Potomac — The County Council approved bills Tuesday, July 28, to provide opportunities to have more taxicabs available and address working conditions for some drivers.
The lead sponsor of Bill 33-15 was Councilmember Roger Berliner, who chairs the council’s Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee. The bill will create a Transportation Services Improvement Fund, impose a per-trip surcharge on certain transportation network services to finance the fund and provide for disbursements from the fund to be used to improve the delivery of accessible taxicab services and transportation services to eligible senior citizens and people of limited income.
The second bill, Expedited Bill 53-14, authorizes the issuance of 50 accessible vehicle licenses to a driver-owned cooperative to help individual drivers and spur innovation in the expansion of accessible transportation. It also creates a centralized dispatch system for all county cabs. The bill provides for more taxicabs to be available for calls and requires the county’s Department of Transportation to develop a plan to increase the numbers of wheelchair-accessible cabs (vans) that have lifts or ramps, with a goal of having 100 percent accessible taxicabs in the county by 2025.