Eleven kilometres is a relatively short distance. A person can cover them in a few hours at a brisk pace, ten minutes by car, half an hour by bike, or they may never cover them if they are in Elche waiting for a taxi adapted for a wheelchair. This is what happened last Wednesday to the socialist deputy of Corts Valencianes Laura Soler, who experienced a real odyssey to get from Alicante to the fairgrounds, located in the neighbouring municipality of Elche, and then return home from the neighbouring town.
The MP needs a wheelchair to get around because of the cerebral palsy she has suffered from since childhood, which has led her to constantly have to demand the removal of architectural barriers. Her case illustrates the daily life of people with disabilities: leaving their homes is a lottery.
Soler wanted to go with two friends to the immersive Van Gogh exhibition at the Alicante Fair, a few kilometres from the city, in the municipality of Elche. He wanted to do it by bus, but after an hour and a half of waiting in the city, the vehicle announced on the fair’s website did not show up. The parliamentarian and her companions called a taxi that took them without any problem to the fairgrounds, but informed them that on their return, he would not be able to pick them up himself and that they would have to call another one corresponding to their area. Taxi drivers in Alicante cannot provide services from Elche, the driver informed him.
Before finishing the immersive itinerary, the MP called the Elche taxi rank to schedule a pick-up, which begins the odyssey. “They refused three taxis, they even told me that it was not a public service,” the MP protests as he recounts the events. On the first call, he encounters the first refusal: he is informed that if there is no prior reservation, the adapted vehicle will not leave. Repeat the call and repeat the answer; second rejection. It is Wednesday, the last week of August, and services are scarce, many are on vacation, they inform you. She then calls the taxi service of the city of Alicante, who tells her that the vehicles cannot pick her up in Elche. Third refusal, change of window. The central office in Alicante tells you that you must call the local police and try your luck with the officers. The officers tell her to insist at the taxi rank and they start again. Try private VTC companies: Uber, Cabify… and nothing, there are no suitable taxis on the afternoon of August 28. After more than an hour of calls in a loop, the MP and her companions are picked up by an acquaintance.
“This comes from the third, fourth world… People with disabilities are invisible,” Soler laments in a conversation with elDiario.es, in which he points out that these problems are a constant for people with disabilities. When she entered the Corts Valencianes as a deputy in 2019, she had to demand that Parliament adapt the seats to be able to carry out her work and she did the same in Alicante when she was elected councilor in 2007, demanding adapted vehicles in the municipality. Soler appreciates that in his case he was lucky and found someone to help him, but he wonders: what would happen to a person without resources?
Given the experience, the MP demands that the Elche and Alicante city councils and the Generalitat Valenciana provide the necessary resources for adapted taxis to operate as a public service throughout the year. “Taxi drivers are not responsible, many do not have the means,” says the MP, who also calls for subsidies so that they can acquire and maintain adapted vehicles. Soler points out that people with reduced mobility cannot use commuter trains either, as many of them are not equipped. The exhibition, he concludes, is worth it; but for the experience, that of the transfer.
