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Home / Albums / Tag Ed Colby 3
- ADAPT (124)
Rocky Mountain News Photo by Rocky Mountain News staff photographer David L. Cornwell: An officer pushes a man in a motorized wheelchair [George Roberts] across a wide brick sidewalk, as 2 buses and a car go by on the downtown street. Further up the sidewalk 2 other uniformed officers are standing and even further down, a motorcycle policeman. Caption reads: Officer Gerald Fitzgibbons pushes George Roberts from scene of Friday's demonstration. Roberts and Renate Rabe were arrested in protest. Pena staff to mediate RTD tiff with handicapped By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer As handicapped demonstrators blocked Regional Transportation District buses with their wheelchairs for the second straight day Friday, Mayor Federico Pena's staff stepped in to referee a growing dispute over broken wheelchair lifts. “Perhaps part of the ultimate answer will be to allow the disabled community to be part of the decision-making process," Pena aide Dale Sadler said Friday. “What we're hoping for now is to get everyone to talk." But Sadler could only watch as Denver police quickly arrested George Roberts and Renate Rabe as the pair rolled their wheelchairs in front of an RTD bus at 17th and California Streets at 12:25 p.m. Roberts and Rabe were the second and third members of the militant disabled-rights group known as ADAPT to be booked into city jail in two days in connection with obstructing a government agency and blocking traffic. Mike Auberger of Denver was arrested Thursday at the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Cherry Street when he rolled his wheelchair in front of a bus with a broken lift. Auberger, who was jailed for about three hours, is scheduled to appear in Denver District Court March 12. He faces $250 in fines. Roberts and Rabe were released Friday afternoon. Roberts is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 25. Rabe is scheduled to appear March 15. ADAPT protesters have vowed to block buses at busy intersections throughout the six-county transit district for 80 days — or until the RTD board of directors agrees to spend $753,059 budgeted to fix the balky electrical systems on 303 lift-equipped buses. RTD has one of the nation's most accessible public transit systems with lifts installed on about half of it's 750-bus fleet. However, disabled passengers complain that they frequently suffer frostbite in the winter as four or five buses with broken lifts pass them. They said they have a right as taxpayers to ride regular bus service, rather than plan their lives days in advance around the limited schedules of van services. “A wheelchair lift on a bus means a disabled person can live wherever he wants and shop wherever he wants," Auberger said. “The (RTD) board doesn't have the right to tell me where to live and shop. They might as well put me back in a nursing home." The demonstrators offered to cancel Friday's rally in exchange for a meeting with RTD General Manager Ed Colby. RTD officials said Colby had taken the day off Friday, but agreed to meet with the protesters minutes before their scheduled protest. That wasn't good enough, ADAPT leaders responded. “Colby had all last night and this morning to respond to us,” said Wade Blank, an able bodied demonstrator who organized the protests. “He was just a little late." RTD board members will discuss the transit agency's handicapped access policy for the handicapped and its lift repair record Tuesday at a committee meeting. - ADAPT (122)
Denver Post [This article continues on in ADAPT 123, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Photo by Lyn Alweis: A short haired man in a jacket and dark slacks [Mel Conrardy] is lifted in his wheelchair from the sidewalk to a bus. The lift comes out of the front door of the bus and has railings on either side of the lift almost as tall as the seated man. Just by the bus door is a sign on the side of the bus that says "RTD Welcome Aboard." Caption: An RTD bus with wheelchair lift provides mobility for Mel Conrardy Title: Leaders of handicapped rate RTD service best in country By Norm Udevitz, Denver Post Staff Writer Disabled Denverites just a few years ago had as much chance of riding a bus as they did of climbing Mount Everest. “It was brutal the way RTD treated us,” said Mike Auberger, an official in the Atlantis Community, for the disabled and a leader in the fight that has turned the Regional Transportation District’s handicapped service around. In the 1970s and early 1980s, RTD busses then rarely equipped with wheelchair lifts, often left wheelchair-bound riders stranded on streets. Drivers, lacking training in dealing with visually or language impaired people, panicked when blind or deaf riders tried to board buses. “It used to be that even in the dead of winter, when it was below zero, those of us in wheelchairs would wait 2 or 3 hours for a bus to finally stop," Auberger recalls. “And often the lift was broken and we couldn't get on the bus anyway. And usually the drivers were rude and angry. They would tell us that we were ruining their schedules." But conditions have changed, Auberger says: “Right now, Denver has the most accessible public transit system for the handicapped — and all the public - in the country." Debbie Ellis, a state social services worker who heads the agency's Handicapped Advisory Council, agrees, saying: “It took a lot of pressure, but RTD has responded and now the bus system is doing a good job of serving the handicapped." Leaders of national programs for the disabled also agree. In fact, the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped will bring 5,000 delegates, many of them handicapped, to its national conference in Denver in April. This will be the first time in four decades the group has held its national session outside of Washington DC. “One of the key reasons we're meeting in Denver this year is because it just might be the most comfortable city in the country for the handicapped,” says Sharon Milcrut, head of the Colorado Coalition for Persons with Disabilities, which is hosting the conference. “A very important aspect of that comfort," she notes, “is how accessible the transit system is for the handicapped.” It didn't get that way easily. In the decade between 1974 and 1984, handicapped activists had to pressure indifferent RTD administrators and directors. Each gain was hard won. “We used every tactic in the book, from lawsuits to bus blockades on the street and sit-ins at the RTD offices," says Wade Blank, an Atlantis group director. “The lawsuits didn't help much but when we took to the streets in the late 1970s, I think that's when we started getting their attention." Blank and others also say the 1984 hiring of Ed Colby as RTD general manager helped. Before he arrived, less than half of the 750 RTD buses had wheelchair lifts, which often were in disrepair. Training for drivers to learn how to deal with handicapped riders was minimal. Agency directors resisted change. RTD relied heavily on a costly special van operation called Handyride - a door-to-door pickup service for handicapped. It has cost $13[? glare makes number hard to read] million to run since it began in 1975. “Over the past couple of years the turnaround has been phenomenal," Auberger says. “All of RTD's new buses are being ordered with lifts and older buses are being retrofitted." By 1986's end, almost 80 percent of the bus fleet — 608 of 765 buses — had wheelchair lifts; 82 percent of the fleet's 6,242 daily trips are now accessible for the disabled. Plans call for the fleet to be 100 percent lift-equipped by 1987's end. “The lifts aren't breaking down all the time now, either," Auberger said, noting that agency officials found drivers had neglected to report broken lifts: “That way the lifts stayed broken and drivers had an excuse for not picking us up. A bunch of people were fired over that and others realized that Colby wasn't kidding about improving handicapped service." Driver training also has improved dramatically. “It isn't perfect yet,” Ellis of the advisory council says. "But everyone is working hard at it. What we are finding is that 20 percent of the drivers understand that they are moving people, all kinds of people, and they're really great with the handicapped. “Another 20 percent figure their job is to move buses and to heck with passengers, all kinds of passengers. That bottom 20 percent probably won't ever change. So we're working real hard on the 60 percent in between," Ellis says. Drivers, for example, learn to help blind riders. “That’s an improvement that helps the disabled, but it also helps regular passengers who are newcomers to the city,” Ellis says. All the improvements haven't come cheap. Since 1974, more than $5million has been spent on lifts and lift maintenance, most of the expense was incurred in the last three years. RTD plans to spend $9 million more in the next six years to keep the fleet up to its current standards and pay for more driver training. Another $4 million will be spent on HandyRide service. Ironically, Auberger and Ellis both say one of the biggest problems remaining is getting more handicapped people to use mass transit. “There are no reliable figures," Ellis says. “But we think there are about 20,000 handicapped people in the metro area and only about 200 or 300 are using buses on a regular basis." Auberger, confined to a wheelchair after breaking his neck in an accident ll years ago, complains: “The medical system builds a bubble around handicapped people and makes them think they have to be protected. "That's just not true in most cases. So one of the things we're doing now is educating the handicapped to overcome their fears. We've finally got a bus system that works for us and we want the disabled to use it." Photo by Lyn Alweis: A rather straight looking man [Mel Conrardy] in a white jacket, big mittens, and a motorized wheelchair, wears a slight smile as he rides the bus. Someone in a dark jacket stands beside him, and behind him, further back on the bus, other riders are sitting on the bus seats. Caption reads: A bus seat folds up to anchor Mel Conrardy's wheelchair to the floor. Conrardy commutes to work at the Atlantis Community. - ADAPT (120)
Rocky Mountain News [2 articles together] RTD won’t be bullied, Agency director asserts Contractors target of get-tough policy By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer Regional Transportation District officials say they want to send a message that RTD can't be bullied. So they're considering whether to sue several contractors and consultants that they believe performed unsatisfactory work on the 16th Street Mall. "RTD is famous for saying, ‘Who? Me?“ RTD general manager Ed Colby said. “Those days are over. We're going to be proactive. RTD is going to be accountable to the taxpayers." RTD sources said that among the firms the agency might challenge on the $70 million mall project were Hill International Inc., management consultants for the mall complex; Johnson-Hopson & Associates, architects of the Civic Center bus station at the east end of the mall; and B.B. Andersen Construction Co., general contractor for the station. Colby terminated Hill and Johnson-Hopson last month when he said they allowed construction work at Civic Center to stop or slow repeatedly while haggling over construction changes. He also made Andersen promise to finish Civic Center, at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Avenue, by Oct. 25. RTD officials filed suit Tuesday in Denver District Court against Weaver Construction Co. of Denver and the I.M. Pei architectural firm of New York City for their work in designing and installing the mall's granite paving. Unforeseen flaws and cracks have appeared in an “unusually high" percentage of the mall's granite paving slabs, officials say. Replacement and repair of the slabs along the 13-block mall-could cost $2 million to $8 million, they say. Colby said RTD is “evaluating potential suits against other firms but would not name the likely targets. The granite-paving suit and the consideration of other suits is the first of many steps RTD will take to erase its reputation for being inefficient and irresponsible managers of major construction projects, he said. “RTD is going to stand up for its rights," Colby said. Civic Center, which is supposed to be open for passengers by early December, is at least eight months behind schedule. Its cost overruns, RTD officials said, are still being tabulated. If it sues the companies it hired to build the mall, RTD would continue a long tortured history of litigation that has plagued [? word hard to read] the project since 16th Street was first torn up four years ago. Those suits and settlements include: * A 1983 settlement with Weaver for $2 million for more than l00 construction changes as-well as the delivery of improperly cut granite. * A $14.1 million lawsuit by Beaudoin Construction Co. of Denver for delays and cost overruns on the Market Street bus station. * A $400,000 settlement last month with B.B. Andersen that included payment of union-level wages to Civic Center construction workers, despite a regulation to that effect on all federally funded construction projects. Federal transit administrators, who have cited the mall as an example of how transit can galvanize a downtown area, said they will demand that [realistic?] building materials be used in future projects and that they and be kept within budget. “We raised questions at the outset about the wisdom of granite," said Ralph Stanley; director of the-Urban Mass Transit Administration. “We are now requiring construction oversight in all federally funded projects and an independent review by our agency of projects costing $25 million and over. You can demand a degree of excellence," Stanley said. 2nd Article: Ribbon snipped for bus station at 1 Civic Center Photo Rocky Mountain News Staff Photo by Frank Kimmel: A lone man [Joe Carle] in a manual wheelchair, back to the camera, watches as groups of people in suits cluster on an open plaza. A long ribbon crosses in front of a bus and one group surround a man who appears to be cutting the ribbon. Caption reads: Protester Joe Carle watches bus station opening. By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer When the ceremonial ribbon was snipped and the yellow sash fluttered to the pavement, the beleaguered Civic Center bus station remained standing. And more than a few Regional Transportation District officials joined in a collective sigh of relief. “There have been a number of headaches (on the project),' RTD chairman Byron Johnson said Wednesday at the station's formal opening. “But we're not worried about the headaches from this day forward. We see this as a tremendous breakthrough." Buses were supposed to be pulling out of the $20 million station, located at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Ave., in April. But hundreds of complicated construction changes and bitter negotiations between contractors and consultants delayed its opening by six months. Last month, RTD general manager Ed Colby fired the station's architect and management consultant when parts of the concrete building had been left unfinished for 14 months and others had been ripped out and replaced as many as four times. Colby and his assistants took over management of the station themselves and demanded that the exterior be ready for Wednesday's ceremony and the arrival of President Reagan's mass transit director, Ralph Stanley. Stanley used the occasion to announce $6.5 million in federal grants to RTD and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. His brief speech was picketed by 10 handicapped demonstrators. Some of the the demonstrators were arrested in Washington last week when they disrupted a national transit convention where Stanley as a featured guest. "When you're putting on a party, nobody likes a crasher," said Wade Blank, who organized the silent vigil. We're here to make a statement." Workers were, at the site until 10:30pm Tuesday scrubbing the bus turn around out front and planting 17 trees along the Broadway facade.