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+ APTA - American Public Transit Association 16
ADAPT (297)
THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol. 9, No. 2, Boulder, Colorado, September 1986 PHOTO: Head and shoulders of a man (Wade Blank) with long straight hair parted in the middle, and wire-rimmed round dark glasses. He is wearing a vest over a button down shirt and undershirt and he is smiling. Caption reads: Wade Blank. Some say he wants another Kent State. Title: Rosa Parks leads Detroit protest march Famous black activist ignores plea from Coleman Young to stay out The faces and forms in the column of marchers behind her were a little different today from those she led 30 years ago, but the woman at the head of the march hasn't changed much. Rosa Parks is 74 now and slowing down a little, but she still radiates the same spirit that helped ignite the black civil rights movement in 1956 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of a Montgomery, Ala., bus. The police put her behind bars that day but within hours a local Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, ]r., orchestrated a bus boycott that was to be the first act of organized protest that would bring an end to segregation in less than 10 years. On Sunday, Oct. 5, 1986, the issue was once again segregation and public buses, but this time there were only a handful of black faces among the marchers who took to the streets of Detroit. Yet it was just as easy today as it was in 1956 to identify what made these protestors different from other people. They were in wheelchairs. Rolling under the banner of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), they had come to Detroit to picket their old nemesis, the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which was holding its annual national convention ln Detroit. APTA represents most of the nation's public transit systems and has steadfastly refused to support—or even to-vote on—a proposal to require transit systems to add wheelchair lifts to buses. The state of Michigan requires that all transit companies receiving state funds be wheelchair accessible, but the city of Detroit has avoided that requirement by refusing to accept any financial assistance. Buses in the largely white suburbs have lifts, but a wheelchair passenger who wants to continue a trip into Detroit is out of luck. Detroit mayor Colernan Young, himself a black who played a prominent role in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, does not support accessibility for disabled persons and was scheduled to address the APTA convention along with Ed Bradley, also a black and a CBS newsman and regular on "60 Minutes.” Both Young and Bradley reportedly pleaded with Parks not to participate in the march on the APTA convention, but after a late night meeting with staff and advisors, Parks said she would not renege on her commitment. As The Handicapped Coloradan " was going to press, it was reported that Young was going to ask the Detroit city council to rescind ADAPT's parade permit. An ADAPT spokesperson said he expected some 150 ADAPT members from across the country to be joined by at least another 100 protestors in making the march on the Westin Hotel Renaissance Center. "l think we're on the brink of breaking this thing wide open,” said Wade Blank of Denver, who helped form ADAPT. Blank said he was hoping Parks‘ participation would help people to understand that disabled people look upon accessibility as a civil right. APTA, on the other hand, says it's a question of practicality and finances and so should be left to the discretion of the local transit provider. Geographical conditions have to be taken into consideration because lifts are difficult to operate in snow and on curved roads; according to Albert Engeiken, APTA's deputy executive director. Blank scoffs at that position and suggests that lift technology has reached a point where they can be operated in all kinds of climatic extremes, if the transit provider is truly committed to accessibliity. Many transit systems did order lift-equipped buses in the late 1970s when the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated accessibility. APTA, which acts as a lobbying and policy-making group for some 300 separate transit districts, filed a lawsuit that eventually led to a reversal of that decision. In Denver, the Regional Transportation District (RTD) announced that it was scrapping its plans for providing mainline accessible service on the basis of that ruling and quickly found itself battling wheelchair protestors in the streets. In falling snow and freezing temperatures, protestors blocked buses and chained themselves to railings outside the RTD offices untll the courts interceded. RTD was ordered to provide some accessible service, but the board of directors continued to resist the Idea. However, ln 1983 the appointed RTD board was replaced by an elected body and quickly voted to commit Denver to accessibility. That same year, APTA brought its national convention to Denver. Disabled individuals and groups who had fought for lifts in the streets of Denver united under the ADAPT banner and, with the support of Mayor Federico Pena, threw up pickets around the convention hotel and arranged to present its demand for accessibility to the convention. No vote was taken and the issue was not brought before national conventions held ln Washington, D.C., in 1984 or in Los Angeles in 1985. ln both cities ADAPT members defied police and blocked buses. A handful were arrested in Washington and a couple of dozen in Los Angeles. ADAPT didn't limit itself to picketing just APTA’s national convention but dogged the organization across the country, sending pickets to various regional conventions, including San Antonio and Cincinnati (see related story). Buses were blocked and more demonstrators went to jail. In some cases, confrontations with local police turned ugly. That has led some disabled groups to break away from ADAPT and Blank’s leadership. Denver's Holistic Approaches to Independent Living (HAIL, Inc.) and its executive director Theresa Preda went to Detroit but refused to participate in some of ADAPT’s actions. "They told me they were afraid I wasn't going to be satisfied until there was blood in the street, until someone in a wheelchair got killed,” Blank said. “They told me I was trying for another Kent State." Blank, who founded the Atlantis Community which, like HAIL, fosters independent living, was a campus minister at Kent State University when national guardsmen fired on student demonstrators during a Vietnam war protest. Four students were killed. Blank denied that he had any such intention, but added that ADAPT has no intention of giving up civil disobedience. “It’s the most effective weapon we've got," he said. Blank said, ADAPT would probably stop buses in Detroit. "They just received 100 new buses," he said. "Without lifts, of course." Blank said he would not be surprised if protestors were to be arrested. Ironically, on the eve of the march the Wayne County jail was filled to capacity (1700) and prisoners were being turned away.
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The Cincinnati Post Thursday May 22, 1986 1B [This article continues in ADAPT 251, but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by Patrick Reddy/The Cincinnati Post: A lone man in a wheelchair (Glenn Horton) sits in front of a metal police barricade. He wears his pale ADAPT T-shirt with the ADAPT no steps logo imprinted in black on the front. He looks casual but determined, with one foot resting higher on his chair than the other, and his hands folded in his lap. Behind him is cavernous black, some kind of entrance. And around him stand four police officers dressed in dark colors, with light colored hats with eye shades. Each officer is looking determinedly in a different direction. Caption reads: Four police officers look on as Glenn Horton of El Paso, Texas, waits for a van to take him to the Hamilton County Jail after he was arrested at a protest at the Westin Hotel. Horton was among 17 disabled protesters arrested Wednesday. Title: Protesters ready for long jail stay Post staff report Comparing Cincinnati to Selma, Ala., in the 1960s, 11 members of a handicapped activist group are vowing to stay in jail to end alleged discrimination against the handicapped. Of 17 disabled protesters arrested Wednesday, 14 were charged with disorderly conduct for blocking the Westin Hotel entrance. Three were charged with criminal trespassing after chaining themselves to the front doors of Queen City Metro’s offices at 6 E. Fourth St., downtown. Scheduled court dates ranged from May 28 through June 2, so some of the protesters could be in jail for as long as 12 days. Demonstrating against lack of access to Queen City Metro buses, members of Americans Disabled tor Accessible Public Transportation have timed protests this week to coincide with an American Public Transit Association conference at the Westin. The five-day conference ended Wednesday night. “This (Cincinnati) is the Selma, Ala., of the disabled civil rights movement,” said the Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, a founder of ADAPT. “People from all over the country have been calling to say they are willing to get arrested. This has not happened in many cities.” Access Service, Queen City's alternative transit system for the elderly and handicapped, is inadequate and overloaded, ADAPT members say. “We are committed and the people who got involved in this knew it would be more than an overnight stay in jail," said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT organizer. “We will not post bond for them." The 11 jailed ADAPT members have been separated from the rest of the prison population and have a full-time employee watching over them at the Hamilton County Justice Center, said Victor Carrelli, Hamilton County chief deputy sheriff. Hamilton County Municipal Judge David Albanese held a special two-hour hearing Wednesday for the 17 under judicial orders covering mass arrests or civil disobedience cases. Those charged with crimi nal trespassing were Michael W. Auberger, 32, of Denver, Colo.; George Cooper Jr., 58, of Irving, Texas, and Robert Kafka, 40, of Austin, Texas. Albanese set bond for the three, who pleaded not guilty, at $3000 cash and "banned them from the city if they chose to post bond. They did not. Kelli Bates, 21, of Denver, the only woman arrested, was the only ADAPT member to plead no contest to a disorderly conduct charge against her. Albanese found her guilty and sentenced her to 30 days in jail if she has not left the city by Friday or enters the city before Friday. Lonnie Smith, 30, of Denver, charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, pleaded not guilty. Albanese set a $2500 10-percent bond for the resisting charge and a $1500 10-percent bond for the disorderly conduct charge. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and placed on a $1500 10 percent cash bond were Ernest Taylor, 31, of Hartford, Conn.; William Bolte, 54, of’ Los Angeles; Glenn Horton, 46, of El Paso, Texas; Joseph Carl, 47, of Denver, and James Parker, 40, of E1 Paso. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and given higher bonds because of prior records were Robert Conrad, 32, of Denver, on a $2000 10-percent cash bond and George Roberts, 37, of Denver on a $3000 10-percent cash bond. Those pleading not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct and released on a $1500 unsecured bond because of medical problems were Arthur Campbell, 39," of Louisville; Kenneth Heart, 36, of Denver; Efrain Lozazno, 35, of El Paso; George Florom, 43, of Colorado Springs, Col; and Rick James, 36, of Salt Lake City. In all cases where bond could be posted, Albanese warned the people not to return to Cincinnati except for court appearances or meetings with their attorneys. Prosecutor Charles A. Rubenstein in many of the cases protested Albanese’s decision to allow the prisoners to be released on bonds. “There is a great likelihood if they are released on bond they would create "further problems and turn this court into a revolving door,” he said. However, James Nicholas of the public defenders office, who was appointed to aid the group's privately hired legal counsel, said "the group would cause no further problems. “The reason that they came, here is finished. They have no reason to remain." After the hearings were finished, Nicholas said most members of the group had vowed to remain in jail.
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San Diego Unlon, A-3 Tuesday, October 8 PHOTO by Associated Press: A man in wheelchair (George Roberts) leans forward slightly, his mouth open as if yelling, as two police officers and another man load him onto the wheelchair lift of a van. George is wearing an ADAPT T-shirt with the no steps logo and carries a picket sign on his back. Caption reads: A wheelchair-bound activist is arrested outside a downtown Los Angeles hotel where police said he and seven others blocked entrances and stairways Sunday. [Headline] Protests continue on public transport access by disabled Associated Press LONG BEACH — Activists yesterday staged a sit-in at the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson and held a second day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles protesting a lack of access to public transportation. About a dozen protesters, many of them in wheelchairs, crowded into the suburban Long Beach office of Anderson while others remained in the hall outside, said Anderson's executive assistant, Ann Ramirez. Anderson, a Long Beach Democrat, is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Ramirez said the congressman had been scheduled to be at his office and at a speaking engagement in Los Angeles yesterday but had to cancel those plans and stay in Washington because of a heavy workload. ln Los Angeles, about 35 wheelchair-bound demonstrators protested peacefully while the American Public Transit Association held its annual conference. On Sunday, eight persons were arrested for investigation of failure to disperse and interfering with police as about 130 activists staged a demonstration. The arrests occurred after a procession of wheelchairs carried people with disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy to postpolio paralysis from MacArthur Park to the Bonaventure. "This is beautiful I am proud to be a disabled person. l am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas, as he wheeled along. Kafka, a spokesman for the American Disabled tor Accessible Public Transit — and who has a broken spinal cord - was among those arrested later. The protesters had no permit to stage the parade, but Los Angeles police refrained from arresting paraders as they said they would. “Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said. Along the parade route, motorists slowed to watch, The protesters targeted the convention because the transit association opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses, preferring to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled locally. The protesters shouted, "Access now! Access now!" as police blocked them near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area. The Southern California Rapid Transit District has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 of its 2,445 buses, a spokesman said, and is retrofitting an additional 200. The eight arrested were not all immediately identified, but police said two were Edith Harris ol Hartford, Conn, and George Florom of Colorado Springs, Colo.
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Los Angeles Times 10/7/85 [This article continues on ADAPT 227 but the entire text of the story is included here for easier reading,] 3 photos by Rick Meyer/Los Angles Times: photo 1 is of a section of the march with men and women of various ethnic backgrounds and disabilities walking, rolling and pushing others' chairs. There is a sense of energy in the group and many wear buttons and carry signs reading "Access Now", "Restore 504", and "Our Time has Come -- CAPH." Caption reads: Disabled move eastward down Wilshire Boulevard toward downtown in protest parade. Photo 2 is another picture of the march, taken from above. The crowd is loosely organized, many in the front are looking up and smiling. There are children with disabilities, people in neckties, people with headbands. In the crowd you can see Bill Bolte, Bob Kafka, Gil Casarez among many others. Some carry signs on sticks reading "APTA oppresses", as well as "Transit for All" and one about ADAPT. Caption reads: Signs are carried along Figueroa Street by disabled protesters. Photo 3 (much smaller) is of a police officer pushing a man in a manual wheelchair (Jim Parker) to the side of the street while another officer seems to be stopping a car. Caption reads: Police officer wheels disabled protester out of traffic lanes. [Headline] Disabled Stage Protest Parade; 8 Arrested Oppose Transit Group Policy Against Mandating Bus Chair Lifts By GEORGE STEIN Times Staff Writer The halt and the blind converged on a public transit conference in downtown Los Angeles Sunday, parading through streets without a city permit and blocking entrances and stairways at the conference hotel in an effort to make the point that the disabled are denied the access to transportation available to the general public. Eight activists for the disabled were arrested on charges of failing to disperse an unlawful gathering and intefering with a police officer. The arrests —“a distasteful necessity," police said -- took place in and around the Bonaventure. They came after Los Angeles police had relented to an earlier stand to make arrests if any tried to parade along Wilshire Boulevard from MacArthur Park to the conference. “Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said. During the procession, 131 wheelchairs, stretching more than a block, carried people with disabilities ranging from spina bifidia, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy to snapped spinal cords, congenital defects and postpolio paralysis. Many had the withered limbs and lack of body control that the more fortunate usually try not to stare at. But not Sunday. Motorists slowed to watch the sight. Some honked in support. “This is beautiful. I am proud to be a disabled person. I am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, as he wheeled along. Kafka, from Austin, Tex., a spokesman for the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, has a broken spinal cord. He was among those arrested later. Once inside the hotel, the group headed for the reception area in an attempt to reach delegates to the annual conference of the American Public Transit Assn. However, police kept the demonstrators bottled up near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area. "Access now! Access now!" the demonstrators shouted. The crowd, which came from a spectrum of disabled activist groups in and out of California, targeted the transit convention because the organization opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses. The American Public Transit Assn.'s position is to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled as a local decision. In Los Angeles, the Southern California Rapid Transit District, with 2,445 buses, has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 and is retrofitting another 200. The RTD hopes to have lifts on all buses in five years, which, according to a spokesman, would probably make it the first major urban bus system to be so equipped. After the demonstrators blocked hotel escalator wells for almost an hour, Wedgeworth told them their gathering was illegal. The actual arrests were an odd orchestration of defiance and cooperation. Escalator Well George Florom, a member of the disabled group from Colorado Springs, Colo., began thrashing as police tried to remove him from an escalator well. It took three officers to subdue him. “He began kicking and trying to bite me, so he had to go," Lt Ken Colby explained. One of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun, police said. Florom, lay quietly once handcuffed, and police gently placed him in his wheelchair and wheeled him to a lift-equipped van that had been arranged for the occasion. Trained medical personnel also were on hand. Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn., had earlier failed in an attempt to get arrested, tearing up American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit literature and throwing it on Figueroa Street. "Arrest me,“ she screamed to ‘no avail from her motorized wheelchair. The police only moved her to the sidewalk, and an officer went back to [unreadable] trash. Her wish was granted later, after she tried to herself down one of the blocked escalators. Then she calmed down, gratefully accepting a drink of water from a police officer, while waiting for a stretcher to arrive. Unhandcuffed, sitting upright, she was placed in the van. Her wheelchair was carefully handed in after her. Taken to Station The arrestees were taken to the Central Division station for processing. The seven men were later booked at County Jail, where bail was set at $500. Harris was booked at Sybil Brand Institute. Some police worried that the department's image would suffer from Sunday's action. “We look bad, no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. After the arrests, a spokesman said, “It must be stressed that the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly tried to meet with demonstration leaders in the attempt to provide legal alternatives to accomplish their objectives and avoid the distasteful necessity of arresting handicapped citizens.” The police were not alone in their concern. Five months before the convention, according to Mark Johnson, 34, of Westminster, Colo., an organizer for the disabled group, RTD board member Jack Day flew to Denver to try to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Negotiations foundered on an demand by the disabled group that the RTD introduce and support a proposal that the American Public Transit Assn. reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses, Johnson said. He said the disabled activists will be in town through Wednesday. The American Public Transit Assn. is a lobbying and policy organization. The five-day convention began Sunday.
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THE HANDICAPPED COLORADAN Vol. 8, No. 4, Boulder, Colorado, November 1985 [This article continues in ADAPT 115 but the story is included here in its entirety for easier reading.] PHOTO on center-right of the page and shows several people in wheelchairs (including Larry Ruiz looking away on left, as you face the bus, and George Florum on right in black ADAPT T-shirt holding a coffee and a cigarette) in front of a large bus. One person stands in front of the bus holding a scarecrow-like effigy of a person in one hand and something else in the other. A person in a white shirt is seated in the driver's seat. Another person similarly dressed is standing next to him. Above them behind the windshield is a destination type sign reading “EASY.” Caption: DEMONSTRATORS BLOCKED BUSES in Long Beach during the fourth day of the Los Angeles demonstration. One protestor (center) holds up an effigy representing the American Public Transit Association. Police arrived later and made several arrests. Demonstrators said the Long Beach police treated them properly. [Headline] Access showdown in L.A. Leads to massive arrests In a scene reminiscent of the black civil rights marches of the 1960s, some 215 people in wheelchairs rolled down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on Sunday, Oct. 7, to protest the lack of accessible mainline public transit in the United States. ' Chanting "We will ride!" and carrying inflammatory placards, the single-file column snaked its way 1.7 miles from the MacArthur Park staging area to the Bonaventure Hotel where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) was holding its national convention. Although the demonstrators had been denied a parade permit, police made no attempt to halt the march and routed traffic around the procession. However, the hands-off attitude disappeared once the column of wheelchair militants reached the hotel. As hotel security personnel blocked the only wheelchair-accessible elevator that gave access to the main lobby, several of the demonstrators pulled themselves from their wheelchairs and threw their bodies in front of the escalators, vowing to prevent anyone else from entering or leaving the hotel. The disabled demonstrators shouted "Access now! Access now!" while police deliberated their next move. Finally, after an hour, the police moved in. Eight demonstrators, including one woman, were arrested for “refusing to leave the scene of a riot," according to a police spokesperson. But they didn't go without a fight. George Florom of Colorado Springs thrashed about so hard that it took three officers to subdue him. One of the officers claimed that Florom kicked and bit him, During the scuffle, police said one of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun. Florom was removed to a specially equipped police van. He was soon joined by Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn, a veteran of other APTA demonstrations, who had been arrested during the San Antonio APTA protest. Harris had tried several times during the day to get the police to arrest her, even to the point of throwing shredded ADAPT literature in the street and demanding that police arrest her. Police merely removed her motorized chair from the street and picked up the paper, But when Harris threw herself on an escalator, the police moved in and escorted her to a waiting police van. Police and demonstrators differed as to how well the department handled the arrests. "We look bad no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. A police spokesperson said the department had medical personnel on hand and tried to provide for the special needs of those arrested. That wasn't the case, according to Wade Blank of Denver, one of the founders of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), which helped organize the Los Angeles demonstration as it has similar protests in Denver (1983), Washington, D.C. (1984), and San Antonio, Texas (1985). "The police were real nice until we got to the Bonaventure," Blank said. “But it was a real bad situation at the hotel. The cops turned into real pigs. They wouldn't let us use the hotel restroom. Some of them laughed at a lot of disabilities of the demonstrators, and a few of them pulled their clubs and threatened us with them." Blank said he learned that the officers who pulled their clubs were later given reprimands. Lou Nau, chairman of the Disability Rights Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was also critical of how the police handled the arrests. Nau said that Mike Auberger, a quadriplegic community organizer for the Atlantis Community in Denver, was not allowed to use a bathroom for eight hours, causing hyperreflexia, while others who were arrested were not allowed to take necessary medications although they repeatedly explained the danger this might cause. Four men were handcuffed behind their backs and then left for up to five hours in their chairs in police vans, according to Nau. Of the eight arrested, Harris was released that same night and five of the men by the following afternoon. The other two men were not released until Tuesday morning. Some 53 disabled protestors maintained a night-long vigil outside the county jail. The police later issued this statement: “It must be stressed that the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly tried to meet with demonstration leaders in the attempt to provide legal alternatives to accomplish their objectives and avoid the distasteful necessity of arresting handicapped citizens." To that end, Jack Day, a board member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD flew to Denver earlier in the year to [print completely faded] in an attempt to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Blank was one of those who met with Day. "We told him we wouldn't use civil disobedience if the (Southern California RTD) agreed to introduce and support a resolution at the APTA convention calling upon APTA to reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses," he said. Day said that was not possible. Meanwhile back in Los Angeles Day's other board members continued to discuss ways and means of handling the demonstrators. Ironically, Los Angeles — the city where demonstrators chose to make their point - is one of the most accessible in the country. California and Michigan are the only states that require all new public transit vehicles to be equipped with lifts. Usha Viswanathan, a spokesperson for the Southern California RTD, said that 1,891 of the district‘s 2,445 active buses were equipped with lifts and another 200 were being retrofitted. The lifts cost between $15,000 and $20,000 each. Within the next five years, the district intends to operate only lift-equipped buses, making it the first 100 percent accessible system in the country. In other parts of the country it's Up to the local transit provider to decide whether or not to offer accessible service. And that's the way it should bee, according Albert Engelken, APTA's deputy executive director. Geographical and climatic conditions have to be taken into consideration because lifts are difficult to operate in snow and on curved roads, Engelken said. In the late 1970s, the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated that all new buses be outfitted with wheelchair lifts. APTA, which acts as a lobbying and policy-making group for some 300 separate transit districts across the country, filed a lawsuit that eventually reversed that decision. Since then disabled groups have dogged APTA wherever it meets, insisting that the organization vote on a resolution calling for mandatory accessibility. That‘s why the demonstrators were in Southern California, Jim Parker of El Paso explained. Parker said ADAPT was very appreciative of the steps California was taking toward complete accessibility.” "This is a model city," he said. The demonstrators were in Los Angeles to embarrass APTA, not the local transit district, he said. That didn't stop the demonstrators from stopping buses, however. On Wednesday, Oct. 10, wheelchair demonstrators poured onto the streets of Long Beach, where they held several buses hostage. Protestors said they would release the buses if Laurance Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and the newly elected president of APTA, would meet with them. A spokesperson for Jackson said that would be impossible, as Jackson had other commitments at the convention and the protestors had come unannounced. Before the day was done, police issued 33 misdemeanor citations for failure to disperse and arrested l6 protestors, all of whom were later released on their own recognizance. Blank said that the Long Beach police acted appropriately under the circumstances. Long Beach had been the scene of another confrontation earlier that same week. On Monday, 26 wheelchair demonstrators staged a roll-in at the office of U.S Rep.Glen Anderson (D-Long Beach), who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Anderson, who had been expected in his office that day, had been detained in Washington due to a heavy work load. The congressman later issued a statement pointing out that he had consistently voted to support accessible systems. Anderson blamed the Reagan administration, not Congress, for overturning a "requirement that the handicapped be given full accessibility to public transit." Most of the demonstrators agreed with that assessment. Blank and Parker compared APTA to the Klu Klux Klan and called upon its individual members either to fire its executive board, including executive vice president Jack Gilstrap, a longtime foe of mandatory accessibility, or to pull out and form a new national transit organization. A Gilstrap aide said he had no intention of resigning. Blank said Gilstrap and the rest of the APTA membership could expect to see them again when the organization holds its next national convention in Detroit in 1986. ADAPT plans similar tactics, since Michigan, like California, has already opted for total accessibility. "It's a question of civil rights," Blank said." And it's a national issue. Wherever they go, you can expect to find us." 3 photos filling the top three-quarters of the page. Photo 1: A man (George Florum) in a manual wheelchair wearing a black no-steps ADAPT T-shirt is loaded onto a lift of some type of vehicle by three beefy police officers Caption: GEORGE FLOROM OF of Colorado Springs is arrested for blocking buses in Long Beach. Photo 2: A dark shot of a man in a white T-shirt (Chris Hronis) being pulled upward by several sets of hands. Caption: CHRIS HONIS [sic], a California ADAPT member, is arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel. Photo 3: a couple of small groups of protesters in wheelchairs and standing, are in front of one bus and beside another, while police stand nearby. Caption: ACTIVISTS hold a bus captive in Long Beach. To the left of photo 3 is an ADAPT "we will ride" logo with the wheelchair access guy and an equal sign in the big wheel.
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Denver Post, Issues, 10/6/85, no page number [Headline] Transit leaders to face protests from disabled By Jack Farrar Special to the Denver Post The American Public Transit Association will run into some political street theater when it rolls into Los Angeles today for its annual meeting. Waiting for the group will be a militant cast of handicapped individuals, including members of a Denver organization called Atlantis, who want full accessibility to the nation's public transportation system. As APTA delegates convene at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, more than 100 people in wheelchairs – members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit – will be “marching” single-file from MacArthur Park, more than a mile away, to begin a week-long series of demonstrations. They won't have a parade permit. They haven't asked for one. Through such acts of civil disobedience, the demonstrators hope to force the APTA, public officials and the news media to think about what they consider to be the most pressing issue facing the handicapped: access to public transportation. One contingent of protesters will be led by Wade Blank, a 44-year-old Denverite who cut his activist teeth in the 1960s, marching with blacks in Alabama and peaceniks in Ohio. Access 'a right'[boldface] Blank is the founder and executive director of Atlantis, one of ADAPT's most militant member organizations. “Jobs and education don't mean much,” Blank argues, “if you can't take a bus to get there. Accessibility to public transportation – moving from one place to the other – should be a right, not just a consumer service.” For the past three years, ADAPT, largely under Blank's leadership, has demanded that APTA adopt total accessibility for the handicapped as an official policy rather than as an objective. Transit association officials have responded by citing numerous improvements made in service for the handicapped – improvements that the handicapped have applauded – and contends that total accessibility is financially impractical. “We have not ignored the handicapped,” says APTA Deputy Executive Director Albert Engelken. “Accessibility is a compelling issue. But total accessibility is an enormous undertaking, and with federal dollars shrinking, our resources are limited. In any case, it is not the role of an association like ours to establish policy.” Disabled activists, however, believe the costs of accessibility are distorted by the transportation industry. Moreover, they argue, the issue is civil rights, not economics. “Public transportation is a tax-supported system,” Blank says. “The handicapped pay taxes. It's as simple as that. How would the average taxpayer feel if he was denied access to a facility he paid for?” Long regarded as a quiet minority, disabled individual recently have added a more confrontational approach to their struggle for equality, and the man frequently in the front lines of that movement is Blank, whose long blond hair and granny glasses evoke the image of the 1960s activist. He encourages the handicapped to take to the streets when they feel their demands are being taken less than seriously. Members of Atlantis have made headlines locally and nationally with their tactics in Denver – chaining themselves to seats of fast food restaurants, occupying intersections that don't accommodate wheelchairs, and blocking the entrances to buildings with architectural barriers. Rules watered down [boldface] Progress in making public transportation available to the handicapped can be traced to the Urban Mass Transit Administration's adoption of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1979. [sic] Section 504 generally made it illegal to exclude any individual, by reason of handicap, from any program receiving federal dollars. UMTA's regulations stated that all new buses purchased with federal money must include wheelchair lifts and aimed for 50 percent of peak-hour accessibility on regular bus routes. RTD standards strict [boldface] The Regional Transportation District in metropolitan Denver has adopted accessibility standards that are more stringent than required. Even after Section 504 regulations were softened in 1981, RTD's board chose to maintain its commitment to provide 50 percent peak-hour accessibility on all routes, and 100 percent off-peak accessibility. And RTD will soon become the first public transit system in the United States to introduce wheelchair lifts on its larger, regional commuter buses. Despite such advances, Blank will not be satisfied until disabled individuals throughout the United States can board and ride a bus whenever and wherever the able-bodied do the same. “We simply want APTA, as the association which speaks for the public transportation industry, to declare its intention to make the system accessible. We know it will take time. But isn't this the country that put a man on the moon?”
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Mainstream magazine, no date listed, p.9. Attachment IV [Story continues in ADAPT 211 and then ADAPT 210 but is included here in its entirety for easier reading. Story seems to be cut off at the end.] Photo bottom half of page: Image of people marching down the center of the street, some carrying signs, one with the ADAPT logo and another saying, “APTA OPPRESSES." Line snakes back out of sight alongside traffic in the back. Wheelchairs are lined up smartly presenting an impressive image. [Headline] ADAPT PUBLIC TRANSIT OR ELSE by Mike Ervin One of the largest civil rights marches in history by people with disabilities was held Sunday, October 7, 1985 in downtown Los Angeles to protest the American Public Transit Association (APTA)'s policy of local option transit for disabled. In response to an “invitation” by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) to join in picketing the annual APTA convention, national leaders of the Disability Rights Movement converged at MacArthur Park to roll the 1.7 miles to the convention site at the Bonaventure Hotel. Bill Bolte of the California Association of the Physically Handicapped (CAPH) took a head count of the line of people in wheelchairs rolling single file down the middle of Wilshire Boulevard and announced that there was 215 present. The L.A. Police Department had refused to issue a parade permit to the group and had said it would not allow the long planned parade to be held on the street, but when 200 plus wheelchair users took to the pavement (no curb cuts) all the police could do was route traffic around the procession. It was an impressive sight; more than twice the number of people ADAPT had turned out for previous demonstrations at the annual conventions of APTA. As the line of people stretched more than a block in front of the posh Bonaventure Hotel where APTA was staying, the L.A. Police waited; there wasn’t much they could do except establish their presence. The protesters marched into the hotel lobby taking up most of the available space. Chants of “We will ride!" Filled the atrium below as bewildered hotel guests wondered what all this could possibly be about. The Hotel Security immediately blocked the one wheelchair accessible elevator to the main lobby. This escalated (so to speak) the confrontation, as demonstrators got out of their wheelchairs to block the escalators, saying “if you block our access, then we will block the escalators. No one will be able to use them." Meanwhile the police discussed the strategy of arresting certain people first whom they had identified as leaders. Photo: A man, Bob Kafka, sitting awkwardly, almost falling out of his manual wheelchair, apparently handcuffed behind his back. His legs are falling under the chair, and he is surrounded by four or more police officers. Article continues: Eight people, one woman and seven men, were arrested and booked without charges. The police told the media that the charge was “refusing to leave the scene of a riot.” The woman arrestee was released Sunday night, five of the men were released the following afternoon, and the last two men were released Tuesday morning after 53 disabled individuals held an all night vigil outside the county jail. On Tuesday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), represented by Lou Nau, the chairman of the Disability Rights Committee of the ACLU, outlined the treatment that the arrestees faced. Four of the men were handcuffed behind their backs and left to sit in the police vehicles for up to five hours. Mike Auburger, a quadriplegic, was not allowed to use the bathroom for eight hours, causing hyperreflexia. Individuals on sustaining medication repeatedly asked for their medication, but never received it. Nau said to permit no bail for misdemeanor offenses is clearly against the law. Although APTA tried to discredit the protestors as a “small militant group of outsiders," they represented a wide spectrum of the Disability Rights Movement including Robert Funk, Executive Director of the Disability Rights and Education Defense Fund; Michael Winter, Director of the Center for Independent Living, Berkeley, CA; Judy Heumann, of the World Institute on Disability; Joe Zenzola, President, California Association of the Physically Handicapped; Peg Nosek, of Independent Living Research Utilization Project, Houston, TX; Catherine Johns, President of The Association on Handicapped Student Service Programs in Post-Secondary Education; John Chapples, Department of Rehabilitation, Boston, MA; Mark Johnson, Department of Rehabilitation, Denver, CO; Marco Bristo, Director, Access Living, Chicago, IL; Harlan Hahn, Professor, University of Southern California; and Don Galloway, D.C. Center for Independent Living. The following days saw many more protests in the Los Angeles area. On Wednesday, about 50 individuals arrived at the office of Larry Jackson, Director of the Long Beach Transit Authority, who is the incoming President of APTA. After being denied a meeting with him, they went out into the streets. The police gave them l0 minutes to disburse or be arrested. When no one moved, the police proceeded to arrest the protestors and take them to jail in 6 dial-a-ride vans. These individuals were booked and then released, as it was not possible for the Long Beach Police Department to accommodate so many disabled people. The passers-by had many different reactions to what they were experiencing; some were mad at being detained, some joined in. One man gave protestors a banner which read “help” and proceeded to distribute little American.... [rest of the article is not available.] Three photos. Photo 1: At the bottom of an escalator a mass of people in wheelchairs gathered together, Julie Farrar in the center, holding a picket sign: “APTA DESTROYED 504”. Photo 2: A man, Chris Hronis, lying on his side on the floor, handcuffed behind his back, surrounded by four or more police standing over him. Photo 3: Through the window of a van you see two man, Chris Hronis in back and Bob Kafka in front of him, sitting in wheelchairs. Both are handcuffed behind their backs.
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[Headline] Protest by disabled clogs downtown L.B. PRESS-TELEGRAM (AM/PM)/THURSDAY, Oct. 10, 1985, p. A10 FROM/A1 batch of arrests in the 200 block of Pine. At that point, protest leader Rev. Wade Blank, of Denver, told police there would be no further disruptions. Blank thanked the police for the way the department had handled the demonstration and said the remaining protesters were tired and hungry. During the afternoon, police Lt. Norm Benson conferred at length with protest leaders, pointing out that, despite whatever police sympathies there might be for the cause, the event took patrolmen off their rounds and posed an impediment to emergency vehicles. Benson even made a call to the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where the American Public Transit Association is holding a convention, in an attempt to reach Laurence Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and new president of the APTA, to urge him to speak by phone with an ADAPT spokesperson. Guy Heston, the bus company’s director of marketing, interviewed at the scene of the bus tie-ups, said the request to talk with Jackson was untenable because "they came unannounced, and, as you know, he has commitments at the convention." An ADAPT spokesman, Jim Parker of El Paso, told a reporter as he was being steered toward a Dial-a-Lift van for the trip to the Long Beach jail, "This is probably going to be the largest mass arrest of disabled people in the history of this country." He stressed that the targets of Wednesday's demonstration and one Monday in the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Long Beach, were the APTA, which closes its four-day convention today in Los Angeles, and Anderson, as chairman of the House subcommittee on surface transportation. "One very important thing for the people of Long Beach, Los Angeles County and California to understand," Parker said, "is that this is not aimed at them, because California and cities like Long Beach and Los Angeles are really models for the country to look at. "Most of the buses have lifts on them, and all new buses purchased will have lifts. "I guess, for the first time, disabled people have come to the city where the president of APTA resides . . . to help pull the federal government back into the issue again, along with APTA." ADAPT asserts that it was a legal action by APTA, followed by an administrative order in early months of the first Reagan administration, that killed a law mandating phased in accessibility for the disabled to public transit across the country. The order left the decision up to local option. Jackson could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Long Beach Transit Assistant General Manager Patrick Butters said that nine of 18 fixed routes in Long Beach are wheelchair accessible, while 85 percent of all the company's public buses in the city are equipped with wheelchair lifts. "On an ongoing basis we’ve been increasing that" percentage, said Butters. A committee on the handicapped advises Long Beach Transit on which bus routes to offer lift service on, said Butters. "We’ve tried to hit the routes that are most heavily traveled," he said. An average of 12 to 14 persons a day who are confined to wheelchairs ride on fixed Long Beach Transit routes, said Butters. In addition to regular bus service, Dial-a-Lift service is available in Long Beach, Lakewood and Signal Hill, he added. At the height of the protest, Frank Lozano and Martin Walton took a stand in front of an RTD bus that had eight Long Beach Transit buses backed up behind it at Pine and Broadway. The passengers of those idled buses, workers and schoolchildren heading for home, were not happy with the delay. "Hey, I just want to go home; take a shower, eat some supper and watch the ball game," said one man. But Lozano, who is blind, and Walton, confined to a wheelchair, held their ground. "No, it doesn't surprise me,” Lozano said of the anger from the riders. "I realize that there are many people who are unaware of the issues." California is one of two states – Michigan is the other — that mandate that all new public transit buses be equipped with wheelchair lifts. The demonstrators said they were aware of this but believe that Jackson and APTA can pressure the other 48 states into enacting similar legislation. Press-Telegram staff writer Don Currie contributed to this article. Photo located on top middle of the page. Woman in an electric wheelchair wearing ADAPT stickers raises her hand in a power fist and yells. Meanwhile two informed officers load her onto a lift equipped paratransit van. The driver of the van stands in the doorway waiting. A person in a wheelchair watches from the side. Photo credit: Michael Rondou/Press-Telegram Caption: Protester is lifted onto a Dial-a-Lift van, which has the access she wants on buses, after her arrest on Long Beach Boulevard.
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The San Diego Union March 2, 1986, page A3 The West [section of newspaper] Drawing of Mr Louv's head: White, youngish, short dark hair parted on side and glasses. [Headline] Transportation news for handicapped ‘a nightmare’ By Richard Louv The WHEELCHAIRS are rolling. On Jan. 16, in Dallas, handicapped demonstrators decrying "taxation without transportation," chained themselves to public buses, forcing traffic detours for nearly six hours. In downtown Los Angeles, last Oct 7, more than 200 people in wheelchairs rolled down the middle of Wilshire Boulevard to protest the policies of the American Public Transit Association. In San Antonio last April, 60 handicapped people staged a four-hour protest at the city's public transit offices, causing 90 nervous bus company employees to lock themselves in their offices for an hour until the transit association agreed to meet the demonstrators. And on Feb. 13, Houston police arrested eight demonstrators in wheelchairs and carted them off to jail in lift-equipped police vans. Their sentencing is tomorrow. and a representative of the Denver-based American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit told me that if the protesters “spend weeks in jail, it will be like when Martin Luther King went to jail in Birmingham. People will realize we're not just out playing in the street" What's going on here? The disabled~rights movement isn't new, of course. It began in Berkeley in the late 60s, and ultimately resulted in a government shift from segregating handicapped people to "mainstreaming" them into the rest of society. According to Cyndi Jones, publisher of San Diego-based Mainstream, a national magazine for the “able-disabled," some of the first generation leaders "got co-opted by government jobs, and frustration for the rest of us has been growing." A raft of laws were passed during the 1970s, but the laws. says Jones. still haven't been fully implemented. “The Rehabilitation Act promised disabled people equal access to public transportation facilities and education and employment. In education. the news has been good, but transportation is a nightmare." IN 1981, CONTENDING THAT putting lifts on buses was an unrealistic expense, the American Public Transit Association sued the federal government and won. Most cities stopped deploying the mechanical lifts that enable people using wheelchairs, walkers and crutches to board buses. The favored transportation method, at least among municipal officials, became small, subsidized "dial-a-ride" vans. "That's like putting us back in segregated schools," says Jones. The disability groups have a number of other complaints, some of them affecting many more people — lack of housing, attended care, airplane facilities. But what it has come down to is the symbol of lifts. While some disabled people are satisfied with the dial-a-ride approach, Jones says "taking a van service can cost you $60 to get to work and back. You have to call and reserve a ride — sometimes days in advance, and these services can't always guarantee a specific arrival time or even take you home. As a result, a lot of us can't afford to work, or we just stay home." California still requires lifts on all new buses, but Jones contends that the transit companies can develop some creative delaying tactics. Roger Snoble, the San Diego Transit Corp.'s general manager, agrees with her. "Some cities," he says, "don't care whether the lifts work once they put them on. They just let them go, and then say the lifts don't work." Jones, by the way, gives relatively high marks to San Diego's bus system; not so to the trolley. which she calls “miserable for handicapped people." As she sees it, a new generation of leaders in the disabled~rights movement is just now coming of age. They have some powerful opponents —— with some powerful statistics. Jim Mills, chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board, has pointed out that in Los Angeles the average cost per ride of the various dial-a-ride systems “is $6.22, while the costs associated with a one-way trip on a bus for a person in a wheelchair is $300." And in a recent interview, Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm told me, "I think it is a myopic use of capital to try to put a lift on every bus in America. It costs the St. Louis bus system $700 per ride to maintain lifts." But Roger Snoble says it costs San Diego far less — $166 per ride (as of a year ago, "the last time we checked, and we expect the cost to continue to decline because of dramatically improving technology." And when I mentioned Lamm's figures to Dennis Cannon, the chief federal watchdog for the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Transit Compliance Board, he said, “Lamm's figures are at least six or seven years old, and wrong. These same figures get used a lot by lift opponents, but they're based on one of the very first generations of lifts, which were poorly administered and poorly installed by St. Louis during one the worst winters in Missouri history." He points out that Seattle, with one of the best bus systems in the nation, has managed to get the per-ride costs down to $5 or $10, depending on the amount of ridership. And Denver has decreased its lift failures from 25 a day to five within the last year. WITH ADVANCES LIKE this, combined with the increasing demands from disabled groups, a number of cities have decided that the lifts make economic sense — maybe not in this decade, but soon. "What's about to hit is a wave of people who expect to have equal access, the children of the mainstreaming movement," says Jones. During the past decade, government and society encouraged disabled people to work independently, and now that generation will be at bus stops and trolley stations all over the country, waiting to go to work. With them will be aging baby boomers, a giant crop of potentially disabled seniors. "Only one~third of the disabled population is employed. but two-thirds of disabled people are not receiving any kind of benefits," says Andrea Farbman, a spokeswoman for the National Council on the Handicapped. “Still. we're spending huge amounts of money keeping people unemployed — $60 billion dollars a year, but only $2 billion going to rehabilitation and special education." One rough estimate, says Farbman, is that 200,000 handicapped people would enter the work force if the travel barriers were eliminated. adding as much as $1 billion in annual earnings to the economy. The tragedy is this: While politicians wrangle over the costs of bus lifts, nobody has studied how much money could be saved in government benefits, and how much could be gained through taxes and added national productivity if more handicapped Americans were employed.
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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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The San Diego Union, Sunday, February 10, 1985, B-4 PHOTO by United Press International/Paul Richards: 11 people in wheelchairs sit facing away from the camera, beside a Trailways bus. The group includes Bob Conrad who is closest the bus door, and Beverly Furnice who is closest to the camera. They are looking at Wade Blank, who stands beside the bus and it looks like Mike Auberger is addressing the group. Caption reads: A dozen members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation block departure of this Trailways bus after a member was refused a ticket. [Headline] Wheelchair-bound stop Trailways bus By Ric Bucher, Staff Writer Claude Holcomb tried to take a 4:15 pm. Trailways bus from the depot on State and C streets to Los Angeles yesterday, but he was not allowed to buy a ticket. There were only two passengers aboard, but Holcomb is confined to a wheelchair. Trailways buses are not accessible to people in wheelchairs. “I have a friend in L.A.,” Holcomb spelled out on a homemade message board he uses to communicate. “I have to fly from L.A. to Hartford, Conn., tomorrow.” Holcomb lives in Hartford. Shortly before the bus was due to depart, Holcomb, 24, along with 11 other members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), hemmed the bus in with their wheelchairs and refused to move. Police officers arrived at 4:35 p.m. and told the group that they were breaking the law by obstructing traffic and trespassing. The ADAPT members will appear at the American Public Transportation Association's (APTA) meeting this morning. They have been granted 30 minutes to air their plea for both wheelchair-accessible transit buses on both local and interstate lines. Twenty of 29 San Diego Transit bus routes have wheelchair access, but no such equipment is in use on intercity or interstate public buses. Joe Carle, an ADAPT community organizer in Denver, parked his wheelchair in front of the bus and tilted back his black felt cowboy hat. “This may seem like it’s drastic,” he said, “but it’s the only way to open people’s eyes. ... What good is it if a person has to stay in a one-block area?” Similar demonstrations were held recently in Denver and Washington, D.C., in conjunction with scheduled APTA meetings. Carle said the attitude toward the disabled seems to be “we'll do everything we can to keep you alive, but we don’t want you around.” He said ADAPT was specifically focusing on Trailways and Greyhound Bus Lines because they are owned by companies who manufacture their own buses, yet refuse to construct them to accommodate wheelchairs. The bus driver and two passengers, Michael Calloway, 23, and Claude Williams, 26, got off the bus and waited inside the depot. “I think they (the disabled) have the right to board the bus,” Calloway said. Williams nodded his head in agreement. “It throws us off schedule, but I’d like to see something done about it (bus access for the disabled). I don’t think it’s right for them to (delay the bus) but I understand. Sometimes it takes a little push and shove to get things done." Able-bodied Wade Blank organized the group's meeting at the bus station. Blank is one of the six founders of ADAPT. Two years ago, he adopted Heather, a 14-year-old girl confined to a wheelchair, and married her mother. He described the attitude toward the disabled as “just another ‘ism’ — paternalism. It's just like racism and sexism.” After police told the group they were breaking the law, Mike Auberger, spokesman for the wheelchair group, asked to speak with the manager of the terminal, Fred Kroner, who was summoned from his home in Chula Vista. Kroner spoke with Auberger and his group at the door of the bus. He was asked to set up a meeting in Denver with Trailways’ national representatives. “For what?” Kroner asked “To talk about making these buses accessible," said Auberger. Fifteen minutes later, Kroner said he could reach no one, and gave Auberger the phone number of Roger Rydell, vice president in charge of public relations at Trailways’ Dallas headquarters. The group let the bus leave. “I won't be satisfied until these buses are accessible,” Auberger said, “but this is the first step in the process.”
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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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Los Angeles Times 4/10/85 PHOTO by Vince Compagnone, Los Angeles Times: A Trailways bus sits surrounded by half a dozen or more people in wheelchairs. One man in a manual chair with a golf style cap sits alone at the back left corner of the bus. One the right side of the bus, closest to the camera are three other people in manual chairs. They appear to be talking with Bob Conrad and a few others up at the front right side of the bus, by the entrance. Renata Conrad is in the white coat. On the back of the bus is a sign that reads "Got a Group? Charter this Bus. 1-800-527-1566." Caption reads: Handicapped people surround a Trailways bus Saturday, delaying its departure by two hours. [Headline] Disabled People Block Bus at Terminal by Kathleen H. Cooley, Times Staff Writer About 20 disabled people blocked a Trailways bus for more than two hours Saturday at the downtown terminal until the terminal manager agreed to ask a company executive to meet with the disabled group concerning difficulties wheelchair-bound people have with bus travel. The group which represents American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), was in town to meet with members of the American Public Transit Assn. today. Representatives of ADAPT said they want a legislation requiring all new buses operated by private companies such as Greyhound and Trailways to be equipped with wider doors, lifts and ramps. Most public transportation operators, including San Diego Transit, provide wheelchair lifts on at least some buses. ADAPT member Claude Holcom bought a ticket to Los Angeles, but when Trailways' personnel told him they would have to fold his wheelchair and carry him to his seat, Holcom declined to board the bus. "We don't think a person should have to be carried aboard a bus," said Wade Blank, one of the protest's organizers. “It's very dehumanizing. They’re taking away their legs." Blank and fellow ADAPT member Mike Auberger said the group is trying to draw attention to the frustrations of traveling by bus and being in a wheelchair. Although both Trailways and Greyhound buses are not equipped to handle wheelchairs, Blank said ADAPT met with Greyhound officials last week to discuss the possibility of fitting new buses with lifts. “This is a symbolic protest, just like the civil rights protests of the '60s, but we have the right to travel the same as anybody else," Blank said. "The wheelchair is like somebody's legs." The Los Angeles bus, with its two passengers, was scheduled to leave the C Street station at 4:15 p.m., but by the time terminal manager Fred Kroner arrived and negotiated with the ADAPT members, it was nearly 7 o'clock before it departed. The two passengers appeared surprised and baffled by the protest and by queries from members of the news media. One man opted to go to the Greyhound terminal two blocks away and catch another bus rather than wait out the protest. The other passenger, Mich Galloway, 23, said he was sympathetic to the group wanting equal access to buses and waited patiently until the protesters dispersed. “I see where they are coming from." Galloway said. "I hope something is done about it." After several phone calls to the Trailways corporate offices in Dallas proved fruitless. the ADAPT members agreed to accept from Koner the name, address and phone number of the company‘s public relations officer. who they intend to call Monday. "l really can't do anything about the situation. l'm just this terminal's manager." Koner said.
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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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[Headline] Disabled Advocates Are Rolling on Washington D.C. For the second year in a row wheelchair pickets will surround the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA). Some 150 to 200 wheelchair demonstrators are expected to join the picket lines, although that number could increase dramatically by the time the four day long convention opens Sept. 30 in Washington, D.C., according to a spokesperson for the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT). But, unlike the convention held in Denver last year, ADAPT will not be allowed to argue the case for accessibility on the convention floor. “Gilstrap (APTA executive vice president Jack Gilstrap) told us there was no way we were going to speak this year,” Wade Blank said. Nor does Blank expect APTA to vote on a resolution introduced at the 1983 convention calling upon APTA members to purchase only lift-equipped buses. When the Carter administration mandated accessibility in the late 1970s, it was APTA that successfully fought those regulations in court, arguing that it was a judgment best left to the discretion of the local transit provider. Some cities, like Seattle and San Jose, California, and-to a lesser extent-Denver, chose to make their systems accessible, but the vast majority refused, claiming the lifts were impractical and too expensive. However, accessibility advocates say that the technology is available to design both economical and reliable lifts, but that bus manufacturers will not use it as long as there is little demand for lifts from transit providers. APTA argues that in many, if not most cases paratransit systems can offer better and more economical services to disabled riders. ADAPT maintains that isn't so, arguing that cities such as Seattle are experiencing a steady drop in the per ride cost for lift-assisted trips while paratransit costs are constant, regardless of the number of trips. At the Denver convention, APTA's position was championed by Colorado Governor Richard Lamm, who told the delegates that the country couldn't afford to equip all its buses with lifts and continue as a great nation. New York City Mayor Ed Koch is expected to take a similar tack at this year's convention. In 1983, Denver Mayor Federico Pena, who was instrumental in getting ADAPT a place on the convention agenda, supported accessibility, just as this year's host mayor, Marion Berry, is expected to do. Access/Denver will send 43 wheelchair demonstrators to Washington, although at press time they were short $4,400 of the $15,000 needed to provide them with transportation, food and lodging. Among the individuals contributing to the fund drive was Wellington Webb, an unsuccessful 1983 candidate for mayor of Denver. In addition, Denver's HAIL, Inc., will be sending five representatives. Several other cities, including Dallas, El Paso, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Little Rock, Arkansas, Poughkeepsie, New York, and Chicago have confirmed that they will have representatives on the picket line. Boston's Disabled Liberation Front announced that it was sending eight pickets. ADAPT intends to provide a training session in confrontational politics in Washington on September 26. Ironically, one problem that demonstrators flying into Washington's Dulles International Airport will face is a lack of accessible buses between the airport and downtown Washington. "We were going to file a complaint," Blank said, "but it turns out that the Department of Transportation runs the bus system there and they say that they are the administrators, not the recipients, of federal funds, and therefor are not required to provide accessible service."