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Home / Album / Tags wheelchair lifts
+ Board Meeting + LA Kimball 3
ADAPT (109)
The Denver Post Friday, Dec. 18, 1981 [Headline] Handicapped Will Protest RTD Wheelchair-Lift Ban By George Lane Denver Urban Affairs Writer The board of directors of the Regional Transportation District Thursday made it official – there will be no wheelchair lifts on 89 high-capacity buses expected to be delivered in 1983. The board actually decided a month ago there would be no lifts on the new buses, but they have been hedging on finalizing that action because of objections voiced by the area’s disabled community. Following the vote on the lifts, Wade Blank, co-administrator for the Atlantis Community for the disabled and organizer of the protest against the RTD action, told the transit directors that members of the handicapped community view the action as a violation of their human rights and they will respond to that violation Jan. 4. Blank later said members of the disabled community will be in “training for civil disobedience” between now and Jan. 4. He said beginning Jan. 4, 10 disabled persons in wheelchairs will stage a sit-in in the office of L.A. “Kim” Kimball, RTD’s executive director and general manager. “Everyday during the month of January, 10 disabled people will be occupying Kimball’s office,” Blank said. They won’t have any able-bodied people with them – and if they’re arrested they will be replaced by 10 more. At the conclusion of the board meeting, Kimball told the directors that the RTD staff will take steps to try to prevent this action, but he doesn’t think it proper to discuss those steps at this time. The RTD board during its Nov. 19 meeting voted to save more than a million dollars by not ordering the lifts on the new buses. The RTD staff recommended this action because they said the lifts are expensive (more than $12,000 per bus) and difficult to maintain. The staff proposal was to use the articulated buses on high ridership bus routes, freeing regular buses with wheelchair lifts to provide better service for the handicapped. A delegation from the handicapped community objected to this proposal, with arguments that RTD officials had promised several years ago that 50 percent of the district’s bus fleet would be made accessible to wheelchair-bound riders and all new buses would be ordered with lifts. About 25 disabled persons from Atlantis staged a wheelchair-bound sit-in following the November meeting until Kimball and three board members promised to attempt to get the entire board to reconsider the action. Thursday’s vote was the outcome of that promise.
ADAPT (94)
Rocky Mountain News Wed., Dec. 9,1981, Denver, Colo. [Headline] Handicapped set back in battle for lifts on buses The Operations Committee of the Regional Transportation District’s board of directors voted 4-0 Tuesday to stick by an earlier proposal that RTD buy 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983 without wheelchair lifts. Its action seriously diminishes the chances that the board will reverse its decision of Nov. 19 to delete the lifts from the articulated buses. But RTD Executive Director L.A. Kimball and three board members agreed to ask the board to reconsider the action after members of the Atlantis Community for the disabled staged a sit-in at RTD headquarters on the day of the earlier vote to protest the decision. The board held a three-hour special meeting on Dec. 1 to hear appeals from the handicapped to put wheelchair lifts on the buses. Atlantis spokesman Wade Blank said members of his organization have been discussing the issue with individual board members and plan to meet with Kimball next week. Blank said he expects to fall short of the 11 votes needed for the board to reverse its position when the issue comes up at the board’s regular meeting on Dec. 17. Blank renewed Atlantis’ threat to file a lawsuit challenging the decision not to buy the lifts and said Atlantis will resume demonstrating against RTD. Atlantis filed a lawsuit in federal court and staged a series of demonstrations aimed at RTD a few years ago after RTD bought nearly 200 AM General buses without wheelchair lifts. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled against Atlantis in that case, but the case was on appeal when Atlantis and RTD in 1979 negotiated a settlement under which RTD agreed to make half of its peak-hour fleet accessible to the handicapped. The settlement was reached after the federal Department of Transportation issued regulations requiring that all new buses bought with federal funds be equipped with wheelchair lifts and that half of all buses used for peak-hour service be accessible to the handicapped. Those regulations were rescinded by the department in July. RTD officials ordered the articulated buses with lifts in March, while the regulations requiring lifts on new buses were still in effect. Buying the buses without lifts will save $1.1 million, 80 percent of RTD’s federal funds, RTD officials said.
ADAPT (101)
RTD bobbles budget, buys rejected lifts By: Burt Hubbard News Staff The Regional Transportation District board of directors rejected to move to equip its new buses with wheelchair lifts but unknowingly included $1.2 million in its budget to buy them. The revelation came one day after the RTD board approved a $185.8 million budget that includes $21.4 million to buy 89 articulated buses for 1983. But the buses will cost the district only $20.2 million. The remaining $1.2 million is slated for wheelchair lifts that won’t be put on the buses. RTD Executive Director L.A Kimball has said that handicap ridership on the more than 300 buses that now have lifts do not justify the cost for the new buses. “WE HAVE CARRIED as many as 50 (handicapped) individuals on any particular day using 331 vehicles,” he told the board Thursday. RTD board member Charlotte Houston said Friday she didn’t realize that fact when she made a motion Thursday to add $1.3 million to the 1983 budget to outfit all 89 buses with lifts. The board defeated the motion 10-5. Those voting against the lifts said current low-frequency ridership by handicapped people doesn’t justify equipping more buses and cited increased maintenance costs of the lifts. Asked about the snafu, Houston said, “I guess I should have known.” Nor did RTD board member Tom Bastien know the lift money had been kept in the budget when he moved to equip half of the new buses with lifts. The board rejected the move 8-6. “THAT’S INTERESTING,” said Bastien Friday. “Why didn’t the (RTD) staff tell us?” Even Kimball said he wasn’t aware that the lift money was still in the budget. Kimball blamed the error on a staff member who, he said, apparently had failed to delete the money for the lifts from the budget. The confusion dates back to July 1981 when the district signed a contract with M.A.N. Truck and Bus Corp. to buy the 89 buses for $21.4 million with the lifts included. The buses were to be delivered between June and September 1983. But in December 1981, the RTD board voted to take the lifts off the buses and reduce the total price by $1.2 million. The 1983 budget, however, failed to reflect the reduced price. Kimball said the omission won’t alter the budget. “THERE’S NO NEED to change it,” he said. “We won’t spend it.” About 80 percent of the cost of the lifts would have been paid by a federal grant. And Houston and Bastien said the fact that they wouldn’t have had to increase the budget to get the lifts didn’t affect the vote. “I don’t think it would have made much difference,” said Houston. “We needed 11 votes to pass it.” The votes on the lifts came after about a dozen people, including several politicians, urged the board to make the buses accessible to the handicapped. The handicapped community has vowed to try again for the lifts after a newly elected RTD board takes office in January to replace the appointed 21-member board.