14-Oct-16 – Of the millions of rides that Uber has given Chicagoans over the past five years, only 14 have been to people who use motorized wheelchairs, says an advocacy organization in River North that is suing the transportation network.

Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago says Uber “fails to provide equal service to motorized wheelchair users” in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaint was filed on Thursday in United States District Court.

Uber offers UberWAV for people in motorized or manual wheelchairs but the service, says Access Living, “has so few vehicles that it often shows no rides available anywhere in the Chicago area.”

Plaintiffs include two employees of Access Living, Michelle Garcia and Rahnee Patrick, and a volunteer, Justin Cooper.

“My wheelchair cannot transfer into a regular Uber vehicle,” says Cooper (left), “and even if I were lucky enough to find a wheelchair-accessible vehicle operating, I would have to wait for that vehicle to cross the city to reach me. No one would use Uber if the entire service worked this way.”

Access Living says Uber had been assuring them for two years they would accommodate motorized wheelchairs but on August 3, “Uber indicated that it had no intention of providing equivalent response times to people who require wheelchair-accessible vehicles.” This is the second ADA complaint Access Living has helped file in less than one month. On September 20, after waiting a year for a broken elevator at LA Fitness in Streeterville to be fixed, Kristina Lebedeva sued the health club chain. The River North resident uses a wheelchair and says without the elevator, she cannot get to the locker room. (Right) A mobile phone screen, provided by Access Living, showing no wheelchair-accessible vehicles available north of the Loop in late afternoon through Uber.