My review of the Total Mobility scheme (because the Government keeps getting it wrong)

Content warning: This article references sexual harassment.

Changes are coming to the Total Mobility Scheme. In their eminent wisdom, the Ministry of Transport has decided that decreasing the subsidy is the way to go. That means disabled people have to pay more to access transport. Even the Waiheke Ferry! Great advocacy there, Louisa Upton.

The Total Mobility (TM) scheme is designed to ensure that disabled people who cannot access public transport some or all of the time can still get around independently. This comes in the form of subsidised fares for public transport and (some) taxis.

Waka Kotahi (New Zealand Transport Agency) has also decided it is time to spend thousands on the third review of the scheme since 2020. There was a window during Covid when TM trips were 100% subsidised - totally free. Those of us lucky enough to find out realised, “Oh being able to access the outside world is really quite nice”, and we began advocating for a subsidy that we could actually afford - but that's another story.

You know what, though? I thought I'd do my own review, and I won't charge our magnificently incompetent coalition of a government a cent. Here's six things the Total Mobility scheme needs to get right.

1. Make fare caps fair

The TM scheme subsidises a percentage of a taxi fare, up to a cap. But not all regions are equal in this regard. In Tāmaki, for example, the fare cap is currently set to $80. In Gisborne, it’s $12. Heaven forbid you live in the countryside. The caps should be the same everywhere. A trip in Tāmaki is not worth more than a trip in, say, Timaru (despite what the JAFAs may think. I grew up there so I can say that, ha).

2. More wheelchair taxis

There aren't enough wheelchair-accessible taxis. But it gets worse. In many parts of the country, our transport system has forgotten that wheelchair users also exist outside of business hours, making it impossible to get wheelchair-accessible transport in the evening. Or during rush hour. Or school run times. Or if you haven't pre-booked WELL in advance (a personal nightmare, as a manic pixie dreamgirl). My radical solution? More wheelchair-accessible vehicles available. Keyword AVAILABLE. Disabled people are spontaneous and have social lives. Incredible. Revelation. Wow.

3. Include rideshare apps 

Simple question: If Melbourne can integrate its MPTP scheme (the TM equivalent in Victoria, Australia) into Uber, why can’t we? As a blue bubble aficionado, I cannot stress enough how exasperating their stuck-in-the-90s technology feels. Drivers not getting jobs, jobs not reaching drivers, the app just straight up not working, their new app not having an option for Total Mobility outside of Auckland - she’s a bit of a mess.

I realise services like Uber have some pretty major shortcomings when it comes to access. Put me, blind, in a busy street, trying to find an Uber? Not gonna happen. But my God, the fluidity of simply calling a car, being able to track it, and sharing your journey with friends and family is, by comparison, exquisite. Not to mention the safety aspect. I’ve been sexually harassed by taxi drivers more than once. Uber drivers know that shit’s not on. They have ratings to worry about. Taxi drivers do not - realistically I don’t think I’ve ever remembered the cab number of the taxi I’ve caught. The NZ Taxi Federation has a monopoly on the disabled transport market and we’re never going to come out on the right side of that.

4. Fund the subsidy

I’m not a numbers person so I’ll keep this simple. Every year the Government raises billions of dollars in road user charges. They’re now justifying reducing the TM subsidy this July because an extra annual expenditure of $10 million is unsustainable. An extra small slice of funding - dedicated to maintain access to the roads - to give over 120,000 people access to the road. Unsustainable. In what universe?

5. Free rides for disabled people to go clubbing after 1am

Okay so this one time I went to Timaru for a cousin's wedding. I let my friend DeeDee Vine (Timaru’s premier drag queen) know and she promised to take me owwwwwt on the towwwwwn. Now, what happens in Timaru stays in Timaru, but at the end of the night they had this thing I’d never heard of - a courtesy vehicle. All the patrons – in varying states of salubriousness – got picked up and taken home in vans. 

One of the last times I went out in Auckland, I walked from Karangahape Road to Sandringham an anxious, exhausted wreck because I couldn't get a taxi. None available. That's bullshit. Let's make Total Mobility-after-midnight-courtesy-vehicles a thing.

6. All-access VIP Passes

What? You read right. We as disabled people have made all the effort, used all the extra spoons (admittedly much fewer if/when TM is done right), to make it to your event. We should get seats up close to the action when we arrive. We shouldn’t be getting stuck behind the non-disabled crowd who got in first (again). Simple.