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Inici / Àlbums / Denver RTD 65
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Data de publicació / 2016
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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.
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Rocky Mountain News 10/16/84 Denver- Boulder rides offered to handicapped By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer The Regional Transportation District started offering special rides between Boulder and Denver for handicapped passengers Monday amid criticism from disabled activist that the new service is a form of illegal segregation. “We’re not looking for special, we’re looking for equal,” said Wade Blank, spokesman for the disabled protect group called Adapt. “Basically, we’re being segregated.” RTD contracted with Special Transit Systems Inc. of Boulder to provide the new service. It will operate on weekdays during rush hours between the Boulder Transit Center, 14th and Walnut streets, and down town Denver, outside the Market Street Station. Morning Trips leave Boulder at 6:30 a.m. and arrive in Denver at 7:15 a.m. The bus starts its return trip to Boulder at 8:30 a.m., arriving at 9:10 a.m. Afternoon trips leave Boulder at 4 p.m. and arrive in Denver at 4:40. The return trips leave Denver at 5:30 p.m., arriving in Boulder at 6:20. The rides require reservations at least three business days in advance. Special door-to-door service by STS is available the rest of the day. The fare is $1.75 each way, the same as a regular RTD express bus ride. RTD officials are offering the service as a compromise to handicapped riders who demand that wheelchair lifts be included on new over-the-road buses scheduled for purchase next month. Those buses would be used for express runs to Boulder, Evergreen and Conifer. Without the special service, RTD officials said, disabled people would have no public transit between Denver and Boulder. “Perhaps as an interim problem-solver, it (the special service) is done in good faith,” Blank said. “But I hope it wouldn’t be a permanent alternative. Most people don’t know their plans (for bus riding) three days in advance."
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Denver Post 2/16/85 PHOTO by Denver Post's Jim Pre[name cut off]: A uniformed policeman kneels beside a man in a wheelchair [George Roberts]. George has shades and an Afro and he is tilting his head to the side toward the policeman. The policeman is writing a ticket on his knee and George is telling him his information. Behind the two of them is another uniformed officer, visor on his cap shading his eyes, arms crossed across his chest and disapproving turn to his mouth. Behind him is a blurry crowd of people with their backs toward the camera. Caption reads: Officer R.H. Kaspersen issues a ticket to George Roberts during blockade of metro buses. Handicapped block buses 2 protesters are arrested; talks planned By Judith Brimberg 2/16/85 Denver Post Staff Writer For the second day in a row, wheelchair-bound protesters blocked an RTD bus in downtown Denver Friday. They were demonstrating against possible discontinuation of accessible bus service for the handicapped. Despite efforts by the Peña administration to mediate the dispute, the protest went off as scheduled, and two handicapped demonstrators were arrested. Denver police identified them as George Roberts, 36, and Renate Rabe, 30, who live in the same apartment complex at 1255 Galapago St. The pair, afflicted with cerebral palsy, were charged with impeding traffic and disobeying a lawful order. Rabe was released on her own recognizance, but Roberts, who participated in a similar demonstration several years ago, was held overnight in Denver County Jail. Thursday, another member of the disabled-rights group known as ADAPT, Mike Auberger, 30, was arrested at East Colfax Avenue and Cherry Street for impeding traffic. But efforts by Dale Saddler of the Mayor’s Commission on the Disabled ultimately paid off. Late Friday, both sides agreed to meet early next week to try to resolve the dispute. Demonstrations scheduled for this weekend were called off. The handicapped community contended that RTD failed to understand that separate, private transportation for the handicapped doesn’t meet everyone’s needs, said Wade Blank, an able-bodied demonstrator who organized the protests. On Tuesday, an RTD committee is to review policies affecting the elderly and the handicapped. Among the options to be considered are discontinuing accessible service on public buses and expanding handyride services or brokering services to private providers. In an interview, Blank said he organized the protests because “the handicapped aren’t going to be the stepping stones to a new budget.” More than two years ago, he and others obtained a commitment from RTD to install wheelchair lifts on 50 percent of the peak-hour buses. But RTD, like other transportation districts across the country, is facing severe cuts in federal aid and Blank fears the agency may try to balance its budget at the expense of the handicapped. Many wheelchair lifts have proved unreliable and costly to repair. Larry Perry, chairman pro tem of the RTD board, said Friday that Blank’s fears were groundless. “If they will sit down and talk with us, they will learn they won’t be hurt,” he declared. Earlier this week, however, General Manager Ed Colby told board members it costs $72 a year to maintain bus lifts because 12,000 disabled persons ride the buses each year. It’s cheaper to maintain lifts on the handy vans, Colby said. Blank countered that RTD is sabotaging its accessible program by refusing to perform inventive maintenance on the Colby’s handyride figures are distorted, he added, because they include the elderly as well as the disabled.
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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.
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The Selma of handicapped rights By Melanie Tem One recent Sunday morning, Kathy Vincent, a 41-year-old Denver woman with cerebral palsy, decided to go to church. She left her apartment, which she had just moved into after spending years in a nursing home, and propelled herself to a No.15 bus stop downtown. She saw "what looked like a wheelchair bus" approaching, and prepared to board it via the hydraulic lift. Instead, the driver told her the lift had been disconnected and, "this isn't a wheelchair bus anymore." The next wheelchair-accessible bus would arrive, he told her, in 30 minutes. "By that time," Vincent later recalled, "church would have been over." That incident has made Vincent a sympathizer with the more militant of Denver's disabled community - led principally by the Atlantis Community and HAIL(Holistic Approaches to Independent Living) - who are demanding that Regional Transportation District dramatically increase the number of wheelchair-accessible buses in its system. Specifically, they want the 89 new "articulated" buses on order to be equipped with wheelchair lifts, and have filed a lawsuit to force the issue. Articulated buses aren't suitable for conversion to wheelchair accessibility, according to RTD spokesman Kathy Joyce. Since they can carry more passengers and travel at higher speeds - their articulated (bendable) design allows them to take corners faster - they are intended for use on heavily traveled express routes. Joyce estimates it takes 5 to 7 minutes to load a passenger in a wheelchair, and another 5 to 7 minutes for unloading - delays which RTD considers unacceptable in a high-speed, efficient transportation system. FOR STEVE SAUNDERS, the issues go beyond personal convenience and articulated buses. Saunders, 31, also has cerebral palsy. He lives alone in a Capitol Hill apartment and works at HAIL. Saunders, along with other demonstrators assembled in RTD offices a few months ago, protested the board's decision to order the articulated buses without wheelchair lifts. Demonstrators blocked stairways and chained themselves to doors, to dramatize their point they said. Saunders was the only demonstrator to accept a summons from the police, an action which guaranteed a day in court. Last month he got his day, but had little opportunity to express his views, as the charges against him were dismissed. But, he said later he views the conflict as “a clear human rights issue. What we're demanding is equal access to public transportation, just like everybody else." Many bus drivers and able-bodied passengers seem skeptical about this view of the situation. While all sides in the dispute agree that so far public reaction to the wheelchair-accessible buses has been positive, there seems to be some sentiment now that the activists have gone too far. Several drivers put it this way: "They keep saying they want to be treated like ordinary people, when the fact is they're not ordinary people and they'd better accept that." Attitudes like that are, said Wade Blank of the Atlantis Community, disturbingly reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He calls Denver, "the Seima of the handicapped rights movement." Similar battles have been or are being waged in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and other cities across the country by the handicapped. The 90 percent accessible transportation in Seattle is lauded as proof of what can be done. Blank, who is able-bodied, thinks of himself as a "liberator," and contends the issue of full accessible public transportation is critical as disabled people across the nation organize and develop their power. RTD's Joyce, whose younger sister Heannie is disabled and a member of Atlantis, seems to echo this perspective when she says, "We feel that all this has less to do with RTD’s commitment to accessibility, which goes back a long way and hasn't changed, and less to do with articulated buses than with politics and economics." As corporations bring new money into Denver, she says, Atlantis and HAIL are moving to ensure that disabled citizens will be taken seriously. "They're making a statement," she says. "We understand that. But we can't allow it to change what we do." RTD, she says, is committed to making half of its entire system wheelchair-accessible by July of this year. ANOTHER POLITICAL FACTOR is RTD's first board election, to be held in November. Members of the disabled community are interviewing candidates to determine their willingness to support issues of concern to that constituency. HAlL's Saunders already has announced his candidacy. In other cities, much has been made of the low usage of wheelchair-accessible vehicles by the disabled. RTD's records indicate that of a total 160,000 rides per average day, disabled riders average between 90 and 260 per week. Neither RTD nor the disabled seem alarmed by this fact. Training, they agree, is the key. Saunders and others provide one-on-one training in bus riding to disabled passengers, and RTD trains both drivers and potential passengers. Both sides also seem willing to be patient with the equipment failures that plague any intricate mechanical apparatus. The issue ls complex, emotional and, for the disabled, very personal. Says Kathy Vincent, who can't travel anywhere on her own and has to rely completely on wheelchair-accessible buses: “l never was militant before. But now l don’t have any choice."
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PHOTO by Gen Martin, Denver Post: Four men and women are lying wrapped in sleeping bags or blankets on pads in the street in front of a bus. The bus (15 A) once bound for Lowry AFB, now appears empty and on the front are 3 handmade posters. Two are outside under the windshield wipers. One says "Taxation without Transportation!" with a drawing of the access symbol; the other has a picture of a stick figure person next to an equals sign and the words Free Ride, and then an access symbol guy next to an equals sign and the words No Ride. Inside the window a third sign is partially visible with the access symbol and the words Right to Ride. There are police/traffic barriers down the middle of the street and a manual wheelchair. There is a bus parked on the opposite side of the street and behind it a city building with a big sign that says "lease canceled." Around the people lying down are small piles of stuff and there is a cooler by the curb.
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Rocky Mountain News Tues., Nov. 6, 1979, Denver, Colo Photo by Steve Groer, News: A woman in a parka stands, smiling, holding the push handles of another woman's wheelchair. The woman in the wheelchair is facing the camera and smiling, eyes closed, a polite face. She's about eye level to the woman standing behind her because she is on a lift getting into a van. Caption reads: Pam Mellon helps Sonja Kerr into her van at Atlantis. [Headline] For some, just getting to job is an obstacle EDITOR'S NOTE‘: Nearly three fourths of Denver's 700,000-plus commuters drive to work alone by car. This is the latest in a series of stories about those who don't. By JERRY BROWN News Staff Paul and Jan Stewart almost lost their jobs with a local life insurance company after someone stole their car three weeks ago, leaving them with no way to get to work. Attorney Les Berkowitz owns a specially equipped car and hires a driver for his commuting and work-related travel. He estimates the special arrangements add $350 to his monthly commuting expenses. Sonja Kerr lives 3 1/2 blocks from the stop where she catches her bus to work. But she has to travel an extra two blocks to get there because of obstacles along the way. Mel Conrardy shells out $11 for each of his thrice-weekly Amb-O-cab trips to and from work. For the Stewarts, Berkowitz, Kerr and Conrardy, physical handicaps complicate their efforts to get to and from work — and restrict their commuting options. There‘s just no transportation for the handicapped if you don't have your own vehicle,” said Jan Stewart, whose husband is a paraplegic. As a result, Mrs. Stewart said, she and her husband "were in pretty desperate straits" when their car was stolen. "We don't have any money," she said. “We couldn't rent a car." Taking a bus to work was out of the question, she said, because they don't live close enough to the bus routes on which service for the handicapped is provided, and regular buses aren't equipped to handle Mr. Stewart’s wheelchair. And Amb-0-Cab, which provides door-to-door pick up and delivery service for the handicapped, was too expensive - $17 per round trip. The state Commission on the Disabled provide the Stewarts with transportation to work for two weeks. “They were very nice, but it was helter-skelter," Mrs. Stewart said. “They only have one driver and one van. Some mornings they would get us there (work) at 9 a.m., sometimes at 10:30." That didn't make their employer too happy, Mrs. Stewart said. Particularly since the Stewarts were supposed to be at work by 8 a.m. And the commission's driver quit at 4:30 p.m., leaving the Stewarts without transportation home. They turned to “friends, my boss and anybody else kind enough to give us a ride," Mrs Stewart said. “There were a lot of tears, a lot of frustration and a lot of worry" until they scraped together the money to buy an old used car, she said. The transportation problems of the physically handicapped are "all easily solvable if all you have is money," said Berkowitz, who maintains an active law practice despite being confined to a wheelchair and having only limited use of his arms “Unfortunately, I don't have that much." “Transportation is a difficult and an expensive proposition," he added. “But regardless of the negatives, the handicapped do what they have to do. It's not an insurmountable problem. If someone wants to do it, they can do it." But others within the handicapped community say the lack of cheap, dependable transportation for the handicapped prevents many of the estimated 6,000 to 8,000 Denver area residents confined to wheelchairs from being able to work. RTD offers limited service for the handicapped — three fixed routes and door-to-door service by subscription only — but doesn't expect to make its regular bus service accessible to the handicapped until 1982. Accessible bus service will enable many handicapped persons to find jobs who simply have no way to get to work today, according to spokesmen for the Atlantis Community, which has led the fight for accessible buses in Denver. Kerr, who works for Atlantis, uses RTD’s existing fixed-route service for the handicapped to get to work several days a week. She also owns a lift-equipped van — bought for her by her uncle — and sometimes rides to work in it with her roommate who drives. Kerr’s roommate plans to move, however, and Kerr said she doesn't think her reflexes are good enough for her to drive the van herself in Denver traffic. By trial and error, Kerr has found a route between her home and her bus stop. But she can't ride the bus in bad weather or when there is snow or ice on the ground. And if she misses her bus -— or fails to make a transfer connection downtown -- she has to wait two hours for the next bus. Conrardy also works at Atlantis, three days a week. But he lives with his mother and doesn't work to support himself, so the $11-a-day commuting expenses are something he can live with. “lt gives me something to do, Conrardy said of his part-time duties for Atlantis.
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Rocky Mountain News [Headline] RTD board stalls action on bus lifts By JERRY Brown News Staff Photo by Jose R. Lopez, News: A man sits in a manual wheelchair with a somewhat disgusted look on his face. He is wearing glasses, has a goatee type beard and a powerful looking body, in that CP, non-body builder way. He holds a coat in his lap. Caption reads: Leroy Duran speaks at RTD hearing on the subject of wheelchair lifts for 89 articulated buses. He was one of more than 20 people, many of them handicapped, urging RTD board members to reverse a decision not to buy the lifts. The Regional Transportation District board of directors made no decision after spending three hours Tuesday listening to appeals from the handicapped community that the directors reverse a decision not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983. With only ll of the 20 members present for the special meeting, the directors postponed action on a compromise proposal to put lifts on 45 of the high-capacity articulated buses until its regular monthly meeting on Dec. 17. Eleven affirmative votes are required for any board action, so it would have required a unanimous vote of those attending Tuesday’s session to reverse or amend the board's Nov. 19 decision not to buy the wheelchair lifts. Most of the board members at the meeting also attended a secret two-hour staff briefing on the issue before the public session. L.A. Kimball, RTD executive director, said public notice of the board briefing wasn't necessary because it wasn't a formal board meeting. At the public meeting, more than 20 speakers urged board members to reverse their decision not to buy the lifts. Attomey John R. Holland, who represented the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in an earlier lawsuit against RTD, said the decision not to put lifts on the articulated buses violates a 1979 negotiated court settlement under which Atlantis agreed to drop a lawsuit against the agency on the accessibility issue. Gregory D. Jones, RTD's legal counsel, disagreed. In that agreement, RTD promised to make its fleet accessible to the handicapped “through a program of accessible new bus purchases and the wheelchair-lift retrofit of existing buses susceptible to retrofit." In a separate policy statement, the board members promised to make half of RTD's peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped — a policy that some board members have suggested should be rescinded. Even without lifts on the articulated buses, Kimball said, RTD will meet the commitment to make half of its.peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped. RTD has [846? the number is very difficult to read] lift equipped buses in its [646? unclear] bus fleet, but only 60 of the lift-equipped buses are used for wheelchair-accessible service. Kimball promised that the lifts on the remaining 286 buses would be operating by next summer. The buses first must be equipped with wheelchair restraints, RTD officials have said. Holland also said RTD may be required by state civil rights legislation to make the articulated buses accessible to the handicapped. Members of the Atlantis Community have threatened to sue RTD an effort to force the agency to put lifts on the buses if the agency doesn't order the lifts. RTD's staff recommended that the lifts be eliminated from the bus order because of the cost — $1.1 million, or more than $12,000 per bus — and expected maintenance problems. Eighty percent of the money for purchasing the lifts would come from federal funds. RTD originally ordered the buses with the lifts, but on Nov. 19 the board voted 11 to 5 to rescind the decision to buy the lifts. When the buses were ordered in March, federal regulations required that wheelchair lifts be installed to all buses purchased with the aid of federal funds, but that rule has since been withdrawn by the Department of Transportation.
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Rocky Mountain News PHOTO, News Photo by Jose R. Lopez: A sweet looking woman (Terri Fowler) in a wheelchair in a tank top sits on a porch. Behind her is a shady yard. Caption reads: The bus strike is hampering Terri Fowler's quest of a school diploma Handicapped hardest hit by RTD strike By NORMAN DRAPER, News Staff The strike by union employees of the Regional Transportation District has ayed havoc with 26-year-old Terri Fowler's education. Paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair as a result of a congenital spinal defect, Fowler expressed concern that the strike could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a high-school-equivalent diploma. Fowler is one of Denver's 16,000 physically handicapped residents, most of whom are in wheelchairs. They are among the hardest hit by the strike, according to Bob Conrad, a co-administrator of the South Federal Boulevard office of Atlantis Community Inc., an association formed to help mentally and physically disabled Denver residents. THOUSANDS OF THESE people were dependent on RTD for transportation to and from their jobs, Conrad said. A lot of them, stranded by the strike, fear they may lose their jobs. “People are really beginning to worry about that," Conrad said. “We've gotten a lot of calls from disabled people wondering how they can get rides." Fowler makes a living by tutoring at the Atlantis Community learning Center for the disabled. That hasn't proved to be a problem. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, she can wheel herself to the Atlantis office on 194 S. Federal Blvd., a few blocks from her home. It's no problem getting to the Atlantis Office at 429 Bannock St. either. She works there Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of the other employees picks her up and takes her home in a van. That's when she does her grocery shopping. But getting to the Community College of Denver Auraria campus, where she is working on her GED (general equivalency diploma), is another matter. WITHOUT THE BUSES to take her, she hasn't been able to go to school since the strike began. She's been in the GED program for a year, and now she's afraid she might flunk. "So far, I'm doing good in school, but if I miss too much, I‘ll be behind," said Fowler, from her wheelchair on the back porch of the Atlantis Bannock Street Center “As long as I keep reading and do some math every day, it’s not too bad." Still if the RTD strike continues much longer, Fowler said that she may get so far behind that getting her diploma will be impossible. She's [unreadable] degree in December, then go on to a job. She attends classes Tuesday through Thursday mornings, [unreadable]. Unfortunately, said Fowler, the strike came at a time when she was making progress in her reading comprehension.
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PHOTO, News Photo by Steve Groer: A view from above down into a room filled with people, most in wheelchairs, sitting in a rough circle with one person in the middle. Next to that person is a desk with typewriter and paperwork on it. Caption reads: Members of Atlantis Community stage protest at RTD headquarters. Handicapped protest lift vote RTD’s rescission of plan assailed By JERRY BROWN News Staff About two dozen handicapped people, most of them in wheelchairs, staged a two-hour sit-in at the Regional Transportation District’s executive offices Thursday after RTD’s directors voted to rescind plans to install wheelchair lifts on 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983. The protestors, all from the Atlantis Community, agreed to leave, but only after: * RTD Executive Director L. A. Kimball and three board members promised they would try to arrange a meeting between the full board and Atlantis members unhappy with Thursday’s vote, with the possibility that the board will reconsider its vote. * Kimball agreed to delay implementing the decision to rescind the lift order until after the proposed meeting takes place, if possible. Before the compromise was reached, the Atlantis members said they were prepared to spend the night at the RTD office -- unless removed by the police. RTD official called police and Denver paramedics, and they waited in a nearby room, ready to remove the protesters if the negotiations failed. Co-director Wade Blank said Atlantis members are prepared to stage daily visits to Kimball’s office and take the issue to court if the board sticks by the decision not to buy lifts. Blank said Atlantis members also plan to stage demonstrations during Kimball's public appearances. Blank said Atlantis members say Kimball, who became RTD’s executive director Sept. 14, is the one who persuaded the board to rescind the order for the wheelchair lifts. Last spring, when RTD ordered the articulated buses federal regulations required that all new buses purchased with federal funds be equipped with wheelchair lifts. Eighty percent of the $2l.6 million purchase price of the buses, including the lifts, will come from federal funds. Eliminating the lifts would reduce the purchase price by $1.1 million, or $12,571 per bus, according to RTD. The regulations requiring wheelchair lifts on new buses were rescinded by the Department of Transportation in July, and Kimball said Thursday that eight of the nine other bus agencies who have ordered the articulated buses as part of a consortium that includes RTD have decided not to buy the lifts. Anticipating that the regulations might be rescinded or overturned in court, RTD and the other bus agencies included the wheelchair lifts as a revocable option in their order. RTD has until Nov.27 to cancel its order for the lifts without penalty. After that date, RTD would have to buy the lifts or pay a penalty to drop them from the manufacturer's specifications. More than 100 handicapped people or representatives from agencies providing services to the handicapped were present for the board vote, and more than 20 speakers argued against rescinding the lift order. With only 16 board members present and 11 votes required to rescind the lift order, it appeared at one point that the speakers had swayed enough board members to win their case. But the board voted 11-5 to revoke the order for the lifts, with chairman Lowell Hutson casting the deciding vote after he counted to see how many board members had voted on each side. The Atlantis members then left the board meeting room in the basement of RTD’s headquarters at 1325 S. Colorado Blvd. and occupied part of the building's fifth floor, where Kimball and other RTD executives have their offices. Nearly two hours later, Kimball and board members C. Thomas Bastien, Kathi Williams and Mary Duty came upstairs to negotiate an end to the demonstration. Atlantis, which has long advocated making all of RTD‘s buses accessible to the handicapped, staged a series of sit-ins and other demonstrations against RTD a few years ago because the agency wanted to provide separate service for the handicapped. Relations between the two organizations improved significantly two years ago after RTD agreed to make half of its peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped.
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The Denver Post 12/2/81 Two photos by The Denver Post / Anthony Suau: First photo: A young man with CP in a wheelchair in a jacket and flannel shirt, his head thrown back, speaks in a microphone that is being held by another man standing slightly behind his chair. Both men are looking intensely at someone or something to their left. Behind them is another person, as if in line. Second photo: An older man in a suit sits behind a table with a microphone. His fingers and thumb are lightly pressed together and to his lips, and his eyes are looking ahead. His expression shows he is listening, taking in information. The two pictures are set so that it appears the man in the suit is listening to the man in the wheelchair testifying. Caption reads: Wheelchair Rights Left [first photo], handicapped persons, including Barry Gin, left, met with Regional Transportation District officials Tuesday to discuss the use of wheelchair lifts on buses. Holding the microphone for Gin is Eloy Espinoza. Above [second photo], Lowell Hutson, RTD board chairman listens as members of disabled community argue that not putting wheelchair lifts on the new buses is a violation of their civil rights. Story on Page 4-B.
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Denver Post [Headline] RTD Cries Foul Over 'Stuck' Rider Photo to right of article, Denver Post photo by Ken Bisio: A woman [Beverly Furnice] who is in a motorized wheelchair with her long legs extended straight in front of her, is framed by the front door of a bus. She has her left arm up above her face, as if to protect herself and she has a wary expression on her face. Behind her a large man in shirt sleeves and a tie is holding her wheelchair's push handles and appears to be trying to maneuver her off the bus. There does not appear to be a lift deployed. Part of the universal access symbol is visible next to the door of the bus. Caption reads: Beverly Furnice is helped off an RTD bus. She wound up on a long ride. By BRAD MARTISIUS Denver Post Staff Writer In the 1960s, the Kingston Trio recorded a song about a man trapped on the MTA, doomed to ride forever in the Boston subway. That song seemed prophetic Thursday when a handicapped woman found herself unable to get off an Regional Transportation District bus and ended up seeing much of Denver before finally being assisted off by RTD officials, anxious to avoid a scene. The incident, however, raised the hackles of RTD officials, who felt they were the victims of a ploy by members of the Atlantis Community, 4536 E. Colfax Ave., an organization that aids the handicapped. And Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community, said he wasn't too happy with RTD substituting one type of RTD lift-bus for another type, leading to a very long ride for the handicapped woman. THE WOMAN, Beverly Furnice, 43, of 1135 Josephine St., has legs which are rigid perpendicular to her body and don't bend because of her condition. This makes it impossible for her to ride in an automobile or taxi, a problem exacerbated by the fact that her wheelchair weighs 400 pounds and doesn't fold. Blank said she rides the bus to work daily, and usually has no problems. However, he said RTD put a different bus on the route Thursday. Asked why Miss Furnice didn't just wait for the next bus, Blank said the special buses on that route run only every two hours. Miss Furnice’s wheelchair is elevated and is longer than many wheelchairs, and was unable to negotiate the bus‘ interior without help, even though the bus was equipped with a ramp to aid handicapped persons in boarding. When she got on the bus, she was aided by Atlantis Community members. But when the time came for her to get off, there was no one to help, and the busdriver, who wouldn't identify himself, refused to leave his driver’s seat, so she had no choice but to continue riding the bus, taking the circuit out to Red Rocks and back. ACCORDING TO Dick Thomas, executive director for RTD‘s department of program management, the driver was assured that help would be available for Miss Furnice when she got off the bus. He said the driver made it clear when she boarded that he wouldn't help her get off. “The drivers have the right to do that," Thomas explained. “It’s in their union contract, and it's there to protect the other passengers. It’s up to the driver's discretion. He can help, but he doesn't have to if he feels it would be hazardous to leave the driver's seat." Thomas said Blank boarded the bus at Miss Furnice's stop and argued with the bus driver, but refused to help her get off the bus. About two hours later, several wheelchair-bound persons from the community were waiting at Miss Furnice’s stop, with the intention of boarding the bus also and riding in sympathy with her. Blank said Friday that the bus incident wasn't a planned protest, but that the wrong bus had arrived at least three times before and that this time Atlantis community decided to make a point about the type of bus used “which was bought without our permission." Blank said RTD frequently replaces one type of lift-bus with other, less accessible types, creating potential problems. “We've asked RTD not to use the less-accessible buses, for just this reason," Blank said. “It's not a problem if the driver is sensitive to the needs of the handicapped." Thomas said the lift-buses, while designed to meet some of the needs of the handicapped, never will be able to meet all the needs of everyone. He said there always will be some handicapped who just won’t be able to use them.
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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
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Rocky Mountain News PHOTO, News Photo by Jose R. Lopez: A thin woman [Theresa Preda] with dark hair and a big smile stands facing a man [LA Kimball] sitting at a "classroom style" conference table. He has a sickly smile on his face as he looks up at her. Between the tables and beside the woman is a manual wheelchair and she is pointing to it. It appears a man in another wheelchair [Mark Johnson] is pushing the wheelchair toward Teresa. At the table next to Kimball another man, also a presenter, who does not appear to have a disability, stares at Kimball with a slightly startled look on his face. Caption reads: Theresa Preda presents a wheelchair to RTD Executive Director LA. Kimball, right. Disabled riders' flap marks parley By JERRY BROWN News Staff Acting under a court order, Regional Transportation District officials and members of Denver's handicapped community met Wednesday to discuss their differences, but a longstanding argument among the handicapped over the type of bus service they want dominated the session. The 90-minute meeting at the Cosmopolitan Hotel opened with two organizations that have fought for accessible service on RTD’s regular routes presenting a wheelchair to RTD Executive Director L.A, Kimball and urging him to use it to learn firsthand the difficulties handicapped people experience in riding buses. Kimball pledged to use the wheelchair presented by Atlantis and Holistic Approaches to Independent Living, but told reporters: “l probably won't tell you in advance when I'm going to do it." The meeting was the result of a negotiated court order between RTD and the two organizations stemming from a series of demonstrations the organizations staged at RTD buildings in January. Atlantis and HAIL were protesting the transit agency's decision not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 buses scheduled for delivery next year. They have filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court in an attempt to force RTD to put lifts on the buses. But more than half of the l00 or so handicapped people attending the meeting indicated they believed RTD should focus its efforts on the door-to-door service that RTD has provided the handicapped for more than five years — not the accessible service on regular routes advocated by Atlantis and HAIL. Kimball drew cheers when he announced that the door-to-door service, known as Handi-Ride, would not be discontinued this summer as planned. " Kimball said the door-to-door service would continue until sometime next year, and suggested that the handicapped groups present join in a regional effort to devise a system under which someone else would provide the door-to-door service when RTD ends it. RTD began providing wheelchair-accessible service on some regular routes last summer and has promised to have half of its peak-hour service and virtually all of its off peak service wheelchair accessible by July 1. Saying RTD cannot afford to provide both types of accessible service, RTD officials had said they would discontinue the HandiRide service after July 1. The threatened loss of HandiRide service has created a split within the handicapped community, which dominated Wednesday's meeting. Spokesmen for Atlantis and HAIL said they believe both types of service are necessary, and promised to fight any efforts by RTD to discontinue the HandiRide. They accused RTD of using the HandiRide to create dissension among their ranks and “stacking” the audience by sending invitations to HandiRide patrons. But Atlantis spokesman Wade Blank said: "In a way RTD did us a favor." Blank said the meeting would help open communications between the two handicapped factions.
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Rocky Mountain News PHOTO by News' Jose R Lopez: A driver sits at the wheel of a city bus. He is looking over his right shoulder and beside him you can see the farebox. Caption reads: Herbert Fletcher says Kimball is reaping a harvest for himself. [Headline] Kimball hike fuels discord in RTD ranks By Norman Draper, News Staff. A 10 percent salary increase of Regional Transportation District Executive Director L.A. Kimball has added salt to the festering strike wounds of RTD employees. "It's pretty bad timing," said four-year driver Alan Hill, who was among the random sample of RTD drivers and mechanics interviewed Friday. "He (Kimball) kept talking about us making too much money, so he must really be making too much money. Kimball orchestrated a public relations campaign during the recent RTD strike, stressing that union workers were overpaid. RTD's board of directors announced Thursday that Kimball's salary would be raised from the current $65,000 to $71,500 a year. The raise is retroactive to Sept. 14. Kimball also was given an extra $7,200 to buy a house in the Denver area. "It's disgusting" said a driver who declined to be named. "In these days of austerity I don't think anybody should get a 10 percent raise." RTD board Chairman Lowell Hutson said Kimball was awarded the raise because of his efficient running of the district, his successful negotiation of a union contract and improvement in worker morale. "He deserved it said Sondra Lewis who has been driving buses for five years. "He did a good job giving the royal shaft to the drivers." One driver call Hutson's remark about morale "Baloney." Other drivers agreed: "I've been driving buses for 36 years and I've never seen it (morale) so low, " said veteran driver Bob Sebern. "You can't really hold somebody else's wages down and reap the harvest for yourself" said nine-year veteran driver Herbert Fletcher. In the RTD garage at 350 S Santa Fe Drive, someone had taped about 30 photocopies of a newspaper article detailing the pay hike to lockers throughout the maintenance area. Above the article were the words, "Plucking the bucks?" "I'm trying to buy a house now," said a mechanic who wouldn't give his name. But I didn't see the board loaning me money for it. Most people are sick to their stomach about the way the situation was handled. RTD bus drivers, mechanics and clerical workers were on strike July 12 when negotiations with RTD for a new contract stalled. They returned to work Aug.9 after a contract was approved by the 1,375 member Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1001. The contract awards RTD's union employees an average 4.5 percent yearly increase over three years. RTD's 1983 budget includes average 6 percent merit increases for the management staff.