Disability rights groups battle Lyft for wheelchair accessible vehicles — again

Lyft’s website includes a section about resources for riders with disabilities, with the company noting that it is “passionate about creating a platform that everyone can use.” Riders with wheelchairs that fold can take any kind of Lyft ride, the website states. But it’s not so simple for riders with wheelchairs that don’t fold, like motorized ones. 

“Lyft needs to provide wheelchair accessible service to everyone. To do that, all Lyft has to do is turn off the blocker — or toggle — that prevents people from identifying their vehicles as WAVs and prevents riders from requesting WAVs,” said Frei-Pearson, an attorney for Harriett Lowell, who filed the original class action suit against Lyft alongside disability rights group Westchester Disabled on the Move Inc (WDOMI). “Remove the toggle everywhere else and you’ll give a lot more WAV rides.”              

Lyft has been embroiled in the class action suit over the matter since 2017, when Lowell and WDOMI sued the company for failing to accommodate people with wheelchairs that don’t fold. Now, in court filings obtained exclusively by NBC News, which will later be made public, Lyft is arguing that it is not subject to regulations in the Americans with Disabilities Act that would require it to ensure the availability of wheelchair accessible vehicles because it is a technology company, not a transportation business.

“Lyft is not a government institution. It is a private company that has no obligation to provide WAVs on its platform,” Lyft officials wrote in a private federal court filing obtained by NBC News. Lyft officials will appear in court over the suit on Aug. 29 in White Plains, New York. 

According to court documents filed by Lyft and its website, the company offers WAV services through an “Access” ride option on the app in the nine cities that require the company to do so. In regions where this “Access” mode isn’t available, riders are directed to other transportation options, according to court documents. Lyft said in the filing that it can’t simply “turn on” “Access” mode to connect riders with WAV drivers in other areas because there aren’t enough of those vehicles.

A Lyft spokesperson told NBC News: “There is an extremely limited supply of these…