Columbia City Council votes tomorrow on three taxis with wheelchair access

Taxi’s with wheelchair access could be in Columbia’s future.

Monday’s, the City Council will vote on whether to award three grants to Taxi Terry’s to buy them out and make them wheelchair accessible.

Each grant will cost the city $12,000.

ABC 17 spoke to disabled resident, Jason Jarvis, today who has been paralyzed since he was sixteen.

“On November 2nd, of 1993, a couple days after Halloween,” said Jarvis.

He was riding a motorcycle at 120-miles per hour, which resulted in a crash and leaving him in a coma for a week.

Sunday, he said he spends his time speaking to children, teaching them to learn from his mistakes.

“To change people from making the same mistake I have made myself,” said Jarvis.

Jarvis said he gets around by bus because it’s cheap and what he knows.

He said new wheelchair accessible cabs are not something he would utilize.

“Possibly yes, but more than likely no, I probably wouldn’t,” said Jarvis.

But the Chairman of the Columbia Disabilities Commission, Chuck Graham, disabled himself, said this will help people who want to go out when the busses stop running.

“The bus system doesn’t operate in the evenings, it doesn’t operate on Sunday’s, so this creates another option out there for people who use wheelchairs,” said Graham.

He said it is also a way for wheelchair users to get to and from the airport and hospital.

But Jarvis said he thinks disabled people might need further encouragement.

“So many people that are disabled think they can’t do something, until it’s actually proven to them, ‘hey, you can use this system,'” said Jarvis.

If the City approves the three grants, three cabs will be wheelchair accessible in 120 days.