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الرئيسية / الألبومات / الكلمات الدلائلية accessible transit
+ Atlanta + Wade Blank 3
ADAPT (496)
Tues., September 26, 1989 [Headline] Disabled Try to Block Access To Elevators [Subheading] Protesters Continue Russell Building Sit-In By Alma E. Hill and Pat Burson, Staff Writers [This is the full text of the story that appears on ADAPT 496, 509 and 488.] Protesters in wheelchairs moved to block elevators in the Richard B. Russell Federal Building today in their second straight day inside the building, as federal officials increased security. Ed Driver, chief of law enforcement for the General Services Administration, said six security guards were brought in “so that we can maintain access to and from the building." “We're not going to do anything, we just want to be able to maintain an element of safety in the building," Mr. Driver said. At 11:50 a.m., leaders of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) gave the signal and protesters began to chant and roll their wheelchairs in front of the doors on the plaza level of the federal building to restrict access to and from the building, as they had done Monday. Moments later, in an apparent shift in tactics, the group moved toward elevators to cut off access to upper floors in the high-rise. Protesters said they will continue to demonstrate until President George Bush or Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner complies with their demands to issue a federal mandate requiring new buses purchased with federal dollars to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. Judges who work in the federal building avoided problems getting out of the building by leaving before the noon takeover. And the doors to the Peachtree Federal Employees Credit Union, located in the southwest corner of the building, closed as soon as protesters began to shout. Visitors are being directed out of the basement and second floor exits. The Rev. Wade Blank, of Denver, said officials from the Urban Mass Transit Administration came over to the building to meet with pro- Disabled Group Stages Protest For Wheelchair Lifts on Buses from page A1 [starts on 496, continues here 509, ends on 488. Overlap with 509 and 488] ...test organizers. However, the meeting never took place. “They got on the elevator and didn't tell us what floor they were going to. so we said, ‘The hell with it."' the Rev. Blank said. The protesters began their demonstration Monday to coincide with an appearance by Mr. Skinner at the American Public Transit Association (APTA) convention at a downtown hotel. After occupying the plaza floor of the federal building for eight hours Monday, more than 100 disabled activists were evicted at the close of the business day, only to be allowed back inside after President Bush personally intervened. “We're here until the order gets signed." Michael W. Auberger, of Denver, one of the co-founders and organizers of ADAPT, said Monday. Mr. Auberger and other demonstrators from throughout the country lined their wheelchairs two and three deep near the doorways to the federal building. located at the corner of Spring Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, trying to stop anyone from leaving or entering. Mr. Auberger, who has been disabled since he suffered a spinal cord injury 17 years ago, and others blocked revolving doors by attaching chains and iron bicycle locks around their necks and locking them to door handles, a tactic used to prevent security from simply lifting protesters out of their wheelchairs to clear the doorways. At one point Monday afternoon Mr. Auberger, 35, said, “They'll have to carry everybody out or arrest them." At 6 p.m. Atlanta police and officers from the General Services Administration, who provide security for the building, ordered the protesters to leave and began carrying them outside. The guards used large bolt cutters to sever the chains holding some demonstrators to the doors. At about 8 p.m., as guards were removing the last of the demonstrators, Gary C. Cason, regional administrator of the General Services Administration, told police and maintenance workers to allow the protesters back into the building. “The decision is to let them stay in the building because of the president's deep commitment to the handicapped and their right to protest." Mr. Cason said. Mr. Cason said Mr. Bush also said he was concerned about the protesters sitting outside in the chilly overnight temperatures and rainy mist. Maintenance crews appeared a half-hour later with blankets. Mr. Cason said the protesters would be restricted to the lobby floor and would have access to the restrooms. Protest organizers credit White House counsel C. Boyden Gray for Mr. Bush's action. Mr. Auberger said they contacted Mr. Gray, who took their case to Mr. Bush. The president then called the head of the GSA, Richard G. Austin in Washington, telling him to allow the demonstrators back inside. The protest forced most visitors to the building Monday to use a basement entrance adjacent to an underground parking lot. Mr. Auberger said the group planned to stay in the building overnight and would block the entrances again at noon if the Transportation Department does not order changes in transit-access rules. “At noon the administration has to decide whether or not they are going to arrest us, or we’re closing the building down again,” he said shortly before 11 p.m., as the protesters ate Chinese food they had ordered and made themselves comfortable in the hallway on the Spring Street side of the building. The demonstration was the second in as many days held by ADAPT, a nationwide organization. The event was held in Atlanta to coincide with the annual conference of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), meeting this week in Atlanta, and to attract the attention of U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, who spoke to APTA Monday morning. APTA opposes legislation pending in Congress — that ADAPT supports — called the Americans With Disabilities Act. The proposal would remove barriers in public transportation by requiring public transit authorities to have wheelchair lifts on any new buses purchased 30 days after the measure was enacted. APTA officials say they oppose that portion of the measure because it would cut into limited federal funds. While Mr. Skinner has said he supports the bill, ADAPT wants him to issue an executive order so the stipulation can take effect immediately — prior to congressional action. Protesters demanded to talk with Mr. Skinner while he was in Atlanta, but Mr. Skinner departed for St. Croix without meeting with them. Robert Marx, a spokesman for Mr. Skinner, said the secretary does not have the authority to issue such an order, only the president. Spokesmen for ADAPT believe Mr. Skinner is not championing their cause because of a lawsuit the group won against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) two years ago, when Mr. Skinner was chairman of the city's Regional Transportation Authority. The court ruling required the CTA to purchase wheelchair lifts when ordering new buses. Photo: Looking down the long narrow glass walled lobby. In the foreground a man is lying bundled in a blanket on the floor. Beside him his motorized wheelchair sits empty. A little further back in the lobby several people sit in their wheelchairs and scooters by a cardboard box and some bags and papers. photo by ANDY SHARP caption: Woody Osburn of Tulsa, sleeping, and others, seen early today in the Russell Building.
ADAPT (508)
The Handicapped Coloradan AUTUMN 1989, VOL. 12, NOS. 4 & 5 [This is the full text of an article that appears in ADAPT 508 and 504] [Headline] FEDS GIVE IN! [Subheading] It ain't over till it's over—and it’s over A struggle that began ten years ago in falling snow on the streets of Denver may have ended this October in Atlanta, the city where Martin Luther King, Jr., preached the value of civil disobedience from the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. As more than a hundred demonstrators held the Richard B. Russell Federal Building hostage, representatives of President Bush and the American Disabled for Public Transportation (ADAPT) hammered out an agreement that will eventually put a wheelchair lift on every bus in America. The statement stopped short of a full promise to mandate lifts, but it did contain this Statement: "Full accessibility in public transit is the President's policy." And it did promise that the government would try to prevent any transit system from purchasing non-equipped buses before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is adopted. That measure does mandate full accessibility and is expected to be approved by Congress and signed by the President. Privately, federal negotiators told ADAPT that they would guarantee that no more systems buy liftless buses, according to informed sources, who said that a videotape of this promise exists. It is probably too late to block the purchase of non-accessible buses in Pittsburgh and Albuquerque, however, since these cities have already had their proposals approved. The Atlanta agreement comes in the wake of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia that reaffirmed an earlier decision by the court that persons with disabilities must be provided effective access to public transportation services throughout the nation. In the 9-3 ruling, the Court of Appeals struck down a regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation limiting the amount that transit systems had to spend on disability access to three percent of their operating budgets. The Court said that the limit was "arbitrary and capricious.” By an 8-4 vote the Court ruled that existing buses need not be retrofitted but that all new buses must be equipped with lifts. Timothy M. Cook, director of the Washington-based National Disability Action Center, who argued the appeal on behalf of ADAPT, said the decision will lead to the adoption of multi-modal systems that include accessible mainline buses as well as door-to-door transit for those who are unable to board lift-equipped buses. The July 25 ruling reaffirmed a similar ruling made in February by three of the judges. That decision had been appealed by the DOT. The Court of Appeals has sent the case back to the lower court with instructions that it set a specific time-table for the issuance of new regulations by the Secretary of Transportation. One of ADAPT's founders, Wade Blank, said the court decision and the concessions made by the President in Atlanta were very satisfying, but that somehow the group was unable to celebrate, at least in a formal fashion. “I went down to a meeting [of the RTD Handicapped Advisory Council] and told the people there that we had won this great victory, and most of them didn't even know what I was talking about," he said. Blank said the accessibility victories that had already been won in Denver had made these people complacent. It was a different story in Atlanta, however, where scores of demonstrators from across the country had converged to picket the annual convention of their arch-nemesis, the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which has consistently opposed any attempt to require mainline wheelchair accessible service. ADAPT has been picketing national and regional conventions of APTA since the organization met in Denver in 1983. Except for Denver, where the demonstrators had the endorsement of the city’s mayor, Federico Pena, those meetings have been marked by demonstrators being arrested for picketing the APTA convention headquarters and for blocking city buses. The story was a little different in Atlanta where the demonstrators made a token push at the barricades around the Hilton Hotel on Sunday, Oct. 24, before they moved on to their real objective, the Russell Federal Building, the next day. Wheelchair protesters poured into the building, jamming hallways and blocking elevators, which trapped federal employees on the top floors of the building. At 6 p.m. federal marshals moved in and began physically removing demonstrators, but with little success. As marshals pried open a door and wheeled one demonstrator out, several more sped inside. One demonstrator managed to be escorted out of the building seven times. It was a game of musical wheelchairs until President Bush intervened, ordering the marshals to let the demonstrators back into the building. Things quieted down until the next day, Tuesday, Oct. 26, when the demonstrators once again poured into the building and blocked the elevators. “It got a little ugly," Blank said. "Some of the disabled people were attacked by federal employees." But even as demonstrators and federal employees were battling to see who would eventually gain control of the building, the historic agreement that would end non-accessible public transit was being signed. ADAPT had won, although a few blocks away APTA officials were arguing that the group had not been instrumental in the decision. With a public transportation victory in their hip pocket, ADAPT turned its attention to the private sector on Wednesday by halting bus service at the Greyhound terminal in downtown Atlanta for more than five hours. Demonstrators blocked the driveways and in some cases chained themselves to the drivers’ steering wheels. More than two dozen of them were arrested, but all were later released on their own recognizance. Greyhound regional manager Tom Street said that only four buses, carrying a total of 80 passengers, left Atlanta during the siege, instead of the normal 20 buses and 600 passengers. Greyhound has a “Helping Hands" program where persons in wheelchairs may ride the buses so long as they are accompanied by an able-bodied friend, who rides free. Demonstrators said that this policy severely restricts their freedom of travel. They were also upset that Greyhound does not allow battery operated wheelchairs to be transported on their buses. Boxed Text: Text of statement signed by Feds, ADAPT in Atlanta The following is the text of the statement issued on Sept. 26, I989, in Atlanta by representatives of ADAPT and the federal government. We have had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the disabled community here in Atlanta today. We have mutually agreed to the following points: 1. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration will recommend to Secretary Skinner that officials of the Department of Transportation and representatives of the disabled community shall promptly meet and confer for the purpose of establishing a process for identifying and dealing with any eleventh hour attempt to circumvent the principle of accessibility prior to the adoption and effective date of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Full accessibility in public transit is the President's policy, We are making this recommendation because the Department cannot issue a summary order commanding immediate accessibility, including wheelchair accessibility for all transit. We would, if we could. 2. Because the President shares the sense of urgency of the demonstrators here in Atlanta for the passage by the House of Representatives of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we have agreed to recommend that a workable arrangement be negotiated to accommodate a continuing symbolic presence by the disabled community at the Richard B Russell Federal Building. 3. We have also agreed to communicate to Secretary Skinner the concern expressed here that the current rule-making for implementation of the Air Carriers Access Act of 1986 is not on a sufficiently tight timetable and should be resolved at the earliest practicable date. End of boxed text. PHOTO (by Tom Olin?): A medium close up of Lillibeth Navarro, a small Phillipina, who leans forward intensely, chanting or yelling full force. She sits in her motorized chair her right hand in a fist resting on her armrest. Her large glasses and glossy dark hair seem almost out of place with her intensity. She is wearing and ADAPT shirt that says "I Will Ride" and has the old "no steps" (a set of steps covered with a circle and a diagonal bar across - the no symbol) logo surrounded by "American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit." On the left shoulder of her shirt you can see the list of cities ADAPT had held actions. In her lap a bandanna covered with the "no steps" logo. Caption: I am a disabled person. Hear me roar.
ADAPT (509)
This story in its entirety is on ADAPT 496.