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IPFS News Link • Transportation

Uber's Business Isn't Built to Help Disabled People

• Wired

Nadina LaSpina is looking up from under her wide-brimmed hat at the heavy grey rain clouds overhead, watching the blazing July sun play peekaboo behind them, and worrying about whether she's dressed appropriately for the weather. It's too hot and humid for a raincoat when the sun is out, but when the clouds break open, as they have intermittently throughout the day, the rain pours down by the bucketful.

What to wear? It's a question that most New Yorkers—who spend so much of their daily commutes outdoors—ask themselves on a day like today. But for LaSpina, it's especially important to get it right.

Unlike most New Yorkers, LaSpina can't just duck into the subway, hail a cab, or hide under scaffolding until an Uber arrives. LaSpina had polio as a child and has been wheelchair-bound for most of her adult life. She can't transfer herself into a regular cab, so she requires a taxi with a ramp. Those are pretty scarce, though, especially since she has to share them with the millions of other New Yorkers who don't use wheelchairs.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm