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ADAPT (180)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Volume 7, No. 3 Boulder, Colorado October 1984 PHOTO: A man in a leather brimmed hat, long hair beard and moustache down vest and jeans, seated in a motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger), leans to his right as he is surrounded by abled bodied people. Back to the camera, a man plain clothes is partially in front of him, papers sticking out from his back pocket. A uniformed officer is also back to the camera and is holding Mike's arm which in front of Mike. A second uniformed officer is doing something behind Mike's back while a woman stands up on the sidewalk to his side watching with her hands on her hips. (She was an organizer with National Training and Information Center and was assisting with the Access Institute.) cation reads: D.C. Police Arrest Denver Disabled Protestor MIKE AUBERGER, a community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver and a member of the American Disabled for Accessible Transit (ADAPT) is arrested by Washington, D.C., police outside the Washington Convention Center where the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was just getting under way. A spokesperson for APTA said that the demonstrations only delayed the start of the convention by a few minutes. Inside the convention hall Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole abandoned her prepared text and said the administration was working to provide public transit for the disabled. Outside the hall, demonstrators branded the secretary's plan as another “separate but equal" scheme and demanded that the federal government require all public transit systems be made accessible to the handicapped. Demonstrators not only blocked the entrances to the convention but also surrounded chartered buses that took delegates from their hotel to the convention center. The disabled activists represented a number of cities, including Denver, Syracuse, N.Y., Boston, El Paso, Los Angeles and Chicago. Additional photo on page 4. 28 Busted in D.C. The 28 disabled activists who were arrested for civil disobedience during the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in Washington, D.C., last month are trying to raise $1500 to make their bail money by a Dec. 3 deadline. At the same time, they're preparing to carry their demand that the APTA members buy only wheelchair-lift equipped buses to the transit organization's regional convention in San Antonio on April 20. The Texas contingent from the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) under the leadership of Jim Parker of El Paso has been especially militant in their demands. Taking their lead from an editorial in the September Handicapped Coloradan, a coalition of of Texas disabled groups met in San Antonio and voted to ask transit systems in Texas to withdraw from APTA unless it goes on record supporting accessibility. The Colorado chapter of ADAPT was planning to introduce a similar resolution to Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD). APTA's position is that accessibility should be left to the discretion of the local transit provider, Although the Carter administration mandated accessibility in public transit, APTA was successful in getting that ruling thrown out in a l98l court battle. ADAPT maintains that the disabled have a civil right to public transit. Jack Gilstrap, APTA's executive vice president, reiterated that position as wheelchair demonstrators seized buses in front of the White House and hurled their chairs at police lines outside the Washington Hilton and Washington Convention Center during APTA's late September meeting. Gilstrap said that the funds just weren't there to support a mandatory system, adding that the additional burden might jeopardize some transit systems. However, since the convention ADAPT has been approached by APTA's new president, Warren Franks, the director of the Syracuse, N.Y., transit system, who has requested a meeting in Denver with wheelchair activists. "The Syracuse ADAPT group has been pretty active," said ADAPT spokesperson Wade Blank. "Franks must be pretty worried about what might happen there if he wants to meet with us.“ ADAPT was organized in Denver one year ago by some of the same groups and individuals who had been involved in forcing RTD to adopt a pro-accessibility policy when purchasing new buses. That battle too was highlighted by militant demonstrations with wheelers chaining themselves to the doors of RTD headquarters. In contrast, demonstrators restricted themselves to orderly pickets when APTA held its national convention in Denver in 1983. But ADAPT only abandoned its plans for civil disobedience after APTA met its demands to address the entire convention on accessibility. APTA's national staff fought that request and allegedly threatened to pull the convention out of Denver at the last minute, but finally agreed to allow ADAPT to address the meeting after Denver Mayor Federico Pena intervened. There was no question that ADAPT would be offered the same treatment at the Washington convention. Although they didn't get a spot on the agenda Blank said his group made their point by capturing the attention of the capital's media. Even before the convention opened, ADAPT made its presence known by joining forces with local D.C. activists to seize seven Metrobuses and block the five blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House during the afternoon rush hour. Demonstrators released the buses an hour later when D.C.’s Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner agreed to meet with Washington disabled leaders to discuss their demands for a fully accessible system. No date has yet been set for that meeting, which ADAPT said marked an historic first in the Washington area. No arrests were made during that demonstration, although Washington police moved several demonstrators out of the street. But on the following Monday and Tuesday 28 demonstrators were arrested as they tried to block buses leaving the Washington Hilton for the convention center and again at the convention center itself. The police threw up lines as picketers arrived but were unable to halt the advance of the demonstrators, who wedged their chairs in the hall's doors or hurled their bodies onto the ground. Mike Auberger, one of those arrested, said the police "were abusive -- there's no doubt of that," but he added that this was probably pretty typical. “Let's face it," he said, "these guys probably have to deal with demonstrators all the time." They don't mess around when they get started. Auberger said he was grabbed by the hair and pulled back so that his chair was resting on its back wheels. Two other demonstrators were thrown from their chairs and taken to local hospitals where they were released after being treated for minor injuries. Police had to bring in special vans with wheelchair lifts in order to cart demonstrators off to jail, where they were fingerprinted and rushed into court. "Only the doorway between the holding cells and the courtroom was too narrow to get our chairs through," Auberger said, "so they had to take us in the back way." Some of the disabled picketers were surprised that the police reacted with such force, according to Auberger. "l think it opened a few eyes," he said. ADAPT filmed the demonstration, and a 20-minute edited version is being shown as part of a fundraiser to pay the bails of those arrested, about half of whom were from Denver. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-Denver) has agreed tn help raise money, but because of previous campaign commitments said she would be unable to participate until after the first of the year.
ADAPT (200)
The Handicapped Coloradan, vol.8, no.7, Boulder, CO February 1986 (This article is continued in ADAPT 198 but the entire article is included here for ease of reading.) PHOTO 1: Along a street a large line of people in wheelchairs and others move past a shady park with vendors with small umbrellas over their stands. Several of the protesters carry placards in their laps, one of which reads: A PART OF NOT APART FROM. Faces are too dark to tell who is in the line. Caption reads: In the shadow of the Alamo a wheelchair column moved along the streets of San Antonio, Texas in April 1985. Protestors were heading for the hotel headquarters for the regional convention of the American Public Transit Association. PHOTO 2: Mike Auberger, with his mustache, trimmed beard and shoulder length hair looks at the camera with his intense eyes. Wearing a light colored sweater and shirt with a collar, he sits in his wheelchair which is mostly visible because of his chest strap. Caption reads: Mike Auberger of Denver was one of some 16 Coloradans who went to Texas to protest the lack of accessible public buses. [Headline] The eyes of Texas are on outside agitators -- and a lot of folks from down the street There's never been much love lost between Coloradans and Texans, at least not since those folks from the Lone Star State first wandered into the Rocky Mountains and discovered deep powder in the winter and cool valleys in the summer. As Winnebago after Cadillac after pickup poured across Raton Pass, Coloradans greeted Texans with open cash registers and - increasingly -- ridicule. Our scorn for Texans even reached into the highest office in the state when Governor Dick Lamm greeted his Texan counterpart with this joke: A Texan died here recently and we couldn't find a coffin large enough, so we gave him an enema and buried him in a shoebox. Texans were not amused, though by now they should have come to expect such treatment. We've been squabbling ever since a detachment of Colorado militia turned back a Texas Confederate army at Glorietta Pass during the Civil War. Each summer now we give Texas a chance to even the score down near Alamosa in a rotten tomato battle. OF course we always make sure our army's bigger. That animosity, however, doesn't carry over to the disabled population of the two states. In fact, a dozen or more militant wheelchair activists from Colorado have been rolling onto the streets of several Texas cities during the past couple of years to aid their counterparts in the battle to force Texas transit systems to make their buses wheelchair-accessible. "After Colorado, Texas is out best organized state," Wade Blank, the long haired ex-preacher who helped found American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in Denver two years ago. ADAPT chapters have sprung up in several other states, notably Illinois, Maine, and Connecticut, but none have garnered as many active members as Texas. Scores of Texans have blocked buses in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and El Paso in recent months to focus the attention of the state's media on the lack of accessible buses. Part of ADAPT's success in Texas lies in the fact that there are so few lift-equipped buses in this huge state. Some Texas cities did order accessible buses when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation ordered mandatory accessibility in the 1970s. However, most of these lifts were never used as the American Public Transit Association (APTA), a national lobbying and policy making organization for transit systems, successfully fought the regulation in federal appeals court. APTA maintains that the local transit provider is the best judge of whether or not accessibility is feasible. Adverse climatic and geographical conditions are generally cited as the chief obstacles to lifts. Texas ADAPT leaders point out that few areas in Texas experience severe winter storms and that the state's larger cities are generally laid out on flat plains. That was one of the points wheelchair activist tried to make when they picketed in April 1985 regional APTA convention in San Antonio. A sizable contingent of Coloradans joined those picket lines, leading to a charge by the local newspaper, the San Antonio Light, that the demonstration was the work of outside agitators and that most of the city's disabled population was quite happy with using paratransit. Spot demonstrations and bus seizures soon followed in other Texas cities, while some Texas ADAPT members turned outside agitators themselves by participating in demonstrations at the APTA national convention in Los Angeles in October 1985. Several Texans including Jim Parker of El Paso and Bob Kafka of Austin, were among The dozens arrested. Supporters of lifts point to cities like Seattle and Denver where most of the buses are accessible -- and increasingly free of breakdowns. Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) maintenance crew made a few simple changes in some of their lift systems and managed to operate experimental buses without a single breakdown. ADAPT argues that some transit providers have deliberately sabotaged their lift systems to justify removing them. Opponents of lifts argue that paratransit--usually vans that pick riders up at their residences -- is more cost effective. Supporters point to Seattle where the cost per ride on mainline buses is less than $15 a trip, which compares very favorably with the best deals offered by paratransit systems. Convenience is a major factor too, according to Mike Auberger of ADAPT-Denver, who points out that most paratransit systems require two days' advance notice and users might have to travel all day just to keep a 15 minute dental appointment. "Me, I like being able to roll down to the corner bus stop," Auberger said. ADAPT grew out of coalition of Denver disabled groups who were successful in battling RTD over wheelchair lifts. Protestors seized buses and chained themselves to railings at RTD headquarters before the battle was won. Two years ago they went national when their arch foe, APTA, held its national convention in Denver, APTA refused to allow ADAPT to present a resolution to the convention calling for mandatory accessibility until pressure was brought to bear by Denver Mayor Federico Pena, a pro-lift advocate. APTA declined, however, to vote on the issue, and ADAPT picketed the group's 1984 national convention in Washington, DC, in October. Twenty-four protestors were arrested during the demonstration, including Parker. Parker, who was joined in Washington by four other Texans, isn't through with APTA yet. When that group holds its Western Regional Convention in San Antonio April 20, Parker said they can expect almost as many demonstrators as went to Washington. "I can't think of any place in Texas where it (public transportation for the disabled) is as good as it is here in Denver -- in fact it's poor everywhere here. Dallas just decided to buy 200 or 300 new buses without lifts." The situation isn't any better in his home city of El Paso, according to Parker. "It's very poor here," he said. "There are 30 city cruisers here with lifts but the city has shown no desire to use them." Parker thinks too many people in wheelchairs are too passive. "They're not used to pushing people, but we're starting to see some changes." However, Parker points out that Texas is a very conservative state and people -- including the disabled -- are slow to change. People wishing to participate in the San Antonio demonstration should call Parker (915-564-0544) for further information. PHOTO: Two bearded, bare chested wheelchair activists (Jim Parker, and [I think] Mike Auberger) are in the foreground. Parker, his shoulder length hair tied back with a bandana, sits with his foot up on his opposite knee, hands in his fingerless gloves. The two are facing away from the camera and talking with another man who is kneeling down beside them looking up at them. Caption reads: Jim Parker (center) of ADAPT-El Paso meets with a newsman during a picket of McDonald's. Many disabled persons objected to the fast food chain's refusal to immediately retrofit all of its restaurants so that they would be accessible to wheelchair patrons. Parker is currently involved in helping organize a demonstration at the Western Regional Convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in San Antonio Oct. 20 - 24 [sic].
ADAPT (223)
MAinstream magazine [No date] [This story continues in ADAPT 222, but is contained here in its entirety for reading ease.] [Headline] ADAPT takes the fast lane to make transit accessible By Michael Ervin San Antonio—The first indication that something was about to happen came when an oversized, stretch-limo of a van pulled up beside the Alamo and a wheelchair lift uncurled out of the back door. The colorful banner on the side of the van read: ACCESS FOR ALL. Six more people in wheelchairs were in another van parked in a lot down the street. As they proceeded down the sidewalk to join the demonstration in front of the Alamo the pedestrians stopped and looked them over. A parade of people in wheelchairs is bound to draw stares. But the expressions accompanying these stares were unique—welcoming, supportive, somewhat star struck. Maybe they knew they were coming. Before the 50 or so members of various chapters of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit even arrived here there were stories in the media about previous ADAPT confrontations with the American Public Transit Association (APTA.) Television news showed footage of the mass arrests that occurred last October in Washington, D.C. when ADAPT members tried to force their way into the center where APTA was holding its annual convention. That's the kind of escalating media coverage Wade Blank likes to see. He’s the main force behind ADAPT. “We're becoming famous. When we had our first ADAPT meeting in Denver in 1982, our goal was to make the officials of any city we were coming to nervous. We wanted them to say, ‘No! Not here! We don’t want ‘em!’” They were certainly nervous in San Antonio. When a horde of people in wheelchairs showed up at the offices of the local transit authority for a noisy demonstration, the employees locked themselves in a large office as if they were afraid ADAPT was going to take them out one by one and shoot them. And when the march that began at the Alamo turned into an equally raucous occupation of the lobby of the posh hotel where APTA people were staying, hotel security had no idea what to do. And the bewildered looks of the innocent tourists were amusing. They’d certainly never seen anything like that before. “Seeing a bunch of disabled crazies blocking buses and doing things like that redefines everything everybody’s been conditioned to believe about the disabled," Blank says. This radical redefinition of what the disabled are (in the eyes of both the disabled and nondisabled) is what ADAPT is all about. And having stuffy APTA conferences and conventions as a backdrop helps make that point. APTA’s primary sin, according to ADAPT, is that it spent big bucks on a lawsuit that struck down the federal mandate that all fixed-route public buses be lift-equipped. ADAPT sees equal transit access as the most basic civil right. “It's the same segregation as when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or yield their seats to whites. Except it’s even worse,” says Blank. “The disabled can’t even get on the bus.” By using APTA as a symbol of the stifling paternalism that keeps the disabled in a position of dependency, ADAPT makes the immorality of inaccessible public transit quite clear. *** Wade Blank is an ordained minister who never goes to church. “It’s in the true Jesus tradition. He was kicked out of the synagogue and never went back.” Blank worked in a nursing home for a few years after seminary. It frustrated him to see the disabled friends he made there stuck there simply because they had no place else to go. So in 1976 he and some others began Atlantis, an independent living center in Denver. ADAPT was born of Atlantis. Blank says Atlantis likes to “do the impossible” in terms of working with clients who have the deepest holes of dependency to dig out of. Frank, a man with cerebral palsy who was part of the ADAPT Denver caravan to San Antonio, was sprung by Atlantis in 1976 from a nursing home he had been in since 1934. Another woman began feeding herself for the first time when she became part of Atlantis. She was always physically able to. Her mother just didn't want her making a mess. Another woman had never seen a head of lettuce. Her salads had always come to her prepared. It’s rather stunning seeing people who were mired in the world of please and thank you traveling around the country, blocking buses and maybe getting arrested. It’s gotten ADAPT and Atlantis in trouble with irate relatives. The father of a woman arrested for blocking buses in Denver told Wade that since he was a reverend he must be brainwashing his daughter into joining his cult, just like Jim Jones. He said he was going to tell the newspapers so they could investigate. But Blank says, “All we’re saying to people in Atlantis and ADAPT is, ‘You are an important person.’ I just tell them (the irate relatives) that people get excited when they see that they are important and that they are expected to be somebody.” In 1978, it became clear that the mission of Atlantis could never be fully accomplished as long as Denver’s public transit system was totally inaccessible. What good was it to set someone up in an accessible apartment if they couldn’t move beyond it? They might as well have still been in the nursing home. So the Atlantis people took to the streets of Denver. They blocked buses. They held sit-ins in the transit authority offices. They got arrested. But four years later, they won and Denver is on its way to full access. [Bordered text box in center of page: “We created a drama and let it unfold . . .I guess we raised consciousness.”] The next year, APTA made the mistake of holding its convention in Denver. The target was too tempting for Atlantis to resist. Here was the personification of everything Atlantis opposed right on its step and begging to be hit. Atlantis formed a permanent transportation component call ADAPT. They organized confrontations around the convention and vowed to follow APTA everywhere until it passed ADAPT ’s resolution renouncing the lawsuit and the damage it did. These confrontations would also provide a focal point and a training ground for activists from other cities so they could form their own ADAPT chapters. Mike Auberger of Atlantis is a quadriplegic resulting from a bobsled accident during the 1972 Olympic time trials. “When we started ADAPT, we were a bunch of crazy nuts. A year later, we were a possibility. Now, we’re a reality. We started in one city and here we are about 20 cities. We must be selling something everybody needs.” The hope is that the feeling of self-importance that inspired the disabled of Denver will be as infectious in San Antonio and in cities all over America. ADAPT paved the way in San Antonio by creating a three-day headache for the police and transit authority and forcing them to take the issue very seriously. They also permanently etched the issue on the minds of the people of San Antonio with pictures on the front page of the newspaper of disabled people blocking APTA tour buses. “We created a drama and let it unfold,” Blank says. “I was talking to a reporter and I said, ‘I guess we raised consciousness.’ She said, ‘Boy did you! That’s all this town is talking about.’ ” “Now you can’t say that about too many political movements today.” But even if it doesn’t play in San Antonio, Auberger sees what happened there as another battle won. “Again we took on APTA and beat them. You’ve got this guy in a $300 suit and a designer tie with his initials and a soup stain on it. More and more people are starting to see APTA that way.” If success can be judged by police reaction, ADAPT is accomplishing a lot. Knowing ADAPT ’s penchant for blocking buses, the police routed buses away from areas with high ratios of wheelchair-users. They obviously did their homework by talking to police in other cities who had to deal with ADAPT. A television news report even told of how San Antonio police intelligence photographers were following ADAPT members around. And it’s clear that transit authorities are taking ADAPT very seriously too. The next target is Los Angeles, where APTA will hold its convention in October. ADAPT has obtained a copy of a private memo of the Southern California Rapid Transit District that speaks of the authority’s plans to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to “handle vast numbers of wheelchair bound people” who will be coming to town. “While confrontations cannot be stopped, they can be blunted.” It speaks of how the RTD is “searching for ways to diffuse or ward off demonstrations,” perhaps by pacifying everyone for a few days with a conference on accessible transit [ibid]. “Can we take control by creating a hospitality center for the handicapped?” the memo says. Who can resist such an opportunity. ADAPT is on its way.
ADAPT (285)
The Detroit News, Section B Metro/ Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1986 pp. 1b and 6b News Focus: HANDICAPPED ACCESS PHOTO News Photo by Howard Kaplan: Three dark uniformed officers encircle the back of an older, thin man in a an old style manual wheelchair (Frank McComb). The officer on the left looks frustrated but determined, the one in the middle looks somewhat worried and the one on right is bending forward as if trying to speak to Frank. Frank looks freaked out. He is wearing a button down shirt and jacket with an ADAPT button. Caption reads: Handicapped protester arrested at Federal Building in downtown Detroit. There are two articles side by side. [These articles both are continued on ADAPT 275, but the entire text of both has been included here for easier reading.] Title of first article: 2nd day of protest brings 37 arrests By Louis Mieczko and David Grant, News Staff Writers A group of jailed wheelchair-bound protesters found themselves confronted Tuesday night with the kind of access problems they've been protesting all week. Thirteen protesters spent the night in a gym at Detroit Police Headquarters after the Wayne County sheriff's department refused to admit them to the county jail. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department said the protesters weren’t accepted at the jail because over-crowding forced the county on Friday to stop incarcerating people accused of misdemeanors. MEANWHILE, UP to 60 people -- most in wheelchairs — descended on the area around Police Headquarters to protest the jailings. They wheeled slowly along the sidewalks around the building, chanting, “Let our people go" and vowed to spend the night. About 20 police officers stood near the protesters but did not intervene. The 13 protesters were among 37 people arrested Tuesday, after they blocked one of two entrances to the McNamara federal office building in downtown Detroit. Of the 37 people arrested, 31 were in wheelchairs. Police said the 13 jailed protesters were being held in lieu of $1,000 cash bail each. The rest of the protesters were released on $100 [personal bond]. BAIL WAS set at $1,000 for the 13, a police spokesman said, because their arrests Tuesday violated the conditions of their release Monday on $100 personal bond after a similar protest. They had been ordered to avoid further arrest until a court appearance set for Oct. 24, police said. Their incarceration posed special problems for police. The protesters were being held in a gym at Police Headquarters, which has barred windows and doors and is occasionally used to hold prisoners temporarily when processing of prisoners is backed up at the jail, police said. The bathrooms in the gym are not equipped for the handicapped and guards were carrying the protesters in the toilets, police said. The protesters were arrested early in the afternoon. By the time they had been processed and carried into the gym by police, the cafeteria at the Wayne County Jail had closed, police said. Officers at Police Headquarters, who declined to be named and who wouldn't provide details, said they secured from the county jail meals of roast beef and pot roast with lettuce, salads, ice cream, milk and juice. The protesters ate about 8:30 p.m. Title of second article: Costly bus lifts are key to dispute By Louis Mieczko, News Staff Writer It costs an estimated $20,000 to install wheelchair lifts on a typical city bus, and sometimes they don't work. That's the crux of a dispute between transit agencies across the country handicapped groups protesting the lack of access to public buses and rail cars. Americans [sic] Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) wants every bus and rail car in the county available to wheelchair-bound people, a move which transit officials say would bankrupt most agencies. HANDICAPPED ADAPT demonstrators clashed this week with the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which is holding its annual convention in Detroit. It was the fourth such confrontation in as many years tied to the APTA conventions. Dozens of protesters have been arrested since Sunday for interfering with bus traffic and blocking entry to the McNamara Building as they sought to meet with staff members of U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Donald Riegle Jr. ADAPT has strongly criticized Detroit's Department of Transportation (D-DOT), which serves the city, and praised the suburban Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA). “We fought for five years in Denver to get wheelchair lifts on all city buses there, and when we won in Denver, we went national," said Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister whose 15-year-old daughter is confined to a wheelchair. THE PROTEST group, which Blank helped start, is upset with APTA for opposing its goal of wheelchair lifts on all buses. Five years ago, APTA won a lawsuit knocking down a requirement that the devices be installed on buses purchased with federal funds. Jack R. Gilstrap, APTA executive vice-president, called that too costly. “In Washington, D.C., $60 million was spent to provide elevators for the ‘subway stations, but only 36 handicapped people use those elevators on a given day," said Gilstrap. “We would much rather let each transit authority develop dial-a-ride and other more cost-effective services.” Gilstrap said it costs an average of $20,000 a bus to add wheelchair lifts, which often are unreliable. "THEY’VE NEVER given the wheelchair lift system a chance to work," said Frank A. Clark, chairman of the Detroit-based Coalition for the Human Rights of the Handicapped. “How much does it cost to keep these people at home or in a nursing facility." A 10 year old Michigan law, one of the most stringent in the United States, requires that all new buses bought with state funds have wheelchair lifts. California is the only other state with such a requirement. According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, 1,186 of the 2,127 publicly owned buses in the state have wheelchair lifts. Detroit recently bought 100 buses, but equipped only 20 with wheelchair lifts. The city did not have to follow the state law because it used city funds. ONLY 196 of the city's 606 buses — about 32 percent —— have the wheelchair equipment. By comparison, 140 of SEMTA’s 202 buses — more than 69 percent — are equipped with the lifts. And 440 of Denver's 760 buses — 58 percent — have the lifts. Denver's policy is to equip all new buses with the lifts: and the handicapped groups say they consider Denver's system a model that should be adopted by others. Clark complained that the Detroit lifts often don't work. “They don't maintain them at all," Clark said. “We'll be going into federal court soon to complain about the situation." CLARK’S GROUP has a five-year-old lawsuit pending before Federal District Judge Richard Suhrheinrich, charging Detroit with violating U.S. handicap access laws for mass transit, public buildings and walkways. The law requires that public property be accessible to the handicapped. Clark said members of his group monitor Detroit buses for operating lifts by attempting to board them while in wheelchairs. He said the group annually checks five routes Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Crosstown and East Warren — designated by D-DOT for handicapped access. "But even on those routes," Clark said, "we can't find any that work." By contrast," he said, "SEMTA maintains its lift equipment. D-DOT officials could not be reached for comment. Mayor Coleman A. Young’s press secretary, Robert Berg, referred questions on Detroit's recent bus purchase in state officials. NEIL LINCOLN, a spokesman for the Denver system, said it has come a long way quickly. “The lifts still break down," he added, “but not nearly as often." However, some cities like Chicago and Cleveland have not bought any wheelchair lifts because of the cost and maintenance problems. Spokesmen for those cities said they prefer to develop dial-a-ride and van service for the handicapped. Detroit has no dial-a-ride or van service. NEWS GRAPHIC: Handicapped accessible buses Here's a look at the number of buses that are handicap accessible and average number of daily riders on 6 transit systems: Wheelchair Lifts: Baltimore has 100. Chicago has 0, Cleveland has 0. Denver has 440, Detroit has 196, SEMTA has 140. Total Buses: Baltimore has 900, Chicago has 2,275, Cleveland has 656, Denver has 760, Detroit has 603, SEMTA has 203. Daily Riders: Baltimore has 240,000, Chicago has 1.6 million, Cleveland has 263,400, Denver has 160,000, Detroit has 180,000, SEMTA has 203,000. (59 small vans for handicapped, all wheelchair accessible.) end of news graphic. PHOTO: News Photo by W. Lynn Owens: A man in a jean jacket and hoodie, with bushy dark hair and a beard stands, back to the camera, by the door of a Denver Transit bus. On the steps at the doorway a thin young person is sitting, hands raised to grab on, as this person tries to lift themselves backward up and onto the bus. On the curb in front of these two people sits an empty manual wheelchair. Inside the bus you can see the silhouette of the bus driver sitting in the drivers seat.
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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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The San Diego Union, Sunday, February 10, 1985, B-4 PHOTO by United Press International/Paul Richards: 11 people in wheelchairs sit facing away from the camera, beside a Trailways bus. The group includes Bob Conrad who is closest the bus door, and Beverly Furnice who is closest to the camera. They are looking at Wade Blank, who stands beside the bus and it looks like Mike Auberger is addressing the group. Caption reads: A dozen members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation block departure of this Trailways bus after a member was refused a ticket. [Headline] Wheelchair-bound stop Trailways bus By Ric Bucher, Staff Writer Claude Holcomb tried to take a 4:15 pm. Trailways bus from the depot on State and C streets to Los Angeles yesterday, but he was not allowed to buy a ticket. There were only two passengers aboard, but Holcomb is confined to a wheelchair. Trailways buses are not accessible to people in wheelchairs. “I have a friend in L.A.,” Holcomb spelled out on a homemade message board he uses to communicate. “I have to fly from L.A. to Hartford, Conn., tomorrow.” Holcomb lives in Hartford. Shortly before the bus was due to depart, Holcomb, 24, along with 11 other members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), hemmed the bus in with their wheelchairs and refused to move. Police officers arrived at 4:35 p.m. and told the group that they were breaking the law by obstructing traffic and trespassing. The ADAPT members will appear at the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) meeting this morning. They have been granted 30 minutes to air their plea for both wheelchair-accessible transit buses on both local and interstate lines. Twenty of 29 San Diego Transit bus routes have wheelchair access, but no such equipment is in use on intercity or interstate public buses. Joe Carle, an ADAPT community organizer in Denver, parked his wheelchair in front of the bus and tilted back his black felt cowboy hat. “This may seem like it’s drastic,” he said, “but it’s the only way to open people’s eyes. ... What good is it if a person has to stay in a one-block area?” Similar demonstrations were held recently in Denver and Washington, D.C., in conjunction with scheduled APTA meetings. Carle said the attitude toward the disabled seems to be “we'll do everything we can to keep you alive, but we don’t want you around.” He said ADAPT was specifically focusing on Trailways and Greyhound Bus Lines because they are owned by companies who manufacture their own buses, yet refuse to construct them to accommodate wheelchairs. The bus driver and two passengers, Michael Calloway, 23, and Claude Williams, 26, got off the bus and waited inside the depot. “I think they (the disabled) have the right to board the bus,” Calloway said. Williams nodded his head in agreement. “It throws us off schedule, but I’d like to see something done about it (bus access for the disabled). I don’t think it’s right for them to (delay the bus) but I understand. Sometimes it takes a little push and shove to get things done." Able-bodied Wade Blank organized the group's meeting at the bus station. Blank is one of the six founders of ADAPT. Two years ago, he adopted Heather, a 14-year-old girl confined to a wheelchair, and married her mother. He described the attitude toward the disabled as “just another ‘ism’ — paternalism. It's just like racism and sexism.” After police told the group they were breaking the law, Mike Auberger, spokesman for the wheelchair group, asked to speak with the manager of the terminal, Fred Kroner, who was summoned from his home in Chula Vista. Kroner spoke with Auberger and his group at the door of the bus. He was asked to set up a meeting in Denver with Trailways’ national representatives. “For what?” Kroner asked “To talk about making these buses accessible," said Auberger. Fifteen minutes later, Kroner said he could reach no one, and gave Auberger the phone number of Roger Rydell, vice president in charge of public relations at Trailways’ Dallas headquarters. The group let the bus leave. “I won't be satisfied until these buses are accessible,” Auberger said, “but this is the first step in the process.”
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The Courant 3/8/88 PHOTO by Skip Weisenburger: A man in a wheelchair [Claude Holcomb] wearing an ADAPT T-shirt with the no steps logo and with his small wooden letter board slung over his leg swings a huge sledge hammer at a curb. He is very much assisted by a man [John Bach] kneeling beside him. Behind the two of them is another man [Clayton Jones] in a manual chair; Jones holds a slightly smaller sledge hammer and gets ready to swing at the curb. They are in the street. Claude is looking up, with a look of determination, at a uniformed police officer standing just in front of them on the sidewalk side of the curb. John is looking down where their sledge hammer will land, and Clayton is looking at the curb, taking aim. In the street, mostly obscured by the policeman, is another person in wheelchair. Caption reads: Three men prepare to chip away at a curb Monday to protest the difficulty handicapped people have in using Union Station in Hartford. The men are, from left, Claude Holcomb, John Bach and Clayton Jones. They were arrested, as was a fourth protester. [Headline] 4 arrested during protest by handicapped By Constance Neyer, Courant Staff Writer Four people, including three with disabilities, were arrested Monday after they used sledge-hammers and a cane to protest the lack of full accessibility for the handicapped at Union Station in Hartford. The four tried to break a curb on Union Street for a “curb cut" to give handicapped people easier access to that entrance to the station. Almost immediately after the start of the 2 p.m. demonstration police rushed in and put the protesters into a cruiser. The four men, who were charged Monday afternoon with third-degree criminal mischief, refused to sign written promises to appear in Superior Court in Hartford today and were being held at the Morgan Street jail Monday night, Hartford police Sgt. Lawrence Irvine said. Early this morning, the whereabouts of the men could not be determined. Morgan Street jail officials were unavailable and Weston Street jail officials refused to comment. Morgan Street jail is not accessible to the handicapped, Hartford police said. One of those arrested was Clayton Jones, 39, of 41 Applegate Lane, East Hartford, who led a recent protest in his wheelchair to make the skywalk that connects CityPlace with the Hartford Civic Center accessible to handicapped people. Also arrested were John Bach, 40, of 10 Nepaug St, Hartford; Robert Baston,27, of 100 Executive Lane, Wethersfield; and Claude Holcomb, 27, of 2 Park Place, Hartford. "We're equal citizens and we're tired of waiting." said Lynda Hanscom of Manchester, who uses a wheelchair. Hanscom is chairwoman of the Connecticut chapter of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation. She and others stayed at Union Station after police broke up the protest. They said that although handicapped people have access to the station, it is difficult to use. If a disabled person wants to use a train, the person must find parking near the Spruce Street entrance and enter here to get to a train, Hanscom said. The protestors said it is difficult for a disabled person to find the correct entrance because of a lack of signs at the station. A ramp at the Asylum Street side of the station is too steep for a person in a wheelchair, said Eugenia G. Evans of West Hartford, who was in a wheelchair. Evans and Hanscom sought to use a lift at the Union Street entrance, but it took more than [number unreadable] minutes for them to locate a building attendant who could use a key to operate the lift. Arthur L. Handman, executive director of the Greater Hartford Transit District, which operated Union Station, was angered by the protest. "People don't have to come attack with sledgehammers," he said. Handman said he told the protesters last week that it would take until later this week to make signs to point out the best entrances of the disabled. The station is near the end of a major renovation project. He said building plans for the station were approved by the office of licenses and inspection. If the ramp is too steep, that will be corrected, and more curb cuts will be made if needed, he said.
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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 Fri., Aug. 22, 1980 Denver, Colo. PHOTO by News photographer Steve Groer: A woman (Beverly Furnice) lies in a long wheelchair with the footrests extended; she is being put down the stairs of a city bus. A man in shirt sleeves and a tie, lowering her down, is bent almost double as he stands on the top step of the bus. Beverly looks a bit freaked. Beside her, on the side of the bus, the access symbol is painted. Caption reads: Bevery Furnice is helped from an RTD bus after a snafu over whether the driver would help her or not. An RTD official finally came to the rescue. [Headline] Wheelchair-bound rider discovers RTD'5 Catch-22 By PHILIP REED, News Staff It was a little like the old song about Charlie on the MTA - a Denver woman got on a Regional Transportation District bus Thursday afternoon, but she couldn't get off for 2 1/2 hours. Unlike the song, where the rider didn't have enough money, Beverly Furnice, 43, of 1135 Josephine St., couldn't get off because the driver wouldn't help in unloading her wheelchair. Furnice, who has arthritic legs that jut straight out in front of her, boarded the bus at East Colfax Avenue and Cherry Street after leaving her job at Atlantis at 4 p.m. Thursday. She had help boarding the bus, but the driver warned her he couldn’t help her with her wheelchair when she came to her stop. Wade Blank, head of Atlantis, said her plight shows that RTD should not put "an inaccessible bus on an accessible route." Normally, Furnice rides a more modern bus that allows her to get on and off by herself. But when short of buses, RTD reverts to the use of older buses, which can't handle all types of wheelchairs. The standoff came to an end at 6:30 pm when an RTD supervisor met the bus at Furnice’s East Colfax Avenue and Josephine Street stop and helped the driver with the heavy electric wheelchair. Blank said the mess was caused by indecision over whether drivers should help the handicapped. He said there should be a policy more clearly defining if RTD is going to serve the public. When the bus neared Furnlce’s stop, two Atlantis in wheelchairs were prepared to board the bus to “ride in sympathy.” But the driver parked the bus and, with the help of the RTD supervisor, helped Furnice to get her wheelchair onto the lift at the front entrance of the bus. The bus driver, who seemed more shaken by the experience than Furnice, refused to say why he didn't offer assistance earlier. He also refused to give his name, but politely asked reporters to step back from the folding doors before the hissed shut. Larry Narey, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents RTD drivers, said, “It was definitely a setup. s They (Atlantis) are trying to impress on the public that the drivers are insensitive." “But for every war story they can tell, I could tell hundreds of touching stories about how the drivers help and how they feel about handicapped riders," he added. Narey said drivers are required not to leave their driver's seat. But that rule commonly is ignored at the discretion of individual drivers. "Lord, we have even had drivers helping blind people across the street. We want to move people, but there are restrictions. There comes a point where you have to draw the line. The driver in this case is really a very conscientious young man," Narey said. "He feels deeply about helping the handicapped."
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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