The Patrick & Alice RailRiot 2009 arrived at New Orleans aboard the Crescent not really knowing what activities might fill the four full days in town before departure to L.A. And that was just fine. Happy anticipation of taking it easy in the Big Easy was soon blown to bits, however, by the hassle of getting a cab to the hotel. Had we done our homework and been aware of how close to the station the Quality Inn on O'Keefe really is, a fairly nasty scene - and ridiculous fare - coulda been avoided entirely.
Plenty of cabs out front; quantity wasn't the problem. The sticking point was hacks who refused to accept the Executive Assistant's wheelchair in the passenger compartments of 4-door sedans, adamantly insisting that it had to go in the trunk, piled on top of RailRiot bags, trunk lid open and tied with bungee cord. Nothing doing.
A little about the wheelchair in question: Given its specialized, ultralight (I can one-arm it up a flight of stairs, and I'm no Popeye) titanium alloy construction (frame, rims, etc.), and recent upgrades to lead wheel shock absorbers and mainwheel tires, the thing cost in the neighborhood of four grand. Quick-release detachable mainwheels allow it to be easily stowed in the back seat of even subcompact cars. Over the course of test runs and the RailRiot I got pretty good at dealing with wheelchair/car ingress and egress.
New Orleans cabbies would have none of it. Trunk or nothing, and one even wrestled the chair away from me and threw it on our bags (in the trunk before the issue arose) before I responded with some choice words and wrestled it right back. Then a running dog rent-a-cop jumped in on the cabbies' side, Alice (already seated inside) joined the fray by vehemently insisting there was no way her chair was going in any trunk, and it was pretty ugly overall.
We ended up waiting for a van cab for the 2-minute, fifteen dollar ride to the hotel. It was demonstrated that we were correct about the wheelchair fitting easily and painlessly in any back seat, and the sedan taxi beater hulks remained safe from the nonexistent hazard of a $4,000 wheelchair ripping apparently highly valuable upholstery and thereby reducing the heaps to scrap value.
Let me emphasize that of the dozen or so RailRiot cab rides in several cities, only the moronic New Orleans hacks and their uniformed lackey had any problem whatsoever with the Executive Assistant's wheelchair. Several had been dubious at first until I explained and did a demonstration of the breakdown, and some were downright impressed by something they'd never seen before.
Check-in at the hotel was a vastly different experience, and the positive change, coming directly from the train station hack hassle idiocy, was so abrupt as to be almost disorienting. In a good way. No accessible rooms had been shown when booking online. We asked anyway, and when it was found that all 5 were occupied we immediately received a no cost suite upgrade. Sweet! I may have met friendlier and more accommodating desk guys in my time, but sure can't recall when or where. Hardwired internet with loaned cable was another pleasant surprise. Even better, we found the wi-fi signal in the room was good enough for the Executive Assistant's midget machine, thus precluding cable timeshare issues.
You've likely seen the New Orleans Streetcar ride videos. See above if you haven't. The bottom line was that Alice was able to ride the St. Charles Line. She used her crutches to board, I manhandled the wheelchair, and all was well.
Moral of the story is that if you're disabled, and wanna ride the St. Charles Line in New Orleans, you wanna have me with you. HAHA!!
RailRiot And Destroyed Glasses
I even had to put a 4 lane highway inside my house! :lol: (I was going to put a subway in, but my dog complained that all the digging would disturb all the bones he buried! 
