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Home / Albums / Keywords cable cars
+ 1987 2
ADAPT (357)
Disabled Activists Blockade Transit Expo By Jack Fletcher Frontline, October 12, 1987 PHOTO by Frontline: In a medium close up, man and a woman in wheelchairs (Bob Kafka and Diane Coleman), sit side by side in a downtown street and tall buildings in the background. Both wear the ADAPT T-shirt with the no-steps logo, Diane has on a white jacket. Bob is speaking and has his hand over Diane's, which is on her joy stick. Behind her head is a poster, partly blocked from view, that reads "We the People..." There is no caption. San Francisco Hundreds of disabled activists, demanding accessible transit, dramatically confronted “the world’s largest transit exposition” here September 27-30 as they blockaded streets, chained themselves to cable cars, and generally besieged the 15,000 mass transit officials and manufacturers’ representatives at the American Public Transit Association (APTA) Expo ’87. Over 100 protesters were arrested as they pressed APTA to approve a resolution by the September Alliance for Affordable Transit (SAAT) calling for the right of the disabled and elderly to access public transit. SAAT organizer Marilyn Golden called the APTA protests “the largest in disability rights history.” The disabled community has fought against APTA since 1979 when APTA brought a lawsuit that succeeded in overturning a federal regulation requiring that all transit vehicles be accessible to the disabled. Since 1983 the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) has organized demonstrations at APTA conventions in Cincinnati, Detroit, Phoenix, New York, and Washington, D. C. to urge a policy change. Until this year when they scheduled two workshops on the issue, APTA has been unwilling to even meet with protestors. Mark Johnson, a demonstrator from Georgia, drew the parallel between these protests and the civil rights movement saying, “There was something wrong when Black people weren’t allowed to sit in the front of the bus, and there’s something wrong when we can’t even go on the bus.” APTA claims that accessibility would cost $15 billion and would bankrupt the nation’s transit districts; they propose instead a system of “paratransit” which would theoretically provide disabled people with flexible door-to-door service but in fact translates into long waiting lists and call-ahead requirements, weekday-only buses and restricted ride purposes. SAAT counters that APTA’s $15 billion figure includes completely rebuilding subways in New York, Chicago and other cities, while the disabled community’s actual demand does not include rebuilding rail systems or even retrofitting existing vehicles, but only that new buses include wheelchair lifts. Also, while arguing that paratransit may be a useful supplement to public transit, Susan Schapiro of SAAT criticized existing paratransit systems as designed with a view of the disabled as “pathetic people in nursing homes going to see the doctor twice a month . . . . It all boils down to discrimination and the belief that these aren’t really people. The APTA delegates could not miss the powerful statement made by the tenacious lines of wheelchair bound demonstrators who spanned several generations in age, were multi-racial in composition, and came from every corner of the U.S. – including eight from Alaska. As demonstrators were being arrested they drove home the irony of being taken away in a lift-equipped paddy wagons chanting, “They can take us to jail but not to work.”
ADAPT (347)
San Francisco Chronicle 9/26/87 Title: 4,000 Transit Officials To Add to S.F.'s Traffic By Harre W. Demoro The executives of North America's 400 transit systems are gathering in San Francisco, worried that their industry is declining and bracing for handicapped people to disrupt their meetings. The handicapped are demanding that all transit vehicles, including San Francisco's historic 37 cable cars, be accessible to wheelchairs, a demand that transit officials say is too costly. The centerpiece of the transit gathering will be a huge trade show, which opens Monday and is expected to draw 15,000 people to Moscone Center. Its 450 exhibits of the latest bus and rail car technology from 15 countries include a gleaming new BART car that is two years behind schedule and has yet to carry a paying passenger. About 4,000 delegates have signed up for three days of technical and professional meetings at the Hilton Hotel, said Jack R. Gilstrap, executive vice president of the American Public Transit Association. Times have changed since Washington-based APTA met here 11 years ago. Then, the Bay Area was a transit showcase and federal officials were promising billions of dollars for a nationwide bus and subway renaissance. Although the San Francisco Municipal Railway has prospered since 1976, the Bay Area's other big transit systems have not done well. After 15 years, the much-heralded $1.8 billion BART system still is plagued by technical and financial problems and has been deserted by 10 percent of its riders in the last two years. BART's general manager, Keith Bernard, has taken a medical leave to escape the pressures running the controversial agency. AC Transit and Golden Gate Transit, two bus systems that were showcases 11 years ago, also have lost riders and are grappling with draconian financial problems. Moreover, the federal government is threatening to cut transit assistance and Reagan administration leaders now point to costly systems like BART as examples of how not to solve traffic congestion problems. Gilstrap, formerly general manager of the huge Los Angeles bus system, said yesterday in San Francisco that he is optimistic that - the next federal administration, no matter what its party affiliation, will be pro-transit. "The nation's crumbling infrastructure must be addressed after the election," he said. The militant handicapped people will demonstrate at Union Square at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, and also picket meetings, banquets and cocktail parties, said Bill Bolte of ADAPT, American Disabled for Accessible Handicapped [sic]. "We are not going to allow these people to have a good meal," said Bolte, who was arrested earlier this year at a demonstration at a transit meeting in Phoenix. Gilstrap said APTA supports federal edicts calling for some vehicles and stations to be accessible`to wheelchairs and for alternative forms of transportation, such as special vans for handicapped people he said.