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Naslovnica / Skupine / Tagovi Denver
+ APTA - American Public Transit Association + blocking a bus 4
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ADAPT (156)
Rocky Mountain News Tues. Oct. 2, 1984 Denver, Colo. PHOTO (AP LASER PHOTO): A protester in a manual wheelchair and a puffy coat (Renata Conrad), screams as police force her arms behind her back. One uniformed officer stands behind her forcing her forward. One stands in front, his arms stretched in front. The third stands watching with his notebook in his hand and his pen or maybe a cigarette in his mouth. Caption reads: Washington police restrain wheelchair-bound women during protest at transit conference. [Headline] Disabled Denverites held at D.C. protest By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Fourteen wailing handicapped protesters, including some from Denver, were arrested here Monday when they used their wheelchairs, crutches and limp bodies to briefly blockade a national meeting of transit executives. Among those arrested were Mike Auberger, Bob Conrad, Mark Ball and Glen Damen, all of Denver. Richard Male of Denver, an able-bodied demonstrator, also was arrested, as were nine other protesters from New York, Texas, Illinois and Connecticut. The 14 were among more than 35 people who converged on the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association at the Washington Convention Center. They were fined $50 apiece for blocking a public building. ADAPT, a Denver-based militant handicapped rights group, raised an estimated $30,000 this year to send the protesters to Washington and to train disabled groups nationwide in political demonstration and lobbying techniques. Two of the protesters who were arrested and fined were treated at a local hospital for minor injuries and released. "The police got pretty physical,“ said ADAPT spokesman Wade Blank of Denver. "We had been causing civil disobedience all week. We expected it (the arrests) to happen. It was just a matter of when." Monday's arrests capped a year of growing tension between handicapped activists and transit officials over the issue of accessibility to the handicapped. “This is not something that we are especially proud of,"said ADAPT member Mark Johnson, as he pounded on the plexiglass door of the convention center with a wooden crutch. "We are here because there has been a resistance to us," said Johnson, who ran unsuccessfully for the RTD Board of Directors in 1980. Johnson said ADAPT is demanding that the transit convention vote to make all public transit systems accessible to the handicapped, that those systems only purchase buses equipped with wheelchair lifts, and that the Federal Government reinstate a regulation mandating accessibility. Convention officials said the demonstrators delayed their program for a few minutes, but caused no damage. Last year, RTD hosted the annual transit convention. Although handicapped activists picketed the meeting, their protests were less forceful. In addition, the protesters last year were allowed to address the convention, a privilege refused them this year. "They requested a slot, but we already had everything filled," convention spokesman Albert Engelken said. "There have been some problems. They (protesters) have been pretty aggressive." The demonstrators suddenly appeared at 10 a.m, just as hundreds of transit executives arrived at the convention center on a convoy of shuttle buses from their hotels. Washington police tried to block the advancing wheelchairs. However, they quickly became entangled with the front line of handicapped men and women and were outflanked by the rest of the demonstrators. Chanting "we will ride. it's our right," the protesters wedged their wheelchairs between the doors of the convention center. Many of them threw themselves out of their chairs and sprawled on the sidewalk to block the doors. Monday's demonstration was the third in a series of protests organized by ADAPT. On Thursday, a dozen protesters blocked seven Washington Metro buses in front of the White House during the evening rush hour. On Sunday, another contingent blocked a chartered bus carrying the spouses of 50 transit executives who were touring the nation's capital. After being trapped for an hour, the spouses finally crawled over the crippled protesters to get to their hotel. The protest overshadowed the speeches to the packed convention by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole and New York City Mayor Ed Koch. Dole abandoned much of her highly partisan prepared speech, choosing instead to repeat the Reagan administration's compromise offer for accessible public transit. "Transit authorities receiving federal funds would be required to make at least half of their peak hour bus fleet accessible, provide para-transit for special services or offer some combination of these options," Dole said. Both sides are cool to the proposal. Transit executives complain it will cost too much considering that only 5 percent of the country's transit passengers are disabled. Many disabled groups, meanwhile, reject Dole's offer because they say it endorses separate but equal service.
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 (193)
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.”
ADAPT (375)
San Francisco September 30,1987 S.F. Independent PHOTO (right middle of page) by Rick Gerharter: At least nine wheelchair users (among them, Rick James, Stephanie Thomas, Woody Carlson, Cathy Thomas or Julie Farrar and others) fill the front of the frame blocking a bus with a sign with the APTA logo and Hotels written on it. Most of the blockers are facing toward the bus, away from the camera. Police stand on either side of the bus. Two protesters have Proud and Disabled bumper stickers on the backs of their wheelchairs. Caption: Disabled protesters blocked a SamTrans bus Monday at the American Public Transit Association convention taking place this week at Moscone Center. [Headline] Bitter Protests at Transit Meet By: Carol Farron [This story continues on a second page we do not have at this time.] Disabled people from throughout the United States are angry and have gathered in San Francisco this week to protest the lack of accessibility on public transit systems throughout the nation. The protesters are hoping to force transit officials who are convening at the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association to change their thinking on transit accessibility for the disabled. APTA, public transit's biggest lobbying group, took the lead in the early 1980s in convincing Congress to overturn federal regulations allowing full transit accessibility for the disabled. What resulted from that decision was a "local option" plan. This allowed individual transit agencies to decide if they would provide accessibility for the disabled on fixed route service or an alternate van/taxi service. Many disabled `groups` are unhappy with that outcome, charging that the local option denies them their civil rights and impedes or prohibits their ability to attend school or hold down jobs because of a lack of transportation. Additionally, many disabled say that paratransit is a paternalistic system that segregates them from society, and users are made to feel helpless. APTA members contend that full accessibility is expensive and unworkable. They say that equipping buses and trains with lifts is too expensive given the number of disabled riders. The disabled, however, say that transit's estimates of disabled riders are low, and accessible transit can work as cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Denver have proven. More than 200 wheelchair bound men and women said last Saturday at a press conference that because the current regulations deny them their civil rights they came prepared to be arrested - and that they were. Thirty-four people, most in wheelchairs, were arrested at a City Hall protest last Sunday, and another 22 were arrested in for blocking a Samtrans bus at Moscone Center on Monday. Many more arrests are expected until the convention's conclusion this Thursday. "This is a militant bunch of protestors," said Jack Gilstrap, executive vice president of APTA. "These people terrified and roughed up some of our members at city hall. "Just because someone is in a wheelchair doesn't mean they're nice." Marilyn Golden of SAAT, the September Alliance for Accessible Transit, said her group is "far from militant." see Rides, page 2