Earlier this week, B.C. taxi companies threatened to stop subsidizing accessible vehicles as their dispute with ride-hailing companies heats up.

Accessible taxis are more expensive as they’re used less frequently and cost a lot to retro-fit.

Jessica Vliegenthart is a Personal Injury Lawyer who is a paraplegic and a local champion of accessibility issues and she has a number of issues with this dispute.

“So the taxi companies are going ‘Well if they don’t have to do it then we don’t have to do it.’ We don’t know what’s going to happen with the taxi companies, but it’s a bit wild to me that the government is allowing this to occur.”

Vliegenthart says wheelchair accessible taxis are a critical form of transportation for many people as sometime taking transit can be incredibly difficult.

“I had a spinal cord injury in 2004. I didn’t get my drivers license for close to a year after that injury and I attempted to make use of the HandyDART service and it was next to impossible to get where you needed to go in any kind of reasonable time frame. I’m saying if I had a doctors appointment at noon they’d say ‘Well we can pick you up at 8:30 in the morning and by 6:00 pm.'”

She takes issue with ride-hailing companies not having to provide the service, adding that these cabs can at times be the only option.

“If you have weakness, or fatigue, or pain that you’re dealing with, taking transit can be really limiting and sometimes wheelchair accessible cabs are the only way for people to get to very important doctors appointments, to get to work, that kind of thing. And when those services don’t exist people become house-bound.”

Vliegenthart says the province will collect 30 cents from every ride-hailing trip to put towards accessible transportation, but what will happen with those dollars remains to be seen.