Woman who says cab snubbed her meets with Menino
The daughter of the late civil rights activist Leonard P. Zakim met with Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other Boston officials yesterday to discuss how the city’s taxi fleet could be more sensitive to passengers in wheelchairs, a week after a cabdriver allegedly snubbed her as she tried to leave a nightclub.
Shari Zakim, a 23-year-old graduate of Newton North High, was ringing in 2010 with her twin sister, Deena, and a friend in Allston when they tried to hail a cab outside the White Horse Tavern on Jan. 1 around 2 a.m.
It was a busy night, and several cabs passed them by. Finally, a taxi from the city’s second-largest taxi company, Top Cab - which also happens to bear the logo of the Leonard P. Zakim-Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge - pulled over.
What happened next, according to Shari Zakim’s account, was both shocking and illegal: As the women approached the edge of the sidewalk, the driver locked the taxi doors and drove away.
It happened too fast to collect a medallion or license plate number, but Zakim, who has used a wheelchair since suffering cardiac arrest during a liver transplant at age 16, decided to tell her story publicly in hopes of raising awareness.
“The city was very open to talking about ways about educating the drivers,’’ said Zakim, a Northeastern University senior sociology major, after the meeting. “My suggestion was that drivers first ask the client if they need assistance and go from there. We also talked about how difficult it is to get an accessible cab with ramps because so many of them stay at Logan [Airport] to get bigger fares from people with lots of luggage.’’
Zakim said she expected the group to have another meeting within the next few weeks.
Boston police Captain Robert Ciccolo, commander of the city’s hackney carriage unit, said police have not abandoned their search for the driver who allegedly violated Zakim’s civil rights. All 1,825 of Boston taxicabs are equipped with GPS, so it may be possible to determine who was on Brighton Avenue when the alleged offense occurred.
Top Cab - whose owner, Tiffany Mitchell, called Zakim’s allegations “very upsetting’’ and said she would suspend drivers who discriminate against clients in wheelchairs - is eagerly cooperating with the investigation, Ciccolo said.
The incident indicates continuing education is probably in order for the city’s 5,000 taxi drivers, he said. Only new Boston cabdrivers are required to attend a weeklong training session, which includes classes on antidiscrimination laws and how to transfer passengers who use wheelchairs.
The city will also press forward with an effort to place availability lights on top of all taxis so customers can see which cars are already in service and which are available, eliminating confusion among the general public. Because Boston taxi drivers take radio dispatch calls, an empty cab may actually be properly responding to a fare when it bypasses people, Ciccolo said.
Zakim’s story, reported in the Globe and on Boston.com this week, provoked an emotional response from readers, especially those who had admired her father, the longtime director of New England’s Anti-Defamation League who died in 1999 after a long battle with cancer.
Michael Muehe, executive director for the Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities, said he was saddened, but not at all surprised by Zakim’s experience.
His commission receives at least one complaint a month about accessibility problems with Cambridge’s fleet of 255 taxis.
Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.
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