King County OKs more wheelchair accessible taxi cabs

Published 3:13 pm Monday, May 10, 2010

The Metropolitan King County Council Monday expanded the transportation options for people with disabilities in King County will its adoption of legislation allowing for an increase of wheelchair accessible taxi cab licenses.

Because of the need for accessible transportation, the wheelchair accessible taxis, or WATs, will have a special dual license to operate in both King County and the city of Seattle, and are not subject to the County’s cap of 561 general taxi licenses.

While wheelchair accessible taxis can pick up customers that do not need wheelchairs, their first priority must be customers with a wheelchair or motorized mobility device. Initially, Seattle and King County plan to issue 45 WAT licenses.

For the past two years, the city of Seattle and King County conducted a pilot project for wheelchair accessible taxis, with dual city-county licenses issued for 16 specially-equipped vehicles—a number that proved to be too few to meet demand.

By making the program permanent, the King County Council has also provided the Department of Executive Services the flexibility to issue enough WAT licenses to keep response times comparable to non-accessible taxicabs.