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Home / Albomlar / ADAPT the beginning with APTA, 1983 -1984 24
Creation date / 2013 / July
- ADAPT (160)
Denver Post PHOTO by Fred Nelson, The Denver Post: Disabled people form a line as they picket. 3 face away, one of whom has an ADAPT NOW! sign on the back of his wheelchair. Facing forward, a man with a very short haircut wearing a baseball type jacket and necktie, has a sign that reads "Let us USE tokens, not BE tokens. Accessibility Now!" caption reads: Kent Jones of Chicago travelled to Denver to participate in this week's demonstration urging accessibility to public transit for the handicapped. [Headline] Handicapped Seek Change in Public Transit By George Lane, Denver Post Staff Writer Several dozen wheelchairs jammed the sidewalk of the Denver Hilton Hotel on Sunday afternoon as disabled activists from throughout the country urged public transportation be made more accessible to the handicapped. The rolling demonstration took place in front of the Hilton because the hotel is the headquarters for about 3,000 U.S and Canadian transportation officials attending the national meeting of the American Public Transit Association. Representatives of the group, the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, are scheduled to speak to the transit officials Wednesday, but a spokesman said they were on the sidewalks Sunday “to let them know they were serious.” Bob Conrad, an executive of Denver Atlantis Community Inc. and one of the wheelchair-bound demonstrators, said the purpose of attending the transit convention was to call the need for accessible public transportation to the attention of transit officials and bus manufacturers. “California has had a law for about 12 years saying all buses purchased must be accessible to all person, including riders in wheelchairs,” said Lew Nau of Los Angeles. “Michigan is the only other state I know of with a similar law.” Nau and his wife, Yvonne, both in wheelchairs, said they have devoted all their efforts since retirement to the issue. The couple said that during the Carter administration all public transit agencies were subject to a regulation that said 50 percent of all buses purchased had to be accessible to handicapped people. “The (regulation) was our civil rights act,” Mrs. Nau said. “Now Reagan has in effect rolled it back.” - ADAPT (157)
The Washington Times 10-2-84 PHOTO 1 (Photos by Richard Kozas, The Washington Times): A mass of ADAPT protesters block the entire sidewalk. Some are in wheelchairs, some are on the ground. In front of them are five or six police officers. Behind the protesters is a mass of people standing. (Among the protesters on the line: Mike Auberger, George Cooper?, Mickey Rodriguez.) Caption reads: Police use a barricade to try to keep protesting wheelchair activists from charging the front entrance of the Washington Convention Center yesterday. PHOTO 2: A protester (Tom Pugh), his face filled with passion, is up against a barricade. Someone appears to be lying across his lap. Behind him you can see other protesters (including George Cooper?) Caption reads: Wheelchair protesters, members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, finally crash the barricades. They blocked the convention center entrance to dramatize their plea tor access. [Headline] Disabled protest at Convention Center The Washington Times About 100 wheelchair-bound activists seeking greater access to public transportation yesterday broke through police barricades and blocked the main entrance to the Washington Convention Center, where the American Mass Transit Association Expo is being staged. Chanting, “Access. Access. We want access," members of the Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit said they were protesting the "historic resistance" mass transit systems around the country have exhibited toward the disabled, said ADAPT spokeswoman Jane Stewart of Poughkeepsie. N.Y. She was one of the demonstrators who parked her wheelchair outside the center. As the protesters shouted outside the hall, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, addressing transit officials inside. said she is confident “we can meet our responsibility toward our disabled citizens." The Department of Transportation last year modified its rule on how transit authorities should deal with the disabled after transit officials protested the high cost of equipping all buses and trains with handicapped lifts. Subsequently, DOT provided an option whereby transit officials can meet the requirements of the handicapped by establishing van service exclusively for the handicapped. But protesters yesterday compared the “segregation“ of mass transit today to that of schools in the era of separate-but-equal. "I am personally committed to the principle of providing excellent transit service for all the people of this region, and that includes our handicapped community," Carmen Turner, Metro transit‘s general manager, responded in a prepared statement. “For most of the handicapped, the bus and rail system provides a lifeline of mobility second to none. The Metrorail system is completely accessible to the handicapped," she said. She added that Metro has already spent $50 million on aids for the handicapped on Metrorail, and said the lifts on buses for the handicapped are “expensive to purchase and maintain. . . Our last two purchases of new buses have included lifts, and we intend to continue to increase the number of lifts in our fleet as we make new purchases. “We do feel it is better to operate the lift service we have efficiently than to expand it at great expense at some risk to reliability." — Amy Stromberg - ADAPT (156)
Rocky Mountain News Tues. Oct. 2, 1984 Denver, Colo. PHOTO (AP LASER PHOTO): A protester in a manual wheelchair and a puffy coat (Renata Conrad), screams as police force her arms behind her back. One uniformed officer stands behind her forcing her forward. One stands in front, his arms stretched in front. The third stands watching with his notebook in his hand and his pen or maybe a cigarette in his mouth. Caption reads: Washington police restrain wheelchair-bound women during protest at transit conference. [Headline] Disabled Denverites held at D.C. protest By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Fourteen wailing handicapped protesters, including some from Denver, were arrested here Monday when they used their wheelchairs, crutches and limp bodies to briefly blockade a national meeting of transit executives. Among those arrested were Mike Auberger, Bob Conrad, Mark Ball and Glen Damen, all of Denver. Richard Male of Denver, an able-bodied demonstrator, also was arrested, as were nine other protesters from New York, Texas, Illinois and Connecticut. The 14 were among more than 35 people who converged on the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association at the Washington Convention Center. They were fined $50 apiece for blocking a public building. ADAPT, a Denver-based militant handicapped rights group, raised an estimated $30,000 this year to send the protesters to Washington and to train disabled groups nationwide in political demonstration and lobbying techniques. Two of the protesters who were arrested and fined were treated at a local hospital for minor injuries and released. "The police got pretty physical,“ said ADAPT spokesman Wade Blank of Denver. "We had been causing civil disobedience all week. We expected it (the arrests) to happen. It was just a matter of when." Monday's arrests capped a year of growing tension between handicapped activists and transit officials over the issue of accessibility to the handicapped. “This is not something that we are especially proud of,"said ADAPT member Mark Johnson, as he pounded on the plexiglass door of the convention center with a wooden crutch. "We are here because there has been a resistance to us," said Johnson, who ran unsuccessfully for the RTD Board of Directors in 1980. Johnson said ADAPT is demanding that the transit convention vote to make all public transit systems accessible to the handicapped, that those systems only purchase buses equipped with wheelchair lifts, and that the Federal Government reinstate a regulation mandating accessibility. Convention officials said the demonstrators delayed their program for a few minutes, but caused no damage. Last year, RTD hosted the annual transit convention. Although handicapped activists picketed the meeting, their protests were less forceful. In addition, the protesters last year were allowed to address the convention, a privilege refused them this year. "They requested a slot, but we already had everything filled," convention spokesman Albert Engelken said. "There have been some problems. They (protesters) have been pretty aggressive." The demonstrators suddenly appeared at 10 a.m, just as hundreds of transit executives arrived at the convention center on a convoy of shuttle buses from their hotels. Washington police tried to block the advancing wheelchairs. However, they quickly became entangled with the front line of handicapped men and women and were outflanked by the rest of the demonstrators. Chanting "we will ride. it's our right," the protesters wedged their wheelchairs between the doors of the convention center. Many of them threw themselves out of their chairs and sprawled on the sidewalk to block the doors. Monday's demonstration was the third in a series of protests organized by ADAPT. On Thursday, a dozen protesters blocked seven Washington Metro buses in front of the White House during the evening rush hour. On Sunday, another contingent blocked a chartered bus carrying the spouses of 50 transit executives who were touring the nation's capital. After being trapped for an hour, the spouses finally crawled over the crippled protesters to get to their hotel. The protest overshadowed the speeches to the packed convention by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole and New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Dole abandoned much of her highly partisan prepared speech, choosing instead to repeat the Reagan administration's compromise offer for accessible public transit. "Transit authorities receiving federal funds would be required to make at least half of their peak hour bus fleet accessible, provide para-transit for special services or offer some combination of these options," Dole said. Both sides are cool to the proposal. Transit executives complain it will cost too much considering that only 5 percent of the country's transit passengers are disabled. Many disabled groups, meanwhile, reject Dole's offer because they say it endorses separate but equal service. - ADAPT (155)
Rocky Mountain News PHOTO by Steve Groer, Rocky Mountain News Staff: person in a manual wheelchair sits holding a sign that reads "Make Public Transit Public." In front of her people move suitcases from the sidewalk to a vehicle. [Headline] Access to buses is Demanded A member of a group called ADAPT, or American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, picks downtown Hilton Hotel where the American public Transit Association is meeting. ADAPT is demanding wheelchair access to all U.S public buses, and their motto is, “No taxation for Transportation”. - ADAPT (151)
[Headline] A Wheelchair Protest Blocks Access to Transit Convention (AP) Photo: A man in an old style motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger) with long hair sits a half a body length above several people standing on the ground. His mouth is open in a yell and his arms are flung wide. Caption reads: A wheelchair-bound protester is arrested and put aboard a lift-equipped van by Washington DC police. The unidentified man was among some 20 people arrested for blocking entry to the convention center where the American Public Transit Association meeting opened yesterday. Article reads: Public transit officals, opening their annual convention yesterday, were greeted with a wheelchair protests by about 100 disabled demonstrators who demanded that more be done to provide them access to buses, trains, and subways. About 20 people were arrested for breaking police lines after the protesters, linking wheelchairs blocked two entryways to the convention center where the meeting of the American Public Transit Association was under way. Jean Stewart of Poughkeepsie N.Y. who parked her wheelchair with others at the convention door, said they were trying to demonstrate that “disabled people across the country have a civil right to public transportation. As the protesters chanted outside the hall, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, addressing the transit officials inside said she is confident “we can meet our responsibility toward our disabled citizens” and “provide the mobility they require and deserve.” Last year the Transportation Department begin developing new regulations to allow local authorities to provide alternative transportation such as door-to-door van service- instead of modifying buses or train to accommodate the handicapped. - ADAPT (149)
The Washington Post: AROUND THE REGION, November 1st, 1984 [Headline] Disabled Protesters Block Bus at Transit Meeting Site About 15 handicapped protesters, most of them in wheelchairs, blocked a chartered bus in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel yesterday, the site of an American Public Transit Association convention, to protest the lack of access for handicapped persons to buses nationwide. The hour-long demonstration was the second staged here in the past four days by a group called the American Disabled for the Accessible Public Transit. On Thursday, a dozen protesters stopped rush-hour traffic in front of the White House by blocking seven Metrobuses. Yesterday, the protesters encircled a charter bus that was to take about 50 spouses of conventioneers on a tour of the city, according to convention speaker Albert Engelken. He said that the bus remained in front of the hotel's T Street NW entrance for about an hour while police negotiated with demonstrators. About 2 p.m., the riders disembarked and went back into the hotel. Engelken said. He said the demonstrators dispersed soon afterward. - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (147)
The Handicapped Coloradan, December, 1983 [Headline] Access institute Has Grant to Train 12 Disabled Activists A new Denver based group received a grant to train disabled activists from across the country in the techniques needed to make their home cities accessible to persons with disabilities. The American Lutheran Church has given the Access Institute $8,000 to start a pilot program. Three disabled persons from each of four cities will be selected for the initial program. Grant applications are currently out to the Hunt Alternative Fund for $5,000 and to the Campaign for Human Development for $100,000. Institute founders hope eventually to create a network of advocacy groups across the country. Access Institute is in part an outgrowth of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), a group formed this past summer in Denver to lobby bus companies and the federal government to equip all public transit systems with wheelchair lifts. ADAPT attempted to assist similar groups in other cities to push for accessible transit systems but has so far met with disappointing results. ADAPT founder Wade Blank said leaders of the disabled community in Chicago were reluctant to involve themselves with "outside agitators" while another group in Salt Lake City "folded when two newspapers editorially attacked them." The two sponsoring organizations behind the Access Institute say they believe their training program will prevent such problems in the future. Formal training for the participants will be the responsibility of the Community Resource Center (CRC), while non-classroom fieldwork will be handled by the Atlantis Community. Atlantis and CRC have worked together in the past. Five staff organizers at Atlantis received their training from CRC, whose training techniques are based on grassroots procedures developed by community organizer Saul Alinsky. In its 10 year history Atlantis has attempted to move away from the traditional "individual advocacy" method of dealing with inequities where a single complainant's problem is handled while "the larger problem of an inherently inequitable and irrational system is never addressed," according to the grant proposal. The proposal says Atlantis' "direct action" has been successful in gaining improved conditions for Denver's disabled populations and that every week the group receives requests for advice from groups and individuals in other cities. The Atlantis approach often involves confrontational policies with more than a touch of the dramatic. Tired of what they termed endless meetings with local transit officials that failed to put a single lift on a bus, members of Atlantis climbed out of their wheelchairs and lay in front of buses parked at the city's busiest downtown intersection. The two day demonstration generated immense publicity for their cause and eventually led to a commitment on the part of the regional transportation district to a 100 percent accessible bus system. They took a similar approach to curb cuts. When the city failed to respond to their request for cuts near their office and local hospitals, Atlantis members rolled down to the curbs in their wheelchairs and used sledgehammers to create their own cuts. Today the city of Denver has an aggressive policy to expand the number of curb cuts. The Access Institute will also train participants in how to deal with local government officials and how to raise money to promote their programs. Some of the fieldwork will involve moving in with severely disabled clients of Atlantis' home health care agency along with visits to institutions which exploit and oppress people such as nursing homes and workshops. Participants must come from cities with a population of at least 150,000, with individuals or groups that have already demonstrated an interest in local issues dealing with the disabled. The participants must be physically disabled themselves, have leadership abilities, be versed in disability civil rights, and have the backing of an agency or concerned individuals willing to support organizing efforts. A mass mailing to potential candidates is now being prepared. The Institute hopes to begin operations by April 1984. - ADAPT (146)
The Handicapped Coloradan, November 1983, Volume 6, No. 4, Boulder Colorado A Cartoon and Picture Top, Cartoon [signature might be Faniul?]: A bus is seen from the rear and labeled "ACCESSIBLE BUSLINES" and "Dept. of Transportation." Behind it, tied to the rear bumper is a little kids wagon labeled "Special Transit." In that wagon sits a person with under-the-arm crutches, holding on for his life, and his feet in the air as the wagon bounces along behind the bus. Inside the bus, someone who looks a heck of a lot like President Reagan is saying "Wow! Look at that. He's separate but EQUAL!" Bottom, photo by Gary Handschumacher: Shot from below looking up into a dark room, a line of people with disabilities facing forward with two microphones on stands in front of them. Mark Johnson, far left, looks on with the mike right in front of him. Beside him is Renate Conrad. Bob Conrad sits next to her and speaks into another mike. Two other people in wheelchairs are on his other side, the farthest one appears to be Mike Auberger. Caption reads: Mark JOHNSON and Trudy Knutson listen as Bob Conrad tells delegates at the national convention of the American Public Transit Association that the handicapped will be satisfied with nothing less than 100 percent accessibility to public transportation.