Last Wednesday, December 3rd, the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) Board met to vote on base approvals and receive an update on Accessible Taxis.
Click here for a direct link to meeting.
The ‘Accessible Taxi Service Update’ was presented by TLC Deputy Commissioner Evan Hines and Assistant Commissioner Cindi Davidson.
Below, we provide a summary of the meeting and its major highlights.
Breakthrough Year for Accessibility, Full WAV Mandate on Track for Mid-2026
“New York City has the most accessible fleet in the nation.”
NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) Chair David Do opened last week’s Board meeting with an overview of 2025 regulatory achievements, highlighting what he called a historic year for accessibility. He’s not wrong.
The active yellow cab fleet is now in compliance with a federal court order requiring that 50% of active taxi medallions be attached to wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs). The active NYC taxi fleet is now 55.7% accessible.
AutoMarketplace analysis and TLC data show that 2,971 taxi medallions are currently in storage. Stored medallions must be attached to WAVs until 6,794 yellow cabs, or 50% of the 13,587 authorized medallions, are accessible. Of the medallions in storage, 883 still need to be activated to fully satisfy the federal court order.
If the TLC’s disclosed pace of approximately 120 WAV hack-ups per month continues, the full mandate appears likely to be met by mid-2026, which is roughly 1.5 years ahead of the court deadline. Once compliance is achieved, it will be worth watching whether previous medallion classifications, including Selected and Non-Selected, are reinstated.
Outside of the WAV mandate, several notable reforms were discussed at Wednesday’s TLC Board meeting. The TLC confirmed that the Taxi Improvement Fund (TIF) is now projected to enter 2026 in a solvent financial position, a reversal from earlier forecasts that showed it trending toward insolvency. The agency also announced the creation of an online TIF application to replace the current mail-in process to Boston.
In addition, the TLC confirmed plans to wind down Accessible Dispatch, the phone-based service operated by MTM, and streamline the Accessible Taxi Loan Assistance Service, or ATLAS, to speed up loan approvals.
Article continues after advertisement
TIF Saved From Insolvency As Trips Increase and $1 Driver Payment Cut, Online App Coming Soon
“When I last spoke here, we were facing a multi-million dollar deficit that was forecasted for the end of this year…and we are now going into 2026…solvent.”
Perhaps the most consequential announcement came when Deputy Commissioner Evan Hines revealed that the Taxi Improvement Fund (TIF), previously on pace for financial insolvency, will now enter 2026 in a stable financial position. TIF was created by the agency to increase the number of accessible NYC cabs by providing financial incentives to purchase a WAV, and is funded by a $1 surcharge on every taxi trip.
This fiscal turnaround stems from eliminating a $1-per-trip driver payment, decreasing operational payments, and the wind-down of the Accessible Dispatch program, which is covered later in this article.
The TLC did increase initial WAV TIF hack-up grants to $20,000, from $14,000.
TIF enrollments and hack-up payments jumped more than 2.5x. Medallion owner disbursements, mostly $20,000 initial hack-up payments, nearly doubled to $39.5 million through November. Meanwhile, driver payment disbursements dropped by 51% related to the elimination of the $1-per-trip driver incentive payment.
Deputy Commissioner Hines disclosed that TIF revenues were approximately $40 million, driven by higher taxi trip volumes and their associated passenger surcharges, in response to a question from Board Commissioner Andrea Bierstein.
Long-Awaited TIF Online Portal Arriving
“The TIF enrollment process has been such a bureaucratic dive…By the second quarter of next year, you don’t have to mail a paper application to somewhere in Massachusetts. Now you’re going to be able to put it into a form and submit it directly. Often times that paper version is lost in the mail…”
In a very significant announcement the TLC admitted that the current paper-based TIF enrollment system is inefficient and has made plans to launch an online TIF application for the medallion industry by Q2 2026. This is a major modernization step.
ATLAS Loan Pilot Ramps Up
The ATLAS Pilot, a new WAV taxi loan program setup by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), Disability Opportunity Fund (DOF), New York State, TLC and Toyota—continues to scale. Eight drivers have already secured accessible Toyota Siennas through the program, with 68 more in the pipeline and an expected 100 total participants.
Accessible Dispatch Call Center Will Close In February, WAV Trips Increasingly Shifting to FHVs
“Sometimes that choice is not a yellow taxi, but Uber or Lyft…because of our rules, 90% of the time [an FHV accessible dispatch arrives] within 10 minutes or less…”
The TLC confirmed that the Accessible Dispatch call center, operated by MTM, will shut down after being granted an extension, on February 28th, 2026. This will complete the transition to a new accessible taxi e-hail model run by Arro, Curb, and Myle.
Call center usage has already dropped sharply, with MTM handling 4,700 requests this October compared to 6,700 a year earlier, a 30% decline. After a question from Board Commissioner Elisa Velazquez, TLC said rider outreach will ramp up in January and that the agency is actively testing each provider to ensure consistent wait times as the transition approaches.
Even as call center demand declines, overall WAV usage continues to rise, with riders increasingly shifting to FHVs. Accessible FHV requests jumped from 59,000 last October to 73,000 this year, reflecting shorter wait times and a growing citywide WAV fleet. TLC staff noted that riders are gravitating toward the quickest and most reliable option, whether taxi or FHV, in a market that now includes more than 13,000 accessible vehicles across both sectors.
eWAVs: The Next Major Frontier
“Rubin Varghese [Assistant Commissioner Safety and Emissions] and I [Assistant Commissioner Cindi Davidson] went out to the BraunAbility headquarters…visited their R&D center and their manufacturing plant, about two weeks ago….An electric WAV is definitely something they are looking into.”
Board Commissioner Sarah Kaufman revived a long-running question about all-electric WAVs and the TLC responded with rare detail: TLC staff recently visited BraunAbility’s headquarters and R&D facility, where early-stage work is underway with Toyota and other OEM partners.
The agency says it intends to meet with more manufacturers and converters in early 2026 to accelerate progress.
Approving New Bases, Strong Support from Community Boards
“We rarely [get] a rejection and/or objection from the Community Boards.”
The Commission approved 18 new livery base renewals after a discussion that highlighted how rarely Community Boards, which the TLC consults when evaluating base applications, object to such proposals. Fabian Cancel, the TLC’s Director of Base and Business Services, reported that local boards have offered near-unanimous support in his experience.
Board Commissioner Paul Bader raised questions about multiple bases operating from the same address. Chair David Do used the opportunity to explain the technical considerations behind shared locations and to make a broader point that community car services, often small local businesses, face operational hurdles that the TLC is working to address in partnership with the City Council.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 Opening remarks • 04:00 Base license applications •09:00 – Accessible Taxi Service Update begins • 10:25 Growth of Accessible Taxis and FHVs • 11:30 Yellow Taxi WAV progress • 12:45 Accessible Dispatch → e-hail transition • 15:00 TLC service testing findings • 16:00 ATLAS loan pilot update • 17:00 TIF enrollment modernization • 18:15 Accessible Dispatch outreach + TIF application Q&A • 23:35 ATLAS funding partners • 24:45 WAV trips + subway accessibility discussion • 28:55 Why MTM trip volume declined • 34:28 TIF changes recap + solvency • 43:17 TIF Revenue/disbursement Q&A • 44:41 Electric WAV development • 46:46 Closing remarks and adjournment
AutoMarketplace reports on New York City’s for-hire transportation (TLC) industry and the wider automotive mobility landscape.
AutoMarketplace.com is a data intelligence and market infrastructure platform for New York City’s for-hire vehicle ecosystem—delivering proprietary indexes (AYX, APX, AIX), real-time analytics, and marketing services across taxi medallions, TLC plates, and commercial insurance.
Check out AutoMarketplace on YouTube. Interested in advertising with us? Click here.
