But the Taxi Cabs Bathurst Co-op says offering the wheelchair taxis is not financially viable because the NSW Government funds wheelchair vehicles for various service organisations.

The chairman of the co-op has also pointed to the fact the co-op’s members are subsidising the operation of the remaining wheelchair taxi in town and that is neither “equitable nor sustainable”.

Bathurst man John Crasti, a C45 quadriplegic, says Bathurst used to have two wheelchair taxis, it now only has one and that remaining taxi is almost constantly booked and has been off the road with breakdowns.

“You have to constantly make your plans around if the taxi will be available,” he said.

Mr Crasti was a bullrider until he was injured in an accident in the chute in Orange in 2012.

“The bull reared up, did a backflip and completely pinned me,” he said. “I fell on my back and it fell on top of me.”

He has been living in Bathurst since he got out of Sydney’s Royal Rehabilitation Centre in 2013 and works two days a week at Bourke’s Wholesale Fruit and Veg.

He said the city had two wheelchair taxis up until last week, but one of the two was retired after reaching the end of its lifespan on the road.

The wheelchair taxi that is left, he said, is the less reliable of the two and has had a number of problems that have put it off the road.

More than that, he said there is more demand than can be catered for by one vehicle.

“I'll get in the taxi and they'll say ‘we have 16 wheelchair bookings for the day’. That's flat chat.”

Mr Crasti spoke at a morning tea at Verto on Monday morning to mark the International Day of People with Disability and ended up driving his wheelchair into town.

“I rang at 9am [for a taxi] and they said the only times that they could book me in were 11.30am and 2pm,” he said.

Complicating the situation, he said, is the fact the taxi does the school run for children with disabilities, putting it out of action for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon each weekday, and it’s used as a maxi cab on the weekends.

Mr Crasti said he understands the taxis are privately run as a commercial business, but is convinced there is enough patronage to financially justify at least one more, or even two more, local wheelchair taxis.

He has a van that he can be driven around in, but it’s a “matter of finding someone that can drive it”, and is fundraising to get his own van that he can drive while in his wheelchair.

State Member for Bathurst Paul Toole said he understood the importance of the wheelchair taxi service.

“It provides for so many people with a disability and the elderly in our community,” he said. “I have made representations to ministers to see if there can be support given to keeping this service operating in Bathurst.”

TAXI Cabs Bathurst Co-op chairman Jonathan Spence confirmed Bathurst now has just the one wheelchair taxi.

While the taxi operators in Bathurst get no direct subsidies from the NSW Government to provide a wheelchair taxi, he said the government provided wheelchair accessible vehicles to a number of service organisations.

”For between two and three years, Bathurst Taxis have subsidised two wheelchair taxis to keep them on the road,” he said.

“We have been trying for that period of time at least to get more operators to buy more wheelchair taxis.

“However, operators have declined to do so because they have found it's not financially viable.”

He said it cost more than $80,000 for a properly fitted out wheelchair taxi.

“Our operators are not prepared to put up the money when there is so much competition from those other service organisations. We sincerely regret the inconvenience that this causes our customers.”

Mr Spence said the latest round of the NSW Government’s interest-free loan scheme for operators who wanted to purchase a wheelchair taxi had been “unviable and cumbersome”.

One local operator applied and was successful, he said, but by the time they found out, their circumstances had changed and they did not go ahead with the purchase.

Mr Spence said having co-op members subsidising the remaining wheelchair taxi was neither “equitable nor sustainable”.