custom-designed black cabs are accessible.

So far, Halifax city council has been treating the inaccessibility of our taxi fleet as an unfortunate problem, but not their own problem. Post thinks that is a mistake.

“If HRM doesn’t act on this, I can see it going to the Human Rights Commission,” says Post. In New York City, it was legal actions by groups like Taxis For All that eventually led to the 50 per cent commitment.

Right now, Halifax Transit’s response to the issues with Access-A-Bus is to invest in more of the same. In November, Halifax Transit issued a tender looking for a supplier for up to 40 more mini-buses for the Access-A-Bus fleet. Imagine if instead, that tender were for 40 custom-built accessible vehicles that the city could then lease out to its licensed taxi drivers, which it could then hire to take the pressure off its Access-A-Bus system.

London’s black cabs are considered by some the gold standard in taxis, and they go for between $75,000 and $90,000 CAD. Halifax Transit’s larger accessible mini-buses go for about $96,000, or at least they did just three years ago, when council authorized the purchase of 31 of them.

You might think the larger size bus size is advantageous, but it’s not. In its own report in April 2016, Halifax Transit wrote that Access-A-Bus trips often happen with only one or two riders on board, and “this is not an optimal use for a scarce vehicle resource of relatively large capacity.”

Halifax Transit staff wrote in the same 2016 report: “In the pursuit of a solution [to increasing Access-A-Bus demand], additional staff and paratransit vehicles will not necessarily address the challenge.”

So, wonders Post, “why are they buying 40 more busses when the alternative is half the price if not less, and provides more flexibility and improved level of service?”

In a June 2017 report to council entitled “Halifax Transit Access-A-Bus Strategic Review,” transit staff wrote:

At the time of writing [April 2017], a discreet initiative to augment the Access-A-Bus service would not be beneficial relative to the challenges. That stated, as a healthy accessible taxi industry would have great utility in either a dedicated or non-dedicated partnership with our operation, there is scope for Halifax Transit to collaborate in any effort to create a sustainable foundation for this service.

I have worked hard at unpacking the language in this statement, keeping in mind the discussion around Access-A-Bus and accessible taxis in Halifax. I think it translates to something like this:

Bringing in taxis to help fix Access-A-Bus will be too hard right now, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort. That said, it is still a great idea and we are willing to keep talking about it.

The main challenge with contracting taxis, according to the report, is that there’s not one big company able to take on a contract, but rather a collection of individual drivers and taxi owners, and this “reduces the potential for efficient, effective and sustainable partnerships.” (Funny, some might say working with the self-employed could actually increase the potential for efficient, effective, and sustainable partnerships, but as a mostly self-employed person I might be biased.)

It also means that “Halifax Transit would be required to train and monitor customer service standards across a workforce that is not directly employed by the Municipality.”  To which I say: Welcome to the taxi industry, where Halifax is already responsible for a workforce that it does not directly employ.

It’s not that I don’t see the challenges; it’s just that I can’t believe they actual outweigh the potential benefit of fixing both our inferior Access-A-Bus service and our (probably illegal) near complete lack of accessible taxis.

Post and Halifax Transit do agree on one thing: some of the pressures on Access-A-Bus could be alleviated by having more users switch to the conventional bus system, which is relatively accessible. Post himself was a frequent Access-A-Bus user until a friend encouraged him to try conventional transit, after which he “never looked back.”

But our conventional accessible service is not without it’s problems.

I was in a fairly celebratory mood last year when writing about Halifax Transit’s advances in accessibility:

By the end of March [2017], Halifax buses will be 100 per cent of the accessible low floor (ALF) variety. That’s an important step forward in the slow march towards equal access for those of us with mobility challenges.

But a reader comment on that story gave me a bit of a reality check. Accessibility advocate Gus Reed pointed out, quite simply, “you can’t buy a non-ALF [accessible low-floor] bus.”

So while Halifax did indeed hit its target of a 100 per cent accessible low floor bus fleet in March 2017, it was North American manufacturing standards (themselves brought about by the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990) and not Halifax Transit’s homegrown initiative that got us there.

In that light, celebrating Halifax Transit’s fully ALF fleet seems akin to my bragging that my car has seat belts. Especially since there are still problems with our accessible fleet. To extend the analogy: My car may have seat belts, but they are the wrong kind and I can’t use them all the time.

Halifax’s newer ALF buses come with a single-point tie down system for chairs on buses, which many riders find unsafe. That means about 40 per cent of the accessible fleet uses a tie down system that feels risky for those in heavier chairs, with little or no upper body strength to keep themselves and their chairs steady on Halifax Transit’s sometimes roller coaster-like rides.  Halifax Transit has recently reported exploring alternative tie down options, so a solution could be in sight for those riders.

Newer accessible buses considered unsafe by riders

In addition, Halifax Transit’s bus stops are not yet all accessible, meaning ramps on the ALF bus fleet cannot be deployed at some bus stops.  Again, progress is afoot here, with Halifax Transit reporting 90% of stops now able to see a ramp deployed.

And lastly, as we try to grow the use of conventional transit by those using wheelchairs and scooters, we are going to have capacity problems. Gerry Post has numerous stories of people being refused entry to a bus because both wheelchair spots were already full, including, ironically, the time he was on the way home from the HRM event celebrating their 100 per cent accessible bus fleet.

Come on, now. It’s 2018. Nova Scotia has a new Accessibility Act. And we have major issues in accessible transportation that are well-documented and well-discussed, with viable recommendations and solutions to address them in reports and presentations dating back to at least 2010.

Unfortunately, Halifax Transit has indicated in its most recent report that it is not up to the task of a systemic fix for Access-A-Bus and accessible taxi issues.

It will be up to our elected representatives to insist that this fix happen. Or we could leave it to the disabled community to get organized and start hiring lawyers.

“They need to plan and act, rather than reacting,” says Post. “I can guarantee you that if they don’t there’s going to be a huge reaction from the community.”

UPDATE:  Councillor Waye Mason has written in to say I am incorrect here, and that Halifax Transit does indeed have “a systemic fix for Access-A-Bus” though it’s not the same as the proposal from Gerry Post. If there is a systemic fix for Access-A-Bus and accessible taxis, I don’t see it. From what I can see Halifax Transit is tweaking the system, updating software and trying to streamline the current operation. But what I’m referring to is a major change, and one that would help the taxi problem as well, something that has been suggested not only by Gerry Post but by consultants at IBI as well.

Mason also correctly pointed out that this piece did not reflect Halifax Transit’s recent accomplishments in accessible bus stops, and their intention to explore alternative tie down systems, and it has been edited to reflect that.