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+ ADAPT - American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit 13
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Arizona Republic Saturday, April 11, 1987 Title: Wheelchair Activists are Released from Jail By J.F. Torrey The Arizona Republic Sixteen wheelchair activists who had blocked city buses and picketed a transportation convention earlier this week were released Friday after three days in jail. The 16 pleaded no contest to a variety of misdemeanor charges, including trespassing and obstructing a public thoroughfare. Phoenix Municipal Judge Michael Lester sentenced the defendants, all members of the Denver-based American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, to three days in jail. They were credited with the three days they had served and released. Phoenix police made 73 arrests this week of people in wheelchairs who had blocked buses and disrupted meals and meetings held in conjunction with the Western meeting of the American Public transit Association. The 16 released Friday had been arrested Tuesday after they rolled their wheelchairs in front of buses at the downtown Phoenix Transit System terminal and several other bus stops. The group wants all mass-transit buses equipped with lifts for handicapped passengers. A number of those jailed Wednesday had been arrested at the earlier demonstrations, and it is common for people arrested a second time on misdemeanor counts to be jailed, said Sgt. Brad Thiss, a Phoenix police spokesman. The hearing for 14 of the defendants was held in a room at Maricopa County Durango Jail because of the difficulty of transporting the defendants to the Madison Street Jail, where hearings usually are held. Two protesters held at Madison Street were released Friday night. Joe Rossano, a spokesman for the county Sheriff’s Office, said that inmates usually are held at Madison Street but that the group of 14 protesters was brought to Durango so they could be kept together and have more exercise room. “We wanted to keep them all in one spot,” he said. “This is a nice, low stress jail. It’s nice and airy. They had access to a patio, outside. If you have to go to jail, go to Durango.” However one of the defendants, Robert Kafka, 41, said near the end of the hearing that the protesters had filed nine grievances against Durango, alleging improper medical care. “It’s an abomination that this jail accepted handicapped people when they were not able to take care of them,” Kafka said. Earlier in the day, Rossano said that the handicapped inmates had received double mattresses and that those with bedsores had been given sheepskin covers. Kafka said no sheepskin covers were handed out. When the hearing bean, Lester ordered it closed to everyone but court personnel, attorneys and defendants because of the small size of the room. After reporters covering the hearing protested and Lester consulted with M. Louis Levin, the presiding judge of Phoenix Municipal Court, he allowed the press to attend the hearing but barred supporters of the defendants. Ken Skiff, a court-appointed attorney for the defendants, said, ‘I had them all read the police reports and they agreed that they were accurate , and I felt that the sentence would be appropriate because there would be no fine and no probation.” Tom Timmer, a deputy city attorney who prosecuted the case, said he agreed to the plea agreements because “this is the best resolution for all concerned.” Police on Sunday night arrested 29 people in wheelchairs who were blocking entrances to Rustler’s Rooste restaurant at the Pointe at South Mountain. Conventioneers were attending a steak fry at the restaurant. On Monday, five protesters were arrested outside the downtown Hyatt Regency hotel for continually blowing their wheelchairs’ horns. On Tuesday, 39 more arrests were made of protesters who blocked buses at the downtown terminal, at First and Washington streets, and at several other sites, including bus stops at the Capitol and Central Avenue and Van Buren Street.
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THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol.9, No. 5 Boulder Colorado December 1986 [This article continues in ADAPT 259, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by Melanie Stengel, courtesy of UPI: A large heavy set man with no legs (Jerry Eubanks) sits in his manual wheelchair in front of a city bus. He has a determined and frustrated look on his face. Behind him and up against the front of the bus you can see another protester in a wheelchair (Greg Buchanan). On either side of Jerry is a uniformed officer, apparently unsure of how to proceed. One stands with his hand on this hip, the other officer is on Jerry's other side and is looking toward the first policeman, as if for guidance. caption reads: ARRESTING DISABLED PROTESTORS poses some unusual problems for police as these perplexed officers found out during the ADAPT Detroit demonstrations. Title: Doing hardtime in Cincy During the demonstrations at the regional convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in Cincinnati this May 17 protestors were arrested. Three of them, George Cooper of Dallas, Mike Auberger of Denver, and Bob Kafka of Austin, were sentenced to 10 days in jail. Wade Blank, founder of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), said it was the first time in the history of the movement that any disabled persons had done “hard time. ” The following is Kafka's own account of that hard time. The article is reprinted from Incitement, Vol. 2, No. 3, a newspaper published by the Texas ADAPT chapters. By BOB KAFKA Wednesday, May 21, 1986 4:30 p.m.— One by one they haul us off, seventeen in all. We go through the usual procedures: giving name, address, next of kin, all our property, a list of our medications. We sign the papers, are fingerprinted and photographed. We go into the detention center for hours of waiting while the powers that be decide what to do with us. Handicapism raises its ugly head again as judge Albanese releases six ADAPT members on their own recognizance. His reason: medical problems. The real reason: he can't understand those with CP and Frank, the one blind man, freaks him out. We become the Cincinnati Eleven. 8 p.m.—Mike Montgomery, the “head keeper" at the Hamilton County, jail, has a dilemma: eleven people in wheelchairs and not one empty bed in the infirmary. Where to put us? The decision had obviously been made to keep us together and apart from the rest of the prison population. They convert a training classroom into what looks like a hospital ward without windows. Eleven WWII hospital beds are hauled in. Two guards are stationed with us at all times and, for some reason, three from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. The accessible bathroom is down the hall. At first we are guarded each time we go to empty our leg bags; soon they realize we are not going to try the “great escape." The starkness of our surroundings is stifling: ugly green concrete block walls, gray tiled floors, buzzing fluorescent lights, and two clocks on the walls always counting time and exactly how long we have been in jail. Thursday, May 22 6 a.m.- The room is quiet. Without windows the difference between night and day can only be separated by the morning eggs and the changing of the shifts. We are a curiosity to our keepers. Faces peer in the doorway all morning to look at "the handicaps." ll a.m.— The doctor and nurse arrive to evaluate our "conditions," We again list our medications and the daily supplies we need. Two bladder infections, two decubitus ulcers, one strained back, and many who need assistance dressing, showering and toileting. They leave saying everything will be taken care of. (This is not to be.) 3 p.m.- The social work staff arrive. They are here to make sure we are treated OK, we have access to the library, gym and telephone, and to take care of any crises. (Again, this is not to be.) 4:30 p.m.- Joni Wilkens, our attorney, comes to discuss how we will handle our cases. We decide to stay together and not plea bargain. 6 pm.- It is obvious by now that we are not going to get our proper medication. Substitutes for drugs they don't have don't work. Those needing Valium are told it can't be dispensed in a jail setting. George again asked, to no avail, for his raised toilet seat and "booties" to protect his feet from sores. Mike asked about his bowel program. The nurse and guards give us only blank looks. 10 p.m.—Lights out. The guards assist those who need it. By the time we leave many of them will make pretty good attendants. Friday, May 23 6 a.m.-Lonnie went to the hospital late last night. His decubitus started to bleed and they rushed him over around l a.m. He came back around 3 a.m. and remained in bed all day. 12 p.m.- Boredom is starting to set in. George is rolling back and forth in the halls. Bill is constantly talking, which helps to keep us awake during the day. We fill out commissary forms, but as Joe predicts, we never see the items ordered. Lunch arrives, Mike has the guard melt his spoon so he can feed himself. He makes them do it each meal. George R. again devours his food. E.T. is lying in bed shivering from his bladder infection. 2 p.m.- Joni arrives with her partner, after a long session with the Cincinnati judicial system. The judge and D.A. will accept a plea of disorderly conduct and a fine of $60 (2 days already served) for the eight who were charged with disorderly conduct. They would go free. Lonnie's charge of resisting arrest would be dropped, but there are no guarantees for Mike, George and me. 4 p.m.- The eight are released, Mike, George and I receive 1O days, with credit for two served. Eight days to go. 9 p.m.- The room seems empty without the other eight ADAPT members. The guards kid about us being the hardened criminals. George continues to ask for his raised toilet seat, I for my correct medication and Mike about assistance with his bowel program. Again-no response. Saturday, May 24 7 a.m.-The library, gym, and telephone are not available on weekends and holidays. Monday is Memorial Day. We realize we will not have access to these amenities until Tuesday. Very much like a hospital stay. We also realize our medical needs will not be met; however, we continue our demands that something be done so Mike and George can get the help they need with their bowel program. Security continues to relay this to the medical staff. Medical staff continues to say it is security’s responsibility. This double think has been going on four days now, with no assistance given so far. 2 p.m.— George is beginning to have adverse effects from Valium withdrawal. Mike is having more and worse spasms because the substitute medications are not working. I have no idea if the substitute antibiotic is doing any good at all. Sunday, May 25 4 p.m.-The day passes as usual. Up at 6 a.m. with breakfast of cold eggs and boiled water that had looked at a coffee bean. After lunch our daily request for medication, supplies, and bowel program assistance is duly noted in the guard’s record book, but as usual no action. Joni and Art Wademan, a minister who has been invaluable throughout the week in Cincinnati, came about 2:30 p.m. We share our concern that if we don't get some assistance one or all of us might get very ill. They go to the supervisor and suggest that if medical is not going to act, then we should be transported to a hospital. Going to a hospital for a bowel program might seem extreme, but after five days, impaction is a real possibility. To our amazement, Mike is taken down to medical and then to the hospital. A raised toilet seat is borrowed from Good Samaritan Hospital. We are finally allowed to take our medications which are brought in from the outside. Monday, May 26 Memorial Day — a quiet day, a day for reflection. If non-disabled prisoners were prevented from relieving themselves for five days, it would be considered torture. Equality is as much a farce in jail as it is out of jail, maybe more so. Cincinnati's judicial and penal systems obviously feel it is fine to use a person's disability as a means of punishing that person. Documented omissions which place disabled people in potentially life-threatening situations don't raise an eyebrow, even from the defenders of justice or the media. Reports that the jail is well-equipped to handle our needs but that we will simply be “less than comfortable" go unchallenged. The fact that we have two people who care, who spend some time and resolve our problem, only highlights the injustice to those who do not have a Joni or an Art and must suffer because of ignorance of the needs of disabled persons. Tuesday, May 27 11:30 a.m.—-The court is two blocks from the jail. They usually transport the prisoners to the court by van for security reasons. We present a problem, since the van is inaccessible. They look to a supervisor, and after a half hour the answer comes down. Let the prisoners roll to the courthouse with a deputy sheriff guarding each of us. Babs, Tisha, Reverend McCracken, Art and Vivian (friends and family) are waiting in the hall. The guards hurry us into the courtroom. The media is out in force. As we wait, we wonder what the D.A. will do. Joni enters the room and her face is blank. Rubenstein, the D.A., is his usual arrogant self. Joni states that the six days served are both punishment and deterrent. Rubenstein surprisingly agrees, but asks the court to get our statement. Had we learned our lessons? He wants us to grandstand for the cameras and to get the judge mad at us again. Instead, we suppress the urge to yell "WE WILL RlDE" and simply state we will be returning to our homes and work. Cincinnati will be only a memory. Judge Sundeman accepts the motion to mitigate. We are free. 2 p.m.—We are sitting in Skyline Chili, a local restaurant, and talking over the last six days. Needless to say much of the talk is also about Detroit, October 5-9, our next battle with APTA. Spending six days in jail makes one think about commitment. Detroit will take commitment from us all, but . . . WE WILL RIDE! PHOTO 1: A close up of a man (Mike Auberger) with shoulder length dark hair and a short beard and mustache. He is wearing a light color sweater and shirt with a collar, and the chest strap from his wheelchair is visible. He looks very serious. Caption reads: MIKE AUBERGER Back in the slammer again. PHOTO 2: At least 4 policemen standing around a manual wheelchair in which someone (Bob Kafka) is being bent forward and something weird is happening with a pole (the picture is dark and hard to make out.) Caption reads: THE AUTHOR being arrested in L.A.
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The Cincinnati Enquirer Monday, May 19, 1986 Comment/A-7 PHOTO by Jim Callaway/The Cincinnati Enquirer: Three protesters in wheelchairs form a diagonal line across the picture. On the right in the foreground a heavy set man (Jerry Eubanks) sits in his manual wheelchair, a cab of soda in his right hand. He is a double amputee below the hips, and is wearing a look of concentration, and appears to be chanting. His right hand is resting on the back of a motorized wheelchair to his right. In that chair is a slim man (Greg Buchanan) who is wearing a very large sign across his legs that reads "A Part of NOT Apartheid." (The message is a bit obscured by the curve of the sign around his legs.) He is also wearing a light colored ADAPT T-shirt. To Greg's right and a bit further away and behind is a third man in a chair, a slim man with dark hair and a beard (John Short). He also has a sign on his legs but the quality of the picture makes it unreadable. Caption reads: Members of ADAPT picket in front ol the Westin Hotel Sunday afternoon. Gary Eubanks of Chicago, right, Greg Buchanan of Colorado Springs and John Short of Denver were among them. Title: Protesters converge on city Disabled demand full access to public transportation BY KAREN ROEBUCK The Cincinnati Enquirer Former Cincinnatian Mike Auberger said he left the city because of its lack of accessibility to the handicapped and because "the mentality toward people with disabilities is really 19th century at best." Auberger, who now lives in Denver, is one of about 75 members of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) in Cincinnati Sunday through Wednesday demanding full accessibility to public transportation systems for the handicapped. But the approximately 50 members of ADAPT demonstrating in front of the Westin Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) is holding its regional convention, were denied access to the hotel Sunday. "The only people they're stopping are people in a wheelchair; that's blatantly discriminatory," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas and ADAPT community organizer. Cincinnati Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus, Operational Support, said public easements can be barricaded to any group that might disrupt the hotel, which is private property. ADAPT members publicly stated they would try to disrupt the conference and have attempted to do so at other APTA conferences, police and Westin officials said. The hotel's first priority is to its guests, in this case the APTA, said Larry Alexander, general manager of the Westin. The ADAPT group blocked entrances and exits to the hotel for a short time Sunday, and rode their wheelchairs in downtown streets, somewhat disrupting traffic to the Reds-Pirates game, Menkhaus said, but did not cause any major problems. Armed with signs, T-shirts and badges, the group chanted slogans expressing their desire to ride public transportation systems. Some of the signs read, "Buses won't roll without us," and "We have a dream. . . We will ride." Kafka said ADAPT members will most likely try to stop some Queen City Metro buses. In other cities, members have sometimes chained themselves to the vehicles. Murray Bond, assistant general manager of Queen City Metro, said if ADAPT members try to stop the buses, the drivers will put the vehicles into park and let the police move the demonstrators. Menkhaus said ADAPT members will be arrested if they break the law. Despite the barricades, ADAPT members also will try to get into the convention, Kafka said, to get a resolution requiring full accessibility for the handicapped onto the convention floor. Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, said the executive committee and board of directors have discussed voting on such a resolution, but decided that decision should be made at the local level. Every system in the country has some way of transporting the handicapped, he said, which was decided upon with the advice of local agencies for the handicapped. About 30% of the systems nationwide are fully accessible, he said. Queen City Metro has an access program which will pick up handicapped people at their homes and take them where they need to go in Cincinnati, Elmwood Place, St. Bernard and Norwood, Bond said. "We understand their goals of total accessibility. It's certainly a laudable one, but also a very expensive one." The customer pays 60 cents for a ride, but it costs Queen City Metro about $10, he said. A ride must be scheduled 24 hours in advance under the Queen City's rules, but space is not always available, said Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities. "They dictate our lives to us, because we have to go and come as there's space available," she said. Kafka said ADAPT does not expect public systems to make all their buses wheelchair accessible, only all new buses. In about 20 years, the entire system could then be used by the handicapped, he estimated, pointing out that Queen City now owns 87 buses with wheelchair lifts, but the lifts have been locked down. Bond said those buses were bought with federal money at a time when wheelchair accessibility was required for any purchased with federal funds, and would be too costly to operate. The Greater Cincinnati coalition supports the goals of ADAPT, Harmon said, but chooses to negotiate for changes instead of demonstration.
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MAinstream magazine [No date] [This story continues in ADAPT 222, but is contained here in its entirety for reading ease.] [Headline] ADAPT takes the fast lane to make transit accessible By Michael Ervin San Antonio—The first indication that something was about to happen came when an oversized, stretch-limo of a van pulled up beside the Alamo and a wheelchair lift uncurled out of the back door. The colorful banner on the side of the van read: ACCESS FOR ALL. Six more people in wheelchairs were in another van parked in a lot down the street. As they proceeded down the sidewalk to join the demonstration in front of the Alamo the pedestrians stopped and looked them over. A parade of people in wheelchairs is bound to draw stares. But the expressions accompanying these stares were unique—welcoming, supportive, somewhat star struck. Maybe they knew they were coming. Before the 50 or so members of various chapters of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit even arrived here there were stories in the media about previous ADAPT confrontations with the American Public Transit Association (APTA.) Television news showed footage of the mass arrests that occurred last October in Washington, D.C. when ADAPT members tried to force their way into the center where APTA was holding its annual convention. That's the kind of escalating media coverage Wade Blank likes to see. He’s the main force behind ADAPT. “We're becoming famous. When we had our first ADAPT meeting in Denver in 1982, our goal was to make the officials of any city we were coming to nervous. We wanted them to say, ‘No! Not here! We don’t want ‘em!’” They were certainly nervous in San Antonio. When a horde of people in wheelchairs showed up at the offices of the local transit authority for a noisy demonstration, the employees locked themselves in a large office as if they were afraid ADAPT was going to take them out one by one and shoot them. And when the march that began at the Alamo turned into an equally raucous occupation of the lobby of the posh hotel where APTA people were staying, hotel security had no idea what to do. And the bewildered looks of the innocent tourists were amusing. They’d certainly never seen anything like that before. “Seeing a bunch of disabled crazies blocking buses and doing things like that redefines everything everybody’s been conditioned to believe about the disabled," Blank says. This radical redefinition of what the disabled are (in the eyes of both the disabled and nondisabled) is what ADAPT is all about. And having stuffy APTA conferences and conventions as a backdrop helps make that point. APTA’s primary sin, according to ADAPT, is that it spent big bucks on a lawsuit that struck down the federal mandate that all fixed-route public buses be lift-equipped. ADAPT sees equal transit access as the most basic civil right. “It's the same segregation as when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus or yield their seats to whites. Except it’s even worse,” says Blank. “The disabled can’t even get on the bus.” By using APTA as a symbol of the stifling paternalism that keeps the disabled in a position of dependency, ADAPT makes the immorality of inaccessible public transit quite clear. *** Wade Blank is an ordained minister who never goes to church. “It’s in the true Jesus tradition. He was kicked out of the synagogue and never went back.” Blank worked in a nursing home for a few years after seminary. It frustrated him to see the disabled friends he made there stuck there simply because they had no place else to go. So in 1976 he and some others began Atlantis, an independent living center in Denver. ADAPT was born of Atlantis. Blank says Atlantis likes to “do the impossible” in terms of working with clients who have the deepest holes of dependency to dig out of. Frank, a man with cerebral palsy who was part of the ADAPT Denver caravan to San Antonio, was sprung by Atlantis in 1976 from a nursing home he had been in since 1934. Another woman began feeding herself for the first time when she became part of Atlantis. She was always physically able to. Her mother just didn't want her making a mess. Another woman had never seen a head of lettuce. Her salads had always come to her prepared. It’s rather stunning seeing people who were mired in the world of please and thank you traveling around the country, blocking buses and maybe getting arrested. It’s gotten ADAPT and Atlantis in trouble with irate relatives. The father of a woman arrested for blocking buses in Denver told Wade that since he was a reverend he must be brainwashing his daughter into joining his cult, just like Jim Jones. He said he was going to tell the newspapers so they could investigate. But Blank says, “All we’re saying to people in Atlantis and ADAPT is, ‘You are an important person.’ I just tell them (the irate relatives) that people get excited when they see that they are important and that they are expected to be somebody.” In 1978, it became clear that the mission of Atlantis could never be fully accomplished as long as Denver’s public transit system was totally inaccessible. What good was it to set someone up in an accessible apartment if they couldn’t move beyond it? They might as well have still been in the nursing home. So the Atlantis people took to the streets of Denver. They blocked buses. They held sit-ins in the transit authority offices. They got arrested. But four years later, they won and Denver is on its way to full access. [Bordered text box in center of page: “We created a drama and let it unfold . . .I guess we raised consciousness.”] The next year, APTA made the mistake of holding its convention in Denver. The target was too tempting for Atlantis to resist. Here was the personification of everything Atlantis opposed right on its step and begging to be hit. Atlantis formed a permanent transportation component call ADAPT. They organized confrontations around the convention and vowed to follow APTA everywhere until it passed ADAPT ’s resolution renouncing the lawsuit and the damage it did. These confrontations would also provide a focal point and a training ground for activists from other cities so they could form their own ADAPT chapters. Mike Auberger of Atlantis is a quadriplegic resulting from a bobsled accident during the 1972 Olympic time trials. “When we started ADAPT, we were a bunch of crazy nuts. A year later, we were a possibility. Now, we’re a reality. We started in one city and here we are about 20 cities. We must be selling something everybody needs.” The hope is that the feeling of self-importance that inspired the disabled of Denver will be as infectious in San Antonio and in cities all over America. ADAPT paved the way in San Antonio by creating a three-day headache for the police and transit authority and forcing them to take the issue very seriously. They also permanently etched the issue on the minds of the people of San Antonio with pictures on the front page of the newspaper of disabled people blocking APTA tour buses. “We created a drama and let it unfold,” Blank says. “I was talking to a reporter and I said, ‘I guess we raised consciousness.’ She said, ‘Boy did you! That’s all this town is talking about.’ ” “Now you can’t say that about too many political movements today.” But even if it doesn’t play in San Antonio, Auberger sees what happened there as another battle won. “Again we took on APTA and beat them. You’ve got this guy in a $300 suit and a designer tie with his initials and a soup stain on it. More and more people are starting to see APTA that way.” If success can be judged by police reaction, ADAPT is accomplishing a lot. Knowing ADAPT ’s penchant for blocking buses, the police routed buses away from areas with high ratios of wheelchair-users. They obviously did their homework by talking to police in other cities who had to deal with ADAPT. A television news report even told of how San Antonio police intelligence photographers were following ADAPT members around. And it’s clear that transit authorities are taking ADAPT very seriously too. The next target is Los Angeles, where APTA will hold its convention in October. ADAPT has obtained a copy of a private memo of the Southern California Rapid Transit District that speaks of the authority’s plans to spend $10,000 to $15,000 to “handle vast numbers of wheelchair bound people” who will be coming to town. “While confrontations cannot be stopped, they can be blunted.” It speaks of how the RTD is “searching for ways to diffuse or ward off demonstrations,” perhaps by pacifying everyone for a few days with a conference on accessible transit [ibid]. “Can we take control by creating a hospitality center for the handicapped?” the memo says. Who can resist such an opportunity. ADAPT is on its way.
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Dallas Times Herald, Saturday Nov. 24, 1984 [Headline] Wheelchair activist adopt radical tactics Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civii rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month all seemed to come down to a similar central issue —- the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activists who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. "It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," says Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that all new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals are beginning to press the old arguments with more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some handicapped activists now are resorting to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 20 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Association convention. “The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT, said. Calling the protests here “our Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed a public relations victory and promised their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Association a year from now in Los Angeles. But their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80 percent of the costs of the equipment in most municipal transportation systems —- cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Current Department of Transportation policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Association, allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulations to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy, argue that paratransit does not meet the needs of the handlcapped and is inherently discriminatory. “lt segregates the disabled people trom the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratransit requires advanced scheduling, sometimes weeks before a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the transit system." Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, authorities add. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $6.3 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts, 80 percent of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet only 12,000 of the district's 38 million riders use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters the issue is not cost but civil liberties. "In America, we have a way of hiding our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. ln Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District's 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts, some local advocates charge that broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access limits the system. [Bottom of the page is torn so missing text is included in brackets, as it is just a guess.] In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses serve the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. [The] Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with groups to supply paratransit [vans] and half-fare cab service, [providing] 8,400 rides a month. In Denver, 432 of the [city's] buses are lift- or ramp-[equipped] providing more than 1,00[0 rides] per month. The city also [uses] vans and small buses in a transit system that provides [x number of] rides a month. None of Chicago's 2,400 [mainline] buses is fitted with lifts. [Instead] the city provides 42 [paratransit] buses, which offer 12,000 [rides per] month.
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The Handicapped Coloradan, vol.8, no.7, Boulder, CO February 1986 (This article is continued in ADAPT 198 but the entire article is included here for ease of reading.) PHOTO 1: Along a street a large line of people in wheelchairs and others move past a shady park with vendors with small umbrellas over their stands. Several of the protesters carry placards in their laps, one of which reads: A PART OF NOT APART FROM. Faces are too dark to tell who is in the line. Caption reads: In the shadow of the Alamo a wheelchair column moved along the streets of San Antonio, Texas in April 1985. Protestors were heading for the hotel headquarters for the regional convention of the American Public Transit Association. PHOTO 2: Mike Auberger, with his mustache, trimmed beard and shoulder length hair looks at the camera with his intense eyes. Wearing a light colored sweater and shirt with a collar, he sits in his wheelchair which is mostly visible because of his chest strap. Caption reads: Mike Auberger of Denver was one of some 16 Coloradans who went to Texas to protest the lack of accessible public buses. [Headline] The eyes of Texas are on outside agitators -- and a lot of folks from down the street There's never been much love lost between Coloradans and Texans, at least not since those folks from the Lone Star State first wandered into the Rocky Mountains and discovered deep powder in the winter and cool valleys in the summer. As Winnebago after Cadillac after pickup poured across Raton Pass, Coloradans greeted Texans with open cash registers and - increasingly -- ridicule. Our scorn for Texans even reached into the highest office in the state when Governor Dick Lamm greeted his Texan counterpart with this joke: A Texan died here recently and we couldn't find a coffin large enough, so we gave him an enema and buried him in a shoebox. Texans were not amused, though by now they should have come to expect such treatment. We've been squabbling ever since a detachment of Colorado militia turned back a Texas Confederate army at Glorietta Pass during the Civil War. Each summer now we give Texas a chance to even the score down near Alamosa in a rotten tomato battle. OF course we always make sure our army's bigger. That animosity, however, doesn't carry over to the disabled population of the two states. In fact, a dozen or more militant wheelchair activists from Colorado have been rolling onto the streets of several Texas cities during the past couple of years to aid their counterparts in the battle to force Texas transit systems to make their buses wheelchair-accessible. "After Colorado, Texas is out best organized state," Wade Blank, the long haired ex-preacher who helped found American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in Denver two years ago. ADAPT chapters have sprung up in several other states, notably Illinois, Maine, and Connecticut, but none have garnered as many active members as Texas. Scores of Texans have blocked buses in San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and El Paso in recent months to focus the attention of the state's media on the lack of accessible buses. Part of ADAPT's success in Texas lies in the fact that there are so few lift-equipped buses in this huge state. Some Texas cities did order accessible buses when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation ordered mandatory accessibility in the 1970s. However, most of these lifts were never used as the American Public Transit Association (APTA), a national lobbying and policy making organization for transit systems, successfully fought the regulation in federal appeals court. APTA maintains that the local transit provider is the best judge of whether or not accessibility is feasible. Adverse climatic and geographical conditions are generally cited as the chief obstacles to lifts. Texas ADAPT leaders point out that few areas in Texas experience severe winter storms and that the state's larger cities are generally laid out on flat plains. That was one of the points wheelchair activist tried to make when they picketed in April 1985 regional APTA convention in San Antonio. A sizable contingent of Coloradans joined those picket lines, leading to a charge by the local newspaper, the San Antonio Light, that the demonstration was the work of outside agitators and that most of the city's disabled population was quite happy with using paratransit. Spot demonstrations and bus seizures soon followed in other Texas cities, while some Texas ADAPT members turned outside agitators themselves by participating in demonstrations at the APTA national convention in Los Angeles in October 1985. Several Texans including Jim Parker of El Paso and Bob Kafka of Austin, were among The dozens arrested. Supporters of lifts point to cities like Seattle and Denver where most of the buses are accessible -- and increasingly free of breakdowns. Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) maintenance crew made a few simple changes in some of their lift systems and managed to operate experimental buses without a single breakdown. ADAPT argues that some transit providers have deliberately sabotaged their lift systems to justify removing them. Opponents of lifts argue that paratransit--usually vans that pick riders up at their residences -- is more cost effective. Supporters point to Seattle where the cost per ride on mainline buses is less than $15 a trip, which compares very favorably with the best deals offered by paratransit systems. Convenience is a major factor too, according to Mike Auberger of ADAPT-Denver, who points out that most paratransit systems require two days' advance notice and users might have to travel all day just to keep a 15 minute dental appointment. "Me, I like being able to roll down to the corner bus stop," Auberger said. ADAPT grew out of coalition of Denver disabled groups who were successful in battling RTD over wheelchair lifts. Protestors seized buses and chained themselves to railings at RTD headquarters before the battle was won. Two years ago they went national when their arch foe, APTA, held its national convention in Denver, APTA refused to allow ADAPT to present a resolution to the convention calling for mandatory accessibility until pressure was brought to bear by Denver Mayor Federico Pena, a pro-lift advocate. APTA declined, however, to vote on the issue, and ADAPT picketed the group's 1984 national convention in Washington, DC, in October. Twenty-four protestors were arrested during the demonstration, including Parker. Parker, who was joined in Washington by four other Texans, isn't through with APTA yet. When that group holds its Western Regional Convention in San Antonio April 20, Parker said they can expect almost as many demonstrators as went to Washington. "I can't think of any place in Texas where it (public transportation for the disabled) is as good as it is here in Denver -- in fact it's poor everywhere here. Dallas just decided to buy 200 or 300 new buses without lifts." The situation isn't any better in his home city of El Paso, according to Parker. "It's very poor here," he said. "There are 30 city cruisers here with lifts but the city has shown no desire to use them." Parker thinks too many people in wheelchairs are too passive. "They're not used to pushing people, but we're starting to see some changes." However, Parker points out that Texas is a very conservative state and people -- including the disabled -- are slow to change. People wishing to participate in the San Antonio demonstration should call Parker (915-564-0544) for further information. PHOTO: Two bearded, bare chested wheelchair activists (Jim Parker, and [I think] Mike Auberger) are in the foreground. Parker, his shoulder length hair tied back with a bandana, sits with his foot up on his opposite knee, hands in his fingerless gloves. The two are facing away from the camera and talking with another man who is kneeling down beside them looking up at them. Caption reads: Jim Parker (center) of ADAPT-El Paso meets with a newsman during a picket of McDonald's. Many disabled persons objected to the fast food chain's refusal to immediately retrofit all of its restaurants so that they would be accessible to wheelchair patrons. Parker is currently involved in helping organize a demonstration at the Western Regional Convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in San Antonio Oct. 20 - 24 [sic].
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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.
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Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be."
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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.
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First Recruitment Poster/Flyer: A drawing of a toilet with a bus sticking out of the toilet bowl, front end first. On the side of the bus is a large access symbol. Text reads: ADAPT cordially invites you to an uproar WHO: WHEELCHAIR USERS FROM EVERY STATE WHOSE DREAM IS TOTALLY ACCESSIBLE BUS SYSTEM! WHERE: DENVER, COLORADO- AMERICAN PUBLIC TRANSIT ASSOCIATION NATIONAL CONVENTION- EVERY BIG BUS BOSS & HOT SHOT FED INVOLVED IN PUBLIC TRANSIT. WHEN: OCTOBER 23-26, 1983 WHY: OUR CHANCE TO DEMAND OUR RIGHT TO BOARD EVERY PUBLIC BUS IN THE NATION; TO MEET AND GREET & LEAN ON: SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION: Elizabeth Dole VICE PRESIDENT: George Bush PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: John Glenn, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, Allen Cranston, AND OTHERS TOO NUMEROUS TO MENTION FUN & GAMES INCLUDE (BUT NOT LIMITED TO…) (1) PICKET SIGN CONTEST (2) RALLIES & DEMONSTRATIONS (3) SCREAMING MATCHES & NATIONAL NEWS-MAKING (4) HANDS-ON TRAINING IN RADICAL CHANGE (8) WILD PARTIES WE’RE GONNA HAVE A BLAST CAPTION: AMERICAN DISABLED FOR ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC TRANSIT AMERICAN DISABLED FOR ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC TRANSIT CONTACT: WADE OR MOLLY BLANK (303) 321-7269 JOE CARLE OR MIKE AUBERGER (303) 393-0630
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Rocky Mountain News Fri. Aug. 19, 1993, Denver, Colo. Text box reads: The handicapped group wants the transit association to support equal access for all public transportation riders and lifts on buses. Article -- Pena intervenes in handicapped-transit spat By Burt Hubbard, Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer Mayor Federico Pena’s office is intervening in a dispute between handicapped groups and a national transit association over threatened demonstrations during the association’s October convention in Denver. Kathy Archuleta, an aide to Pena, said she set up a meeting for Friday with Wade Blank, handicapped activist leader, after an official from the American Public Transit Association (APTA) called the mayor’s office expressing concern about Blank’s plans to picket the convention. “We’ll act as facilitators,” said Archuleta. “APTA has called us and now we’re going to talk to Wade.” Blank, one of the leaders of the newly formed American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, said the group is protesting APTA’s refusal to endorse wheelchair lifts on all buses and subways. The group represents disabled associations across the country. Blank also is co-director of Atlantis, a self-help group for the disabled. Blank said the plans call for about 30 handicapped people to picket the convention each day and possibly conduct civil disobedience, such as disabled chaining themselves to the convention’s headquarters at the Denver Hilton. About 3,000 representatives from transit districts throughout the United States are expected to attend the convention, Oct. 23 to 27. Blank said the group wants the convention to support equal access for all transit riders on public transportation and inform bus manufacturers that transit districts will buy only buses equipped with wheel-chair lifts. Jack Gilstrap, executive vice president of APTA, said the organization called Pena’s office just to inform of the planned demonstrations and “expressing the hope that they would be orderly.” “We’re used to demonstrations,” said Gilstrap. He said the protests have not changed APTA’s plans to hold the convention in Denver.
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November 1992 Access USA News Page 5 Atlantis leads to ADAPT leads to independence Cathy Seabaugh, Staff Writer DENVER,CO-Their offices are relatively small compared to the massive projects the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today organization tackles. An inconspicuous location in south central Denver serves as national headquarters for the 29 states who have ADAPT chapters. This Colorado town is a gold mine for members of the disabled community, not so much for its accessibility and attitudes, but for the brainstem which this office at 12 Broadway has become. ADAPT representatives throughout the United States act as nerve endings, sending vital messages to the Denver office so it can operate efficiently and effectively. Effectiveness: a term well defined by ADAPT members. ADAPT was conceived and delivered by staff and volunteers of Atlantis Community, founded in 1975 by former nursing home employee Wade Blank and Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic from a bobsledding accident in 1971. Atlantis emerged so that individuals, even those who are severely, multiply-disabled, have the option to live outside an institution. ln its first l5 years, Atlantis was able to successfully transition more than 400 disabled adults from “sheltered settings" to more independent living standards. As an admirable offspring of Atlantis, ADAPT set its own agenda in June 1983 and embarked on an action-packed mission to make public transportation accessible to everyone. American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit set out to train, develop and empower disabled activists so they could effectively battle for that accessibility. Eighteen members of the Atlantis community had taken the first strides toward accessible public transportation in Denver when they gathered on July 5&6, 1978, to block city buses at Broadway and Colfax across from the state capitol. ‘Then in 1982, after beating up the board enough," said Auberger, one of the 18, "they decided they'd buy all lift-equipped buses." Once ADAPT formed the next year, the foundation was in place. With Denver as a model, activists began chipping away at other cities’ granite-like, antiquated public transportation systems. "(Former President Jimmy) Carter appointed Brock Adams in 1976 and Adams set a federal mandate that all new buses bought with federal money had to have (wheelchair) lifts,” Auberger said. "Under the Reagan administration, APTA (American Public Transit Association) sued (to avoid the lift requirements) and won. "APTA was having its national convention in Denver in October 1983 and about 20 people from across the country showed up to join about 22 people from Denver. We sent notice to (APTA) that their convention would not go uninterrupted if they did not meet with us. They went to the mayor, but he said he wouldn't protect them unless they agreed to meet with us.” ADAPT met APTA there. They would meet many more times. "We decided wherever they had a convention, we would go,” Auberger said. "It moved us around to communities where they'd never been exposed to the issues. People all of a sudden became aware. "If we're talking about the issues, people are going to form an opinion. You polarize people. Whether they support you or not is not the point. If there's not an opinion there, you can't change it." The deep roots, pockets or whatever of APTA were a long-time barrier for ADAPT. But as the Americans with Disabilities Act cemented and included regulations for public transportation, APTA’s resistance to ADAPT's demands weakened until the federal govemment finally made ADA the law. With that priceless piece of legislation signed and inducted into the pages of history, ADAPT was ready for its next mission. "What we said at that point to members was to put out feelers in your communities,” Auberger said. "What we found was personal assistants was the biggest issue of concern.” Retaining the ADAPT acronym, the group devised new plans to force change in the long-term health care system of the United States. “At least 60 percent of ADAPT members have (resided) in nursing homes at one time or another,” Auberger said, "The other 40 percent have spent their lives trying to avoid going into one.” Although ADAPT and Atlantis are neither to lose its identity in the other, they are a family unit and work together toward change. Atlantis is a certified home health care agency, making 53,000 visits each year in Denver and Colorado Springs, serving approximately 85 clients. “That's 365 days a year, whether there's three feet of snow on the ground or it's 105 degrees," Auberger said. “We have a 24-hours-a-day emergency backup system that works probably 98 percent of the time." One Atlantis client is a C2 quadriplegic who is on a ventilator nonstop. Yet he is allowed to live in his own home with the help of Atlantis personal attendants. "That shows you our capabilities,” Auberger said. ”We can provide 24-hour care for about $7,500 a year. A nursing home would do it for $20,000.” ADAPT’s scrapbook for the past two years includes protests in almost countless cities throughout the country. Wherever Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, made a speech or appearance, ADAPT added itself to the invitation list. The protests usually involved arrests, which is a proven effective tool for drawing media coverage. Radical activity, some say. "We really give the middle-of-the-road disabled community members the power to make change," Auberger said. "We make them look sane. “It's like in Illinois, Gov. Edgar didn't have a problem meeting with the straight group who went to Springfield because they were sane. lf he dealt with our radical group, he'd have to deal with all radical groups. We really give (middle-of-the-road community members) a platform." ADAPT picks on Sullivan because, they say, he can initiate change. They argue that Sullivan's signature is all that's necessary to require the states receiving Medicaid to provide personal assistants. Just more than half the states provide such funding and many; if not all, of those programs are underfunded, restricted and far short of meeting the demand. ADAPT seeks to convince Health and Human Services - Sullivan - to take one-third of the $15 billion Medicaid dollars and commit it to home-based, consumer-controlled services. "Every state that buys into Medicaid has to fund nursing homes,” Auberger said, explaining how the system currently works. Sixty-five percent of all money paid to nursing homes is Medicaid funds. "States have little play in what they can do with Medicaid.” Nursing homes use what's called a “cold bed rate" which refers to the empty beds in their institutions that are not producing income. Lobbyists for the nursing home industry are looking at these rates and profit margins, not at long-term care that allows individuals to retain their independence. "We’ve become a valuable commodity,” Auberger said. "It's a normal mindset to put someone in a nursing home. This is so ingrained in our society. There's currently no alternative, and most people aren't able to envision the type of care we're talking about." Auberger encourages every person he can to write letters to members of Congress, senators and other politicians who can have an impact on the future of people with disabilities. "When you do that, you raise a level of consciousness,” he said. "You don't have to mention (the numbers), just the concept. "The logic is the problem. When parents are doing (personal attendant care), for free, it doesn't have to be skilled. When Medicaid pays for that same care, a nurse has to do it.” Statistics provided by the American Health Care Association show the average lifespan on an individual in a nursing home is 21 months. "You can't convince me there's quality care in a nursing home," Auberger said. "We (at Atlantis) are non-medical personal attendants. When the staff goes into a home, the person in that home is the boss. We do things the way they want us to do them. "People don't have to give up their power to able-bodied people. But it's okay to share the power." Although many members of the disabled community have made endorsements this election year, ADAPT chooses to remain rather neutral - for a change. "Don't pick a side,” Auberger said. "As soon as you pick a side and that side loses, you now have an enemy on the other side. That's been real effective tor us. We'll rate candidates on disability issues, but we won't endorse anyone. "If there's a disability issue in Colorado, legislators call here, the media calls here. We're a powerful entity in this state. As hundreds of ADAPT activists confronted the annual conference of the nursing home industry in San Francisco October 19-21, the power of this entity spread toward the Pacific. Persons interested in more information about ADAPT can call Auberger or Wade Blank at (303) 733-9324 (voice and TDD). INSERT AT CENTER OF PAGE: Across the top in bold letters the word "ATLANTIS" and below that ADAPT's new Free Our People logo, the wheelchair access symbol with it's arms raised above its head breaking chains that are bound to it's wrists. Above this figure, in a semi-circular pattern the words "Free Our People" and below, also in a semi-circular pattern, "ADAPT"
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DISCLOSURE September-October 1989, Issue No. 112 the national newspaper of neighborhoods [Headline] Disabled Protest Across Country: “Accessible Transit Is a Civil Right" This story continues on 436 but is included here in its entirety for ease of reading. PHOTO by Tom Olin: A large group of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, many carrying posters, are massed in front of a MCI New Jersey bus. Joe Carle is in the middle of the group with his back to the camera and on the back of his wheelchair is a sign that reads "I can't even get on the back of the bus." Also visible (right to left) are Cassie James, Diane Coleman, Brian Shea, Mike Early from CORD, two other guys in wheelchairs, Kent Killam, Julie Nolan, a white haired blind person with a big sign, and a short woman, perhaps a child, looking to her left and holding on to the back of a wheelchair. The group is blocking the bus and the street, while others walk by on the sidewalk. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) and affiliated groups stages demonstratlon on disabled rights issues in front of buses at the federal court building, Philadelphia, May, 1989. by Mike Monti The message is clear: “We will ride,” say the members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). From a series of demonstrations to a controversial court case, this relentless group keeps fighting for accessible transit around the country. Among its victories are a July, 1989 federal court ruling that transportation agencies no longer have a 3 percent cap in providing wheelchair lifts or paratransit. For the members of ADAPT, accessible transit is a basic civil right — and is always worth fighting for. We reported in Disclosure #l08 on ADAPT’s actions in Montreal at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Authority (APTA). APTA and other transit authorities continue to make it extremely difficult for people with disabilities to use public transit. Nevertheless, ADAPT has shown that it will confront APTA wherever it shows up. Last April, at the Western Regional Conference of APTA in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno), over 125 ADAPT members staged actions at the conference, calling for public transportation that can be used by everyone — including people with disabilities. Members started off with a march from their hotel to the conference hotel. When they were about halfway there, ADAPT was met by a police blockade. Obviously, authorities already knew about ADAPT: here is a group that won’t stops until it forces permanent changes. In Sparks. the marchers were able to get around the police barriers. But when they got to APTA’s hotel, they were met by private security forces. The hotel security outnumbered the city’s police three-to-one -— and were able to chain the door shut before ADAPT entered. Forty-seven ADAPT members were arrested, and seven were sent to jail. “The Sparks police had obviously decided that we weren't going to march in the streets,” said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT member who lives in Austin, Texas. “But we were able to go around the car barricades. it was like water going around the rocks." The following afternoon, ADAPT staged another demonstration with many crawling across the street and around police barricades, blocking traffic until they reached the front door of the hotel. It was locked from the inside. This time, 25 were arrested. The charge: blocking a fire door which was locked. Many of the ADAPT members who were arrested went on a hunger strike. Meanwhile, ADAPT members on the outside held a press conference calling attention to the problems jail staff were having providing for several of the disabled people’s needs. A final protest was held the next day. One day later, the Sparks judge who sent the hunger strikers to prison made a deal with the protesters: he let out two protesters for the price of a $100 fine. The judge had imposed a much stiffer sentence a couple of days earlier, but changed his mind in the face of a group of arrested ADAPT members who made it clear that they would rather starve and stay in jail than pay a huge fine. Meanwhile, disability groups on the east and west coasts were raising money to help support ADAPT. On the fourth day of the hunger strike, the judge relented and the fine was reduced. By the end of the day, all arrested ADAPT members had been released — and many in the group headed to Denver, for more demonstrations. In Denver — which is the home of ADAPT — the group protested at the annual conference of the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA). This time, demonstrations focused on the federal government's request for a re-hearing of the ADAPT vs. Burnley case. In February, ADAPT won a major victory from the Department of Transportation (DOT) - only to have it undercut by the government. The first of ADAPT’s arguments stated that the rule saying transportation agencies should not have to spend more than 3 percent of their budget on wheelchair lifts or paratransit was unconstitutional. Second, ADAPT held that the option allowing agencies to decide whether or not to provide new buses with wheelchair lifts was unconstitutional. DOT kept flip-flopping on the issue: first it said yes, and then it backed off, asking for a rehearing to vacate the decisions. In Denver, ADAPT confronted Michael Norton, U.S. Attorney for the Tenth District in Denver. “Why is the government working against disabled rights?” asked ADAPT. Norton eventually read a 20-page statement from Attorney General Thornburgh stressing “the need for concern, compassion, and commitment” — but also saying that the law never mandated integration. “It was a really offensive statement, ” said Stephanie Thomas. “On one hand, he was affirming the government's commitment, and on the other he’s fighting tooth and nail to stop rights for the disabled.” When the case was reheard in Philadelphia on May 15, ADAPT was ready. With help from the local chapter of Disabled in Action and the Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled (CORD), protesters gathered at the federal court building. Four ADAPT members met with the U.S. Attorney, who listened to their concerns. Two days later, a protest was staged at Independence Hall. Dressed in revolutionary garb complete with wigs, three-cornered hats and fife and drum, the “Disability Rights Patriots” marched around the Liberty Bell. Court Decision On July 24, ADAPT won a significant victory as the original ruling striking down the 3 percent cap on wheelchair and paratransit lifts was upheld. On the local option issue, judges decided that the stipulation was legal. Now, it's back in the hands of DOT, for "clarification." Meanwhile, ADAPT will be working with lawyers to plan its next strategy in the legal arena, even though the courts have dodged the issue of equal rights for the disabled. Nevertheless, ADAPT is still ready for action. “We are not going to sit around and wait for the government to put a piece of legislation through,” said Wade Blank. What's next for ADAPT? The next APTA Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 23-28, 1989. “The court’s decision on local option will make our demonstrations in Atlanta bigger,” says Mike Auberger, a co-director of ADAPT. Sparks Nevada, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta. . .ADAPT marches on for rights for people with disabilities. “Someday,” says Wade Blank, “ It will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’ ” end of article Pictures of 2 graphic symbols: One is the ADAPT no-steps logo with American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit around the outside and a circle with a set of steps rising to the right and a bar across the circle and steps with the word ADAPT on it. The other is a power fist, with wheelchair warriors written below the arm. Caption reads: These symbols are part of ADAPT’s continuing fight. Says Wade Blank of ADAPT “Someday it will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’”