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ADAPT (287)
Monday Oct. 6, I986 / THE DETROIT NEWS / p.3B City/suburbs/state Title: Transit group averts clash with handicapped Disabled protest at Greenfield Village PHOTO News Photo by Gary Portes: A very large crowd of people in business attire walk away from a building. Most have name tags. Capition reads: APTA members take a hike after being blocked out of Greenfield Village by ADAPT. By Richard Chin, NEWS Staff Writer Using a back entrance to Greenfield Village, a convoy of SEMTA buses filled with delegates to a national transportation convention avoided a confrontation Sunday with about 100 members of a militant disabled-rights group. The buses, under police escort, slipped into Greenfield Village along a service road from a nearby Ford Motor Co. facility. The protesters were waiting in front of the main entrance to Greenfield Village. THE BUSES were en route to a dinner reception for members of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which met in Detroit over the weekend. The protesters are members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, which has been trying to disrupt APTA meetings for three years. They demand improved access for the disabled to buses and other public transportation. Sunday‘s protest began with a wheelchair march from Rosa Park Boulevard down Michigan Avenue to the Westin Hotel in the Renaissance Center, where the APTA delegates are staying. The group had planned a wheelchair parade on the street but Detroit City Council rescinded the group's parade permit Sept. 29, fearing the protest would disrupt city transportation. AS THE GROUP wheeled along the sidewalk, up to 15 city police cars worked to keep them from spilling onto the street. Once they arrived at the hotel, the protesters were quickly herded into a barricaded area that kept them from entering the hotel. Group leaders said once they realized they couldn't enter the building or keep the buses carrying the delegates from leaving, they left themselves for Greenfield Village to try to block entrances. However, the SEMTA buses slipped through the back entrance. THE GROUP did manage to turn away several cars carrying late arrivers at the dinner, and after Greenfield Village was closed to the public at 6 p.rn., restricted all but guests at a private wedding from entering. APTA raised the ire of the protesters through what the protesters said were policies discriminatory against the disabled. They said APTA opposes making all buses wheelchair accessible. “l think they're afraid some of the riders don't want tn ride with diaabled people because some diaabled people are not attractive," aaid Jack Warren, 43. of Cincinnati. He said the stance reflects that of many public transportation users. APTA officials could not be reached immediately for comment. Harry A. Cassidy, a bus driver from Capital Area Transit Authority in Lansing, said he understands the protesters' complaints, but said making all buses accessible to the disabled makes it difficult to keep buses on schedule. Michnel Niemann, communications manager for SEMTA, said all that company’s small buses and 70 percent of its large buses are wheelchair accessible. By 1988, he said, all will be wheelchair accessible. TEXT BOX: “I think they’re afraid some of the riders don't want to ride with disabled people because some disabled people are not attractive. " - JACK WARREN SECOND PHOTO by Gary Porter (News Photo): Behind a metal police barricade that extends beyond the edges of the picture, several long rows of protesters, in wheelchairs and standing, are lined up with their backs to the building of the Westin Hotel. Some are hlding signs. Everyone is looking out toward the street. Caption reads: Disabled protesters Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, (ADAPT) demonstrate in front of the Westin Hotel on Sunday. ADAPT members are demanding improved access for the disabled on buses and other pubic transportation. Thay attempted to disrupt the meetings of the American Public Transit Association which convened in Detroit last weekend.
ADAPT (278)
Jim Naubacher disabled In Detroit [column] Drawing of a man's head Title: He’s got access -—— to anger Before the week even started, I was teed off. The American Public Transit Association was coming to Detrolt and so were American Disabled for Accessible Puplic Transit. APTA versus ADAPT. There was insensitivity to handicappers on the part of city officials; apathy and collaboration by local handicappers nervous about ADAPT's presence, and a general lack of commitment by anyone other than ADAPT to the principle of public transit for all, accessible buses for all. I wrote a column in mid-September outlining the approaching confrontation. lt had happened in other cities. ADAPT, an outgrowth of an independent living organization in Denver called Atlantis, had fought for and won a commitment from the City of Denver for total accessibility on its main buses. ADAPT wanted the American Public Transit Association, at its 1983 Denver national convention, to take a similar public stand. lt did not, and ADAPT promised to appear each time APTA convened and protest that decision. Then I turned the story over to others, since I knew I could not be impartial. They covered the story with words and pictures, but let me tell you about some of the strange, ironic, disappointing and disturbing things that took place beginning Oct. 3 in Detroit. SAD BUT perhaps not unexpected was the reaction of city officials. In many ways, the city acted like any other city would react. It had wooed and won the APTA and promised APTA officials a safe and peaceful convention in the face of expected ADAPT protests. APTA had faced challenges from ADAPT in Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, San Antonio and Cincinnati before the Detroit convention. City officials were pretty sure they knew what to expect. What would ADAPT do? They would "do" civil disobedience. They would block buses that were not lift-equipped for wheelchair users. Wheelchair users would try to crawl onto some of these inaccessible buses. But while putting the best face possible on a woefully inadequate mass transit system, the city put the worse possible face on its position toward a mass translt system that is accessible to all. Just before the APTA delegates arrived, Mayor Young announced that the City of Detroit was buying 100 new buses. He emphasized that the service-poor city would use its own money. Thls point was notable, since Young made no mention of the new buses' accessibility. Federal regulations require non-discrimination toward handicapped riders and require communities to develop a plan to make their systems accessible. Michigan law requires that each bus bought with the aid of state money must be lift-equipped. ln response to questions, city officlals said that perhaps as many as 20 - one of five — of the new buses would be lift-equipped. NOT COINCIDENTALLY, the City of Detroit had entered into an out-of-court settlement 14 months earlier in a federal lawsuit brought by four handicappers against the city on a variety of complaints of non-compliance with federal law regarding non-discriminatlon and accommodation of handicappers. in that settlement, the city had agreed to maintain the lifts on buses and to train drivers in their proper use. But little has been accomplished. Young's announcement that the city had bought at least 80 percent inaccessible buses underlined the city's position regarding access. it also reminded handicappers that the settlement had not committed the city to providing future accessible, well maintained buses. In the meantime. efforts were under way to neutralize ADAPT. The Detroit City Council denied the group a parade permit. ADAPT had contacted Rosa Parks, the Detroit woman whose refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus in 1955 gained national attention and sparked protests during a different civil rights struggle. Her representatives said she would not lead a parade, but would hold a news conference. She later said she might attend a press conference, but did not. CBS reporter Ed Bradley from "60 Minutes" delivered a keynote speech at the APTA convention Oct. 6. Bradley said he had investigated ADAPT found their complaints "didn't hold water." FORD MOTOR CO. allowed a [bus] full of APTA delegates to use its private property to gain access to a coctail party site that ADAPT members planned to barricade. The Southeastern Michigan Transportatlon Authorities (SEMTA), which has committed itself to total access of its bus systems by the end of decade, loaned the Detroit police an accessible van so they could [take] ADAPT protesters to jail. Frank Cl[-]one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against Detroit, provided sensitivity training to Detroit police officers who were expected to be arresting ADAPT wheelchair users. But the training only extended [so] far. Although there was no "arm twisting or head-beating," as a [police] representative described it, police were unable to appropriately house protesters and provide medical necessities, food and bedding to some who were arrested. On Oct. 7, Detroit Recorder's [County?] Judge George Crockett felt compelled to issue a writ of habeas corpus, freeing them because of these conditions.J As ADAPT members went home Oct. 8-9, I was still teed off. This will not be the end of the debate on transportation access in Detroit and across the country.