- YezhAfrikaans Argentina AzÉrbaycanca
á¥áá áá£áá Äesky Ãslenska
áá¶áá¶ááááá à¤à¥à¤à¤à¤£à¥ বাà¦à¦²à¦¾
தமிழ௠à²à²¨à³à²¨à²¡ ภาษาà¹à¸à¸¢
ä¸æ (ç¹é«) ä¸æ (é¦æ¸¯) Bahasa Indonesia
Brasil Brezhoneg CatalÃ
ç®ä½ä¸æ Dansk Deutsch
Dhivehi English English
English Español Esperanto
Estonian Finnish Français
Français Gaeilge Galego
Hrvatski Italiano Îλληνικά
íêµì´ LatvieÅ¡u Lëtzebuergesch
Lietuviu Magyar Malay
Nederlands Norwegian nynorsk Norwegian
Polski Português RomânÄ
Slovenšcina Slovensky Srpski
Svenska Türkçe Tiếng Viá»t
Ù¾Ø§Ø±Ø³Û æ¥æ¬èª ÐÑлгаÑÑки
ÐакедонÑки Ðонгол Ð ÑÑÑкий
СÑпÑки УкÑаÑнÑÑка ×¢×ר×ת
اÙعربÙØ© اÙعربÙØ©
Degemer / Rummadoù / Denver RTD 58
Deiziad-ouzhpennañ / 2016 / a viz Mae
- ADAPT (115)
This article is a continuation of the story in ADAPT 116 and the text is included there for easier reading. - ADAPT (123)
- ADAPT (113)
This is a continuation of the story in ADAPT 99 and the entire article is included there for easier reading. - ADAPT (130)
ial/ Letters City Edition 2/20/85 Cartoon: A person sits in a wheelchair blocking a bus from moving. A group of police officers stand on the side-walk impatiently. The bus driver says to another person standing by the bus, “...By the way, speaking of arrogant displays of self-interest we’re going on strike.” [Cartoonists name indecipherable] - ADAPT (139)
PHOTO: A group of about 20 people in wheelchairs and a couple of folks not in wheelchairs sit in a circle facing mostly toward the center. In the middle of the room, at the center of the people is an unattended L-shaped desk with a typewriter and other materials on it. Two people in wheelchairs sit at either end. Others are mostly up against the walls forming an informal circle. The group appears to be occupying a lobby-reception area. - ADAPT (114)
This is a continuation of the article in ADAPT 105 and the entire story is included there for easier reading. - ADAPT (126)
Denver Post 1987/1989? PHOTO by Denver Post's Duane Howell: A man [Greg Buchanan] in a motorized wheelchair is being wheeled up a very steep ramp into a van. A uniformed policeman is pushing him up, and another man is standing behind them. Greg has a sign taped across his legs and on the side of his chair is a bumper sticker that reads "S.T.E.P.S. spells discrimination." Caption reads: ACCESS PROTEST: Police Capt. R.H. Kaspersen carts away Greg Buchanan, one of 26 wheelchair-bound protesters arrested Monday outside the entrance of the Radisson Hotel. RTD move to privatize bus routes praised: Transportation leader says city a step ahead. By Terry Kilewer Denver Post Stafl Writer Denver’s Regional Transportation District, which is contracting 20 percent of its service to private operators, may be a step ahead of other public transit systems with dwindling public money, delegates to a transit symposium were told Monday. Alfred DelliBovi, outgoing head of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, praised Denver’s move to the forefront of privatization -- a trend toward government disengagement from transit that is catching on nationwide. RTD expects to save millions in future operating costs by farming out some bus routes to private companies, state Sen. Terry Considine, R-Cherry Hills Village, told an audience of 800 at the opening session of the two-day conference. Considine sponsored a bill last year to privatize a fifth of RTD's service. Now he wants to go even further by redirecting RTD tax revenues toward other transportation needs, notably a Denver encircling beltway. He said it’s time to reevaluate public transit, which is “21 times the tax cost per passenger-trip taken by private automobile." And he charged Gov Roy Romer with failing to “tackle the tough decisions that need to be made“ in state transportation legislation. A transit-and-highways bill Romer favored and Considine opposed died in the legislature last week. Romer disputed the senator's claims in remarks to the conference. Later, in an interview he said Considine is "out in left field" and out of step with his own political leadership on transportation issues. I agree you‘ve got to take advantage of all the savings you can. You've got to innovate with RTD; I signed (Considine’s) privatization bill last year. But more privatization won't take care of our highway problems." Considine and DelliBovi seemed in-step on privatization; though. The UMTA boss said the key to emerging federal policy in the public arena is "dwindling resources." During DelliBovi's two-year tenure at UMTA, the agency maintained the Reagan administration's bent toward frugal funding for transit construction and operations. - ADAPT (91)
This story is a continuation of the article in ADAPT 88 and the entire text is included there for easier reading. - ADAPT (120)
Rocky Mountain News [2 articles together] RTD won’t be bullied, Agency director asserts Contractors target of get-tough policy By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer Regional Transportation District officials say they want to send a message that RTD can't be bullied. So they're considering whether to sue several contractors and consultants that they believe performed unsatisfactory work on the 16th Street Mall. "RTD is famous for saying, ‘Who? Me?“ RTD general manager Ed Colby said. “Those days are over. We're going to be proactive. RTD is going to be accountable to the taxpayers." RTD sources said that among the firms the agency might challenge on the $70 million mall project were Hill International Inc., management consultants for the mall complex; Johnson-Hopson & Associates, architects of the Civic Center bus station at the east end of the mall; and B.B. Andersen Construction Co., general contractor for the station. Colby terminated Hill and Johnson-Hopson last month when he said they allowed construction work at Civic Center to stop or slow repeatedly while haggling over construction changes. He also made Andersen promise to finish Civic Center, at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Avenue, by Oct. 25. RTD officials filed suit Tuesday in Denver District Court against Weaver Construction Co. of Denver and the I.M. Pei architectural firm of New York City for their work in designing and installing the mall's granite paving. Unforeseen flaws and cracks have appeared in an “unusually high" percentage of the mall's granite paving slabs, officials say. Replacement and repair of the slabs along the 13-block mall-could cost $2 million to $8 million, they say. Colby said RTD is “evaluating potential suits against other firms but would not name the likely targets. The granite-paving suit and the consideration of other suits is the first of many steps RTD will take to erase its reputation for being inefficient and irresponsible managers of major construction projects, he said. “RTD is going to stand up for its rights," Colby said. Civic Center, which is supposed to be open for passengers by early December, is at least eight months behind schedule. Its cost overruns, RTD officials said, are still being tabulated. If it sues the companies it hired to build the mall, RTD would continue a long tortured history of litigation that has plagued [? word hard to read] the project since 16th Street was first torn up four years ago. Those suits and settlements include: * A 1983 settlement with Weaver for $2 million for more than l00 construction changes as-well as the delivery of improperly cut granite. * A $14.1 million lawsuit by Beaudoin Construction Co. of Denver for delays and cost overruns on the Market Street bus station. * A $400,000 settlement last month with B.B. Andersen that included payment of union-level wages to Civic Center construction workers, despite a regulation to that effect on all federally funded construction projects. Federal transit administrators, who have cited the mall as an example of how transit can galvanize a downtown area, said they will demand that [realistic?] building materials be used in future projects and that they and be kept within budget. “We raised questions at the outset about the wisdom of granite," said Ralph Stanley; director of the-Urban Mass Transit Administration. “We are now requiring construction oversight in all federally funded projects and an independent review by our agency of projects costing $25 million and over. You can demand a degree of excellence," Stanley said. 2nd Article: Ribbon snipped for bus station at 1 Civic Center Photo Rocky Mountain News Staff Photo by Frank Kimmel: A lone man [Joe Carle] in a manual wheelchair, back to the camera, watches as groups of people in suits cluster on an open plaza. A long ribbon crosses in front of a bus and one group surround a man who appears to be cutting the ribbon. Caption reads: Protester Joe Carle watches bus station opening. By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer When the ceremonial ribbon was snipped and the yellow sash fluttered to the pavement, the beleaguered Civic Center bus station remained standing. And more than a few Regional Transportation District officials joined in a collective sigh of relief. “There have been a number of headaches (on the project),' RTD chairman Byron Johnson said Wednesday at the station's formal opening. “But we're not worried about the headaches from this day forward. We see this as a tremendous breakthrough." Buses were supposed to be pulling out of the $20 million station, located at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Ave., in April. But hundreds of complicated construction changes and bitter negotiations between contractors and consultants delayed its opening by six months. Last month, RTD general manager Ed Colby fired the station's architect and management consultant when parts of the concrete building had been left unfinished for 14 months and others had been ripped out and replaced as many as four times. Colby and his assistants took over management of the station themselves and demanded that the exterior be ready for Wednesday's ceremony and the arrival of President Reagan's mass transit director, Ralph Stanley. Stanley used the occasion to announce $6.5 million in federal grants to RTD and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. His brief speech was picketed by 10 handicapped demonstrators. Some of the the demonstrators were arrested in Washington last week when they disrupted a national transit convention where Stanley as a featured guest. "When you're putting on a party, nobody likes a crasher," said Wade Blank, who organized the silent vigil. We're here to make a statement." Workers were, at the site until 10:30pm Tuesday scrubbing the bus turn around out front and planting 17 trees along the Broadway facade. - ADAPT (106)
[Headline] Handicapped Praise Wheelchair Service Sun. July 12, 1981, Denver, Colo. Rocky Mountain News- 65 (Continued from page 64) Even so, Conrardy said he has heard only one able-bodied passenger complain during his daily commuting trips. Offsetting that experience, Conrardy said, was an incident one afternoon at Colfax and Broadway. A crowded rush-hour bus stopped, and Conrardy said he told the driver he would wait for another bus because that one was too full. But the other passengers made room and invited him aboard, Conrardy said. The fear of hostility from other passengers or simply getting lost has kept some handicapped people from trying the new service, said Laurie Warner, co-director of education for Atlantis. For the couple of minutes it takes the lift to get them on or off the bus, the handicapped passenger is the center of attention for everyone on the bus, Warner said. And that can feel like “being on the grill,” Conrardy said. News Photo by Jose R. Lopez: A man (Mel Conrardy) in a short sleved plaid shirt and kaki pants sits in his motorized wheelchair on the sidewalk, his chin in his hand looking at a big bus. Behind him, further up the sidewalk, a line of people board the bus as the driver holds the door. caption reads: Mel Conrardy waits at Broadway and Colfax for an RTD bus with a wheelchair lift. An organization for the handicapped says the news lifts are a boon for handicapped and can provide an education for the bus drivers and the public, Conrardy says most people are patient during the two minutes it takes for the lift to operate when it is working properly. - ADAPT (128)
Accent on Living Summer 1983 Transportation Denver Busing Its Disabled Highlighted text: A failure in many cities, Denver has made accessible mass transportation work as an increasing number of disabled use it everyday. The Rapid Transportation District (RTD) in Denver is one of the most accessible transit systems in the nation – and the disabled community will take credit for it. For the last ten years, since 1973 when the RTD initiated “Handy-Ride,” a door-to-door subscription service, accessible buses have been a real issue. To date, disabled advocates have been the winners. “It has been a political victory for us,” says Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community, a highly active disabled group in Denver. He explains that they did not rely on 504 but instead used a successful strategy. Blank said that in 1973 when HandyRide was implemented, the disabled took the same stance the Blacks took during the civil right movement. “Separate in not equal. We agree that this type of service was fine, but what we really wanted was to have the entire bus system accessible. HandyRide would just be an extra.” Disabled people began demonstrating for accessibility on public buses – and in 1978 RTD agreed to develop mass transit accessibility. By June, 1982, it had met its commitment of having fifty percent of the buses accessible (two hundred twenty buses were retrofitted with lifts and one hundred twenty-seven new buses purchased in 1981 had lifts). In the meantime, however, Blank said the RTD reneged on its commitment of total accessibility because it announced in November, 1981, that eighty-nine buses to be delivered in late 1983 would not be lift equipped. These new buses are articulated buses, twice as long as regular buses. Wheelchair Ridership Graph - Shows ridership by month in 1981, 1982, and part of 1983 (up to April. ) Ridership pretty much rises except in fall and winter there is a downturn, and July of 1982 a sharp drop to a low point of about 300. Highest mark is almost 1300 in October 1982. Caption reads: There was a sharp drop in wheelchair ridership in July, 1982, because there were no accessible buses running. - ADAPT (85)
THE DENVER POST THURSDAY, FEB. 25, 1982 METRO Two photos by The Denver Post / Jim Richardson. First: A small meeting room filled with tables set classroom style with white table cloths. Three rows face away from the camera toward the front of the room, and at the far end of the room four or five people face the camera and their audience. The more than a dozen people at the tables facing the front of the room are in wheelchairs. Caption reads: Representatives of Denver's handicapped community meet Wednesday with RTD officials. Second photo [on right side of story]: A tall thin man in a suit and tie, with a smile on his face, pushes a manual wheelchair through the aisles between tables. Caption reads: A wheelchair is presented to L.A. Kimball, RTD executive director. RTD Chief Is Given Wheelchair Handicapped Want Official to Experience Bus Problems First By JUDITH BRIMBERG Denver Post Staff writer To promote sensitivity “from the top," Denver's disabled community on Wednesday gave RTD‘s executive director, L. A. Kimball, a wheelchair and urged he ride the bus in it at least once a week. Kimball accepted the chair “in that good spirit“ and promised to use it as time allows. He refused to tell reporters exactly when he would simulate the plight of the handicapped. The exchange occurred at the first of a series of meetings mandated by a court settlement of a dispute between RTD and some handicapped Denver residents. More than 80 handicapped people or their representatives attended the session, held at the Plaza Cosmopolitan Hotel in downtown Denver. The handicapped had objected to the transit agency's reversal of a decision to install wheelchair lifts on 89 articulated buses which will go into service next year, pointing out federal funds are available to pay 80 percent of the cost. Those funds will remain unspent. Until RTD decides upon another operational use for them or the federal government takes the money back. Kimball has acknowledged. Wednesday, in a conciliatory gesture, Kimball announced that the transit agency was deferring plans to phase out its HandiRide for at least six months. Please See ATLANTIS on 6-B - ADAPT (100)
Rocky Mountain News, Mon., June 7, 1982 Denver, Colo. p.37 WE’RE ACCESSIBLE! We set our sights on July 1 for increased accessibility. We've beat our goal by nearly a month. During peak hours 50 percent of all Denver-area local service is now equipped with wheelchair lifts. Nearly 100 percent of off-peak local service is now accessible. Please check your schedule for times of lift-equipped buses. Trips will be marked with the wheelchair symbol. If you need special assistance in learning how to use the lift, just give us a call at 628-9000, extension 2118. We are pleased to be able to accommodate our handicapped patrons with expanded service nearly one month ahead of schedule! (signature) L.A. Kimball Executive Director and General Manager 3 PHOTOS (in clockwise order; no credits given). First: A man in a wheelchair sits on a lift into the front door of a city bus. An access symbol is visible by the driver's door of the bus. Second: A woman in a manual wheelchair entering the front of an accessible bus, by the farebox. Three: An RTD bus with RTD "The Ride" written on the side of the bus. In large print at the bottom it says: Striving for the Best Service RTD The Ride - ADAPT (108)
Denver Post (approximately 12/4/81) [Headline] Bus Life Decision Delayed By: George Lane Denver Post Urban Affairs Writer Local transit officials, noting that there were barely enough of them to make a quorum Tuesday delayed for two weeks any decision about whether to alter plans not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 new buses. It was suggested during a special Regional Transportation District board meeting that the board order wheelchair lifts on 45 of the 89 high capacity, articulated buses, rather than no lifts at all. Board member Norma Anderson told fellow directors that there was no reason for postponing the issue “when everyone on this board knows the outcome of the vote.”. She said following the meeting there aren’t enough votes on the board to reverse the earlier action, and the buses ultimately will be ordered without the wheelchair lifts. The announced reason for postponing the vote was that only 12 of the 20 board members attended the special meeting, and only 11 were left when the compromise proposal was presented. It takes a minimum of 11 votes for the RTD board to conduct any business. Postponing the action for two weeks could mean that RTD may have to pay some kind of penalty for not informing the bus manufacturer of the lift decision before the extended deadline of Dec. 10. But the board’s action delayed for at least two weeks another possible wheelchair-bound –sit-in following an RTD board meeting last month. About two dozen persons from the Atlantis Community for the disabled staged a 2 1/2 hour sit-in following an RTD board meeting last month. They claimed the board’s decision then not to order the lifts was a “breach of promise” subjecting handicapped bus passengers to second-class ridership. After the RTD officials agreed to hold a special board meeting to reconsider the decision against the lifts, the wheelchair-bound sit-in ended peacefully. It had been feared police force would have to be used to end it. Eighteen handicapped persons and supporters and representatives of disabled people spoke during Tuesday’s special board meeting. RTD officials again attempted to convince the disabled congregation that not putting the lifts on the articulated buses will free other buses with lifts and result in better service to handicapped people. - ADAPT (142)
Rocky Mountain News Sat., 11/9/91 PHOTO by Glenn Asakawa, Rocky Mountain News: A man in a wheelchair [Bob Conrad] sits on a lift in the raised position. A man in a dark suit stands beside the lift. The lift comes out of the center of the driver's side of the large over-the-road-bus. The bus fills most of the frame, and you can see another behind it. TheRide is printed on the side. Caption reads: Dean Shaklee, an RTD maintenance instructor, demonstrates the wheelchair lift on a new intercity bus to Bob Conrad of Denver. RTD unveils 21 intercity buses New coaches to serve routes linking Denver to outlying suburbs By Leroy Williams Jr., Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer Commuters who ride buses between Denver and its outlying suburbs will soon be traveling in new comfort and style when $4.9 million worth of new buses hit the streets. Twenty-one intercity coaches were unveiled yesterday by the Regional Transportation District for use on the agency’s regional route network. They are expected to be in service by next week. The buses, similar to those used by Greyhound Lines Inc., will be used on routes that link Denver with such cities as Boulder, Longmont, Brighton, Evergreen, Conifer and Parker. “These are the first intercity buses we’ve bought since 1987,” said Dick Reynolds, RTD’s bus operation chief. RTD ordered the coaches, built by Motor Coach Industries of Pembina, N.D., for $235,000 each as part of a 150-bus order by the Dallas-area transit agency, RTD officials said. They carry 49 passengers and are equipped with side-mounted wheelchair lifts and space to tie down two wheelchairs. The practice of tacking smaller vehicle orders onto larger purchases made by another city saves money and delivery time. The new buses will replace several MC-5 intercity buses built in the mid-1960s, Reynolds said.