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Judge: Taxi Fleet Discriminates Against Disabled Riders

NEW YORK - MARCH 10:  A woman is hailing a yellow cab on Lower Manhatten on March 10, 2010 in New York, New York. Yellow taxis have been playing their trade in New York since 1912, becoming an icon synonymous with the "Big Apple" immoratalised in countless films and TV shows  around the world.  (Photo by Jan Johannessen/Getty Images)

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the city's current taxi fleet violates the Disabilities Act by not providing nearly enough cabs for those in wheelchairs. Less than 2% of the city's 13,000 cabs — 232 out of 13,237, to be exact — are wheelchair-accessible. To put this into perspective: 100% of London's 19,000 cabs are wheelchair-accessible.

The city administration must now present a report that describes a plan for expanding availability of wheelchair-accessible taxis.

This really complicates things for Bloomberg and Cuomo. First off, the city can't move ahead with their much-touted plan to sell new permits for outer-borough livery cabs until the judge approves the report. Only permits for wheelchair-accessible livery cabs will be allowed. (The city was planning to have only 20% of the new livery cabs be wheelchair-accessible.) Further, under the ruling, the city cannot auction more than 400 yellow cab medallions until these issues are addressed. This is a budgeting nightmare: over the next three years, authorities were planning to sell 2000 medallions, which provides a very nice chunk of change that was already calculated into next year's budget.

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Photo: Jan Johannessen/Getty Images