Advocates hope trial forces Lyft to provide more wheelchair-accessible vehicles for riders

Expanding the availability of wheelchair-accessible vehicles from Lyft in Westchester, New York state and throughout the country is the goal of advocates for the disabled when a first of its kind class-action lawsuit goes to trial Monday in federal court in White Plains.

The lawsuit contends that Lyft's treatment of people who require WAVs is "distinctly discriminatory" and that its refusal to improve that service violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and the New York State Human Rights Law.

The non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Philip Halpern will cap a seven-year effort to force Lyft into some of the same modifications that regulators have imposed on them in limited areas around the country.

What the plaintiffs are seeking in their suit against Lyft

The key modification sought is requiring Lyft to remove a "blocker" on its App which prohibits WAV Access mode from being available to riders in nearly all regions in the country.

The named plaintiffs suing the San Francisco-based ride share company are Harriet Lowell, a White Plains resident who relies on a mobility scooter, and Westchester Disabled on the Move, a Yonkers-based advocacy group. But the intended beneficiaries are thousands of class members in Westchester — and more than a million around the country — who want access to WAVs when they seek a ride with Lyft.

Lyft provides WAV service in just nine areas around the country — in 4% of its coverage area — and hopes to replicate its success in similar lawsuits that have failed to force the company to expand the availability of WAVs on its platform.

What Lyft says about the class-action suit

The company insists that it cannot force drivers on their app to operate WAVs and that the high-cost of those vehicles — an additional $15,000 to $30,000 to lower a floor and install ramps — make it a challenge to offer WAV programs. It emphasizes that Congress did not intent for the ADA to require private companies to create new products or industries in order to comply with the law.

"Lyft has a long-standing commitment to maintaining an inclusive and welcoming community," a spokesman said in a statement. "Through pilots and partnerships, Lyft has actively explored finding solutions to the lack of wheelchair accessible vehicles on the road, but finding enough of these types of vehicles remains a challenge."

The statement emphasizes that Lyft continues to "offer access to these types of vehicles in every single market where we are required to do so and are fully compliant with laws and regulations . "

But plaintiff's lawyer Jeremiah Frei-Pearson said that makes clear the company can provide the service but that it just chooses not to. Court documents cite a statement by the former head of Lyft's WAV program that the company's accessibility policy for people with disabilities is to “do as little as possible unless forced.”

"It defies common sense for it to be true that in every region where Lyft is ordered to provide WAV service they can and WAV rides would occur and it to also be true that there are no WAVs elsewhere in the country," Frei-Pearson said in an interview.

Waiting for years for this trial

Donna Ponessa, of New Windsor in Orange County, drives a wheelchair-accessible vehicle but would do so far less often if there was greater availability of ride-share vehicles that could accommodate her motorized scooter. She doesn't like driving in traffic, or when she might find it difficult to park, and can only imagine the frustration of disabled people who don't drive at all. She has been waiting for years for this trial in the hope that a judge will force Lyft "to do what's right."

"If they literally couldn't afford it that would be one thing. If there literally wasn't the availability of WAV vehicles that would be another thing; but it's not and there is so why not do it?" she said. "It's exhausting because as a person with a disability there are so many battles you have to choose to fight and after a while it's like why do I have to engage in another senseless battle. Just do what's right and let's move on."

She emphasizes that the lawsuit does not seek special services or entitlements, only a leveling of the playing field as the ADA intended, and that she finds it "incredulous" that a company like Lyft doesn't recognize the moral, ethical and business value of making the change.

Frei-Pearson, a partner at Finkelstein, Blankinship, Frei-Pearson & Garber and a White Plains city councilman, said the case will come down to "whether it is more likely than not that when Lyft stops blocking WAV service WAV rides will occur and people with disabilities...will not feel the discrimination that they feel by Lyft refusing to serve them."

One class in the lawsuit covers Westchester County, the other New York State and the third the rest of the country. To force WAV coverage by Lyft in Westchester, the plaintiffs are relying on New York City data showing that a monthly average of more than 330 wheelchair-accessible vehicles - and more than 550 in one particular month - came into Westchester from the city to drop off customers.

Frei-Pearson said that number of WAVs is more than the combined number in several major municipalities where Lyft does provide the service, including just four qualifying vehicles in Dallas, Texas.

Those vehicles would presumably be available to then transport people around Westchester or back into the city but the blocker doesn't allow riders to access those. In recent court documents, lawyers for Lyft said the New York City WAV drivers were prohibited by Westchester from picking up riders.

But in an affidavit this week, Leandra Eustache, chair of the Westchester County Taxi and Limousine Commission, said the company's interpretation was wrong and that the TLC does not prohibit WAVs from picking up disabled riders and their assistants in the county.

Lawyers for Lyft complained about the late affidavit and said Eustache's position was irrelevant because the plaintiffs' proposed modifications never specifically called for New York City WAVs to pick up passengers in Westchester.

The other modifications sought are requirements that Lyft: ask its drivers if they have wheelchair-accessible vehicles; allow WAV drivers to pick up non-disabled riders; prioritize dispatching WAVs to those seeking them; increase marketing of its WAV service to attract more WAV drivers; offer financial incentives to WAV drivers; offer WAVs on more of its platform programs; form partnerships with other transportation companies that have WAVs; and set a 10-cent accessibility surcharge on all rides to fund WAV access.

Lyft maintains that companies and regulators have yet to figure out how to provide cost-efficient, on-demand WAV service and the modifications sought by the plaintiffs don't solve that issue.

"Plaintiffs will not even define what "effective transportation" means, because without specific evidence of WAV supply, they cannot predict whether the service they envision will connect riders with rides 80% percent of the time, 50% of the time or always leave them stranded," Jiyun Cameron Lee and Marie Jonas of the San Francisco law firm Folger Levin LLP wrote. "This deficit of proof is fatal to their claims."

But the plaintiffs insist that the solution does not have to create a perfect system for providing access, only reasonable improvements to what currently exists without being too costly for Lyft.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Advocates hope trial forces Lyft to provide more wheelchair-accessible vehicles for riders