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Home / Albums / Tag Montreal 13
- ADAPT (429)
The Toronto Star Tuesday, October 4, 1988 Photo CP Photo: Three men (left to right - Lonnie Smith, Jerry Eubanks, and ET Ernest Taylor) in manual wheelchairs block a bus with a huge "SPECIAL" sign above the front window. About a dozen uniformed police officers stand on the sidewalk. One seems to be doing something to Lonnie's wheelchair. Inside the bus the driver is looking back talking to someone through the open door. [Headline] Protestors Wheel Into Action Three handicapped men block the path of a bus holding several other handicapped people arrested at the Sheraton Centre in Montreal on Sunday. Twenty people were sentenced to three days in jail after they blocked escalators and elevators to protest lack of access for wheelchairs. About 80 police were called in to clear the lobby. - ADAPT (427)
Title: WHEELCHAIR TRANSIT BUSTED English Cultural Tabloid, Oct 7, 1988, p. 8 by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR Montreal's handicapped community is hoping that getting arrested will succeed where letters and phone calls have failed to improve its transit service. About 50 activists were arrested after blocked traffic along Rene Levesque, disrupting the Queen Elizabeth Hotel conference, and demonstrating at the Sheraton hotel, where members of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) were staying for an annual convention from October 1-5. The local disabled population teamed up with the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in protesting against APTA policy. ADAPT has organized civil disobedience at all APTA conferences for the last five years, with last year's convention in San Francisco resulting in over 70 arrests , while a regional conference in St. Louis led to the arrest of over 40 activists. Stephanie Thomas of ADAPT says that the enmity towards the transit group dates to the late '70s when the U.S. government passed a law which decreed that all new public transit vehicles must be accessible to the handicapped, but APTA lobbying had the law overturned. Thomas, who has been active in each of the protests against APTA, refuted the organization's claim that making transit accessible is expensive and impractical: "A lift on a bus only increases its cost by about 10 per cent, which would be made up as it eases the cost on the separate transportation system for the disabled." Montreal's transit authority (MUCTC) is a member of APTA and has failed to make new buses or subway stations accessible to the disabled: A separate service for the disabled has existed since 1980. This system, according to Francois Gagnon of the Quebec Movement of Handicapped Consumers, is deteriorating. "The Quebec government has ordered that the separate service maximize its use," he says, "and since then, one complaint I received was from a man who gets picked up for work at 7 AM and is delivered to his job at 9:45 AM." Gagnon, whose organization encouraged the disabled community to take part in the protests against APTA, argues that economics and demographics prove that now is the time to make the system accessible. "By the year 2000, 25 per cent of Quebecers will be senior citizens, many of whom will be handicapped, and the longer it is delayed, the more expensive the transition will become." For many disabled, the real issue is the right to enjoy transit facilities made for the rest of society. The protests are an attempt to end the separate transit systems. Stephanie Thomas stresses that ADAPT is not demanding that existing vehicles be modified, only that new equipment should be accessible to the disabled. Thomas is encouraged by the results of the protests. 'We have been active lobbying, and nothing was ever done. But since we started protesting, it has become a major issue. Slowly, cities such as Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Syracuse, and Chicago are changing to accessible transit." Montreal may yet be able to join that list. The End - ADAPT (425)
PHOTO by Tom Olin: Two uniformed officers in rain gear hold back a man in a motorized wheelchair (Mike Auberger) wearing a poncho. Mike's knees are between the bars of the barricade and he is looking toward one policeman who appears to be doing something to the far side of Mike's chair, the side with the control box. The other policeman is loosely holding the barricade with his hand and knee. Behind them are other barricades and other police and ADAPT protesters in wheelchairs, as well as a bunch of cars. - ADAPT (424)
Photo: In a cinderblock hallway under florescent lights two lines of ADAPT folks in wheelchairs (and 2 standing people) disappear into the dark. On the right side from front to back are Paulette Patterson, Babs Johnson, Don Clubb, Frank McColm, Loretta Dufriend and others. On left side front to back are an unknown man, Jim Parker, Julie Farrar, and others. Folks are lining up to go over to the protest at the Sheraton Centre Hotel where APTA was staying. - ADAPT (421)
[This article continues in ADAPT 422 but the entire text of the article is included here for easier reading.] Title: MUC police arrest 20 on Day 2 of protests by wheelchair activists By: Susan Semenak, of The Gazette 10/4/88 Large contingents of Montreal Urban Community police were mobilized yesterday for the second day in a row to deal with wheelchair protesters who were demonstrating for better public transit facilities for handicapped people. Twenty protesters were arrested, 10 in a demonstration atop Mount Royal and 10 who chained themselves to the doors of the under-parking garage at Place Ville Marie, across the street from the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association — the protesters' target — is holding its convention. Most of the demonstrators were members of ADAPT — American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. In the demonstration on the mountain, 35 protesters tied up 100 specially trained police for about four hours yesterday afternoon. [Subheading] Refusing to clear road Ten were arrested after refusing to clear the road leading to the Mount Royal chalet, where the transit association had organized a lunch. After pleading guilty in municipal court last night to charges of mischief and obstructing police, five demonstrators paid fines of $50 while five others refused, to pay and were sent to jail for three days. A mother and her 12-year-old daughter were released after the Place Ville Marie protest. The eight other activist pleaded guilty to charges of mischief and obstructing police. All eight chose to go to jail for three days rather than pay $50 fines. [Subheading] Placed on probation All those who pleaded guilty yesterday were placed on probation until the convention ends Thursday. Judge Louis Jacques Leger barred them from the island of Montreal and from demonstrating and banned them from the mountain and from a wide downtown area around the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Police said last night that of the 48 activists arrested yesterday and Sunday, only one was a Quebecer. Protest organizer Rev. Wade Blank of Colorado told Leger. "I am personally grieved and saddened that this court has chosen to punish people who have already been greatly punished by society." Const. Normand Tremblay said the Montreal Urban Community police were out in full force yesterday to prevent the wheelchair protesters from repeating the disturbance they had caused Sunday, when they chained themselves to railings at the Sheraton Centre hotel and blocked traffic on Dorchester Blvd. for nearly two hours. Twenty-eight of the handicapped activists were arrested Sunday. After pleading guilty to mischief charges, five paid $25 fines and were released, while 23 others opted to serve three-day jail terms at Bordeaux and Tanguay jails. "We are joining our friends in jail and it's worth it," said Lillibeth Novaro, one of those arrested on the mountain yesterday, as a policeman wheeled her to a school bus hired to take the protesters to police headquarters and municipal court. "There are millions of people in wheelchairs who need to take the bus to go to work and be equal members of society," she said. Novaro ended up paying her $50 fine and didn't go to jail. 'We want equal access' "We pay taxes like everybody else and we want equal access to mass transit," said Molly Blank, who drove four days from Colorado with her husband and 18-year-old handicapped daughter to join the protest. Police blocked roads leading to the chalet and the lookout atop the mountain with barricades and patrol cars to prevent the protesters from confronting the luncheon guests. The police force's tactical squad had been tracking the demonstrators' movements since morning. Urgences Sante doctors were on hand to verify that none of the protesters had been injured during the arrests. "We know these people are here to cause problems and we are here to prevent that," Tremblay told reporters as a helicopter the MUC had rented for the day from provincial police hovered overhead. "We are allowing them to protest and express themselves, but we cannot allow them to make trouble. And we want to take all the necessary precautions to ensure that nobody is injured”. The special police team assembled to deal with the protesters took a day-long course last week to learn how to "handle" the handicapped — from identifying disabilities and deactivating wheelchairs to carrying the disabled without injuring them. Tremblay said police consulted their counterparts in six U.S. cities where the group has staged previous demonstrations. Phyllis Young, a transit official from Duluth, Minn., who attended the luncheon on Mount Royal, said the wheelchair protesters have been turning up at public transit conventions for the past five years. "This is nothing. In San Francisco they chained themselves to trolleys and ran over one policeman in their wheelchairs and gave him a concussion," Young said. "Another year they all laid down on the street and blocked traffic for a whole day." Tremblay said police could not stop the protesters from coming to Montreal because they have no criminal record — the only laws they had broken are municipal bylaws. Instead, MUC police smiled and chatted as they wheeled the protesters away. But some had donned kneepads under their uniforms in case the protesters became aggressive. Maria Barila, a Montrealer arrested on the mountain, said officials at the Office des personnes handicapes du Quebec — the government agency that oversees services to the disabled — discouraged local disabled people from turning out at the demonstrations. "Some people were told they could lose their welfare cheques," said Barila. "Others were told that things could get violent." Francois Gagnon, also of Montreal, said specialized buses for the handicapped provided by the Montreal Urban Community Transit Corp. are "a joke." He said the disabled would prefer to ride the same buses and Metros as everyone else. “They call It door-to-door service, but sometimes it takes two hours for a disabled person to get from home to work in those mini-vans they provide," said Gagnon, winding his way up the mountain in his wheelchair. Meanwhile, Murielle Lariviere-Lebret, president of the Adapted Transport Users Association, said her group morally supports ADAPT protesters demanding accessible transport for all. But her group, which speaks on transit for 18 associations of the handicapped here, would not join demonstrations or urge members to do so. Instead, it prefers to concentrate on getting more and better minibuses and taxis to serve handicapped commuters in the MUC. Over the longer term, it favors adapting the regular bus and Metro service so it is accessible to the handicapped. [Subheading] Position denounced This position was denounced by Jean-Francois Gagnon, a member of the Quebec Association of Handicapped Consumers, who said the handicapped had to become more radical to get what they want from the MUC and Quebec. But MUCTC managing director Louise Roy said the transit corporation has no intention of adapting buses or Metro stations to accommodate the handicapped. "Our intention was never to make the Metro system completely accessible she said. "We are working on improving our adapted door-to-door service, and I think that's much more realistic." Adding wheelchair-lift platforms on regular buses would cost $15,000 per bus, which Roy said is too expensive. Instead, the MUCTC will spend $16,000 on improving adapted transit services next year. "Each year our ridership on adapted transit increases by 30 per cent. Last year we served 500,000 people," she said. Service is offered through adapted mini-buses and taxis. Riders pay the same price they would to ride a bus and the rest of the cost is absorbed by the MUCTC, Roy said. - ADAPT (386)
Montreal Daily News Title: A wheelchair Army Goes to War! [This article continues in ADAPT 385 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Photo 1 by ALLAN R LEISHMAN/Montreal Daily News: In a crowd of uniformed police officers and others, two policemen stand on either side of a protester sitting on the wet ground. The protester sits, back to the camera, wearing a cap and his face and head are obscured by a white trash bag under his jacket. These two police officers are looking back beside the camera. The police barricade is just visible in front of the protester. Caption: Roundup: Police are kept busy by demonstrators last night. Photo 2 on the left and below the other photo by ALLAN R LEISHMAN/Daily News: A person in a manual wheelchair is tipped completely back by attendant and protester Jan Ingram the front wheels of the chair are hooked over a very low heavy metal barrier. Behind that barrier are standard police barricades and uniformed officers are standing behind them. One policeman is in between the standard barricades and the low barrier and he is looking at other officers and pointing at the person in the wheelchair. Caption: Protesting: One of the wheelchair demonstrators near the barricaded Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Title: 25 arrested in downtown demonstration by Ron Charles Montreal Daily News MUC police arrested 25 wheelchair-bound demonstrators last night after they forced their way into the lobby of the Sheraton Centre in downtown Montreal. The demonstrators were protesting the American Public Transit Association's (APTA) reluctance to endorse wheelchair lifts on new buses. They crashed their wheelchairs through a luggage-cart barrier hotel employees had built in an attempt to ward off the protesters. [Subheading] Came along When APTA, a Washington-based transit authority organization, brought its annual conference to Montreal this week, the protesters came along as part of the ticket. The demonstrators, from a group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), have been protesting at APTA conferences for eight years. Only a few members of a local disabled rights group took part in the demonstrations — the rest were from the U.S. Police said all those arrested — who are expected to be charged with assault — were American citizens, many of them Vietnam veterans. About 50 MUC police officers showed up to clear the Sheraton's marble-covered lobby after the protesters, singing "we want to ride," blocked elevators and escalators. Police wheeled the demonstrators one by one to a waiting wheel-chair bus being used as a paddy wagon. Police snipped chains linking protesters Mike Auberger and Bob Kafka's wheelchairs to a handrail in the lobby. Although the APTA conference is taking place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, some of the 3,000 attendees are staying at the Sheraton. Earlier in the day, police turned the Queen Elizabeth into a fortress with metal street barriers as about 75 demonstrators wheeled toward the APTA conference headquarters. They blocked traffic in both directions on Dorchester for more than two hours as police tried to pen the group in with the barriers. Police took two protesters who had crashed the barriers out of their chairs in order to lift them and their chairs over the barriers. [Subheading] Took chair "The police took his chair away, separated him from his legs," said Lori Taylor as she watched from the side-walk when police lifted her husband, Lester, over the barrier. "He can't walk, he's just sitting on the wet ground and all he wants to do is ride a bus like you and me." Bill Bolte, who started ADAPT's Los Angeles chapter, said police overreacted to the demonstration. "This really confuses me because I know that after the Canadians (hockey team) won the Stanley Cup, all types of terrible activity went on," said Bolte. "People overturned cars while everyone, including the police, just looked the other way and went and had a cup of coffee." Several demonstrators who broke through the police perimeter smashed their chairs into barriers in front of the hotel entrance, but hotel security and police stood their ground. Police arrested some 25 wheelchair demonstrators after they forced their way into the lobby of the Sheraton Centre. They were protesting the American public transit association’s reluctance to endorse wheelchair lifts on new buses. It was showdown time yesterday, as wheelchair-bound protesters took on city cops outside the Sheraton hotel on Dorchester Boulevard Some demonstrators where roughly carried and wheeled away as the melee grew ugly. The protesters were making their case for better accessibility to buses at the American Public Transit Association convention. - ADAPT (383)
The Gazette, Montreal, Monday, October 3, 1988 Final [edition] 50 cents Title: Police arrest 28 wheelchair activists after protest in hotel lobby By Michael Doyle and Catherine Buckie of the Gazette Twenty-eight wheelchair protesters were arrested and charged with mischief last night after 50 of them staged a noisy demonstration in the lobby of the Sheraton Center on Dorchester Blvd. The protesters were demonstrating against the lack of mass transit facilities for the handicapped. They sang We Shall Overcome and chanted “Access is a Civil Right!” as they blocked off elevators and escalators at the downtown hotel. Police took the wheelchair activists to the Bonsecours St. station. They were to be arraigned before a judge at 1 a.m. today. “We don’t want to hold them for nothing,” said Const. Bernard Perrier. “We want to put them before a judge as soon as possible. It will be up to the judge to decide what happens to them after that.” The demonstrators were mostly members of a U.S. group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). They are here to badger transit-authority representatives from across the continent – including officials of the Montreal Urban Community Transit Corp. – who are attending the convention of the American Public Transit Association. “We’re just trying to make their convention as inaccessible to them as public transit is for us,” group organizer Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, Colo., said earlier that day. A squad of about 80 police officers was called in to clear the hotel lobby. One protester, Bob Kafka, a 42-year-old Vietnam veteran from Austin, Texas whose neck was broken in a car accident, had chained himself to a railing in the lobby. Police cut the chain with shears. The activists decided to demonstrate at the Sheraton because a large number of delegates to the transit convention are staying there, Kafka said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we’ve been inconvenienced all our lives,” he said. Hotel general manager Alfred Heim, who used a bullhorn to read a portion of the Eviction Act to the protesters before the police moved in, said he expected some trouble because the protesters attend each transit convention. The demonstration closed the westbound lanes on Dorchester Blvd. outside the hotel for about two hours. It was the second time yesterday that the demonstrators had disrupted traffic on Dorchester Blvd. Earlier, more than 75 of the wheelchair activists blocked traffic outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, site of the convention. Police there put up barricades to contain the activists, who were eventually allowed to line up single-file on the north side of the street, away from the hotel entrance. Picture, Page A-3 The end - ADAPT (382)
The Gazette, Montreal, Monday, October 3, 1988 Photo by The Gazette's James Seeley Three adults in wheelchairs (ET, Claude Holcomb, and a blond in a motorized wheelchair) look on as a police man crouches down and tries to hold the barricades against a 7 year old (Jennifer Keelan) in a wheelchair being pushed by her mom (Cyndy Keelan). In one corner a TV cameraman captures the scene. Everyone is wearing rain gear and the streets behind them are shiny wet. [Headline] No access for wheelchairs Activist Cynthia Keelan of Scottsdale, Arizona pushing her wheelchair-bound daughter Jennifer, 7, is blocked by police barricades at demonstration outside transit convention yesterday. The demonstrators were demanding full access to public transit for the disabled. Keelan was arrested last night during a later demonstration at the Sheraton Centre. - ADAPT (394)
PHOTO (by Jean Goupil): Protesters lined up along police barricades outside a large building, in the forground two women and a man try to pass a wheelchair over the barricade, and a policeman tries to block them. To the left of this group a man in a wheelchair (Randy Horton?) looks on as Reverend Willie of Chicago talks with another officer over the barricades. Behind them are lines of other protesters and police officers on either side of the barricades. La Presse, Montreal, Lundi 3 Octobre 1988 (In French) A L'ASSAUT DU REINE ELIZABETH Photo: Jean Goupil, La Presse Une centaine de handicapes in fauteuil roulant ont tenet hier de forcer les barrages policiers a l'entree de l'hotel Reine Elizabeth, ou se tient le congres de l'Association americane des transports publics. Bilan de la journee: une trentaine d'arrestations. Les manifestants reclamalent que les autobus soient a mettre d'utiliser les transports en commun. Page A3 La Presse, Montreal, Monday, October 3, 1988 (In French) AT THE ASSAULT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH Photo: Jean Goupil, La Presse A hundred handicapped in wheelchairs yesterday tried to force the police checkpoints at the entrance of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where the congress of the American Public Transit Association is being held. Assessment of the day: some thirty arrests. Protesters claim that buses must be put to use transporting all the public. Page A3 - ADAPT (393)
The Gazette, Montreal, Saturday, October 1, 1988 - ADAPT (392)
Headline only: APTA still says no to lifts Wheelchair activists cross into Canada - ADAPT (387)
The Gazette, Montreal, Sunday, October 2, 1988 PHOTO by Allen McInnis, Gazette: A woman in a manual wheelchair (Stephanie Thomas) sits in front of a blank wall. She is loosely holding the push rims of her chair. Her left leg, closest to the camera, is broken and has a large cast on it. She is wearing a dark shirt with a button, and cotton wide legged pants with a floral pattern. Her eyes are slightly squinting and she looks determined. Caption: Wheelchair-bound Stephanie Thomas: "We try to hit conventions as forcefully as we can." Title: Transit activist expects ride to jail By LYNN MOORE, of The Gazette Stephanie Thomas of Austin, Texas, expects to see some sights most tourists don't during her stay in Montreal — like the inside of the Tanguay detention center for women. Thomas and her husband are among about 120 wheelchair-bound members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) who are prepared to go to jail in their fight for better access to North American transit systems. "We feel that degree of commitment is necessary to get our cause known and to get attention," said Thomas, who has spent 14 years in a wheelchair after a tractor accident when she was 17. The group is in town to continue its battle with the 900-member American Public Transit Association, which begins its four-day convention in Montreal today. The Montreal Urban Community Transit Corporation, a member of the association, is convention host. About 3,000 people are expected to attend. Transit executives "don't have to think of this problem at all," Thomas said, alluding to inaccessible mass-transit vehicles. "They can just ignore it. That's why we try to hit as forcefully as we can during their conventions." Civil disobedience is the name of the game for ADAPT members, and one they have played in every city where the transit association has held a meeting for the past five years. They have chained themselves to buses and buildings, blocked traffic and created major headaches for police. The group's Montreal targets are not yet known because it is keeping that information under wraps. But Montreal's Metro system, which is not wheelchair-accessible, has not gone unnoticed by the activists. Thomas, her fellow activists and several representatives of a Montreal disabled-rights group met yesterday with a lawyer who briefed them on what to expect from local police, jails and courts. The meeting was closed to the media. "Most of these people have done the letter-writing, the testifying and public hearings and things like that but it doesn't work," she said. Public confrontation gets much better results, she said. She pointed to the increase in the number of transit authorities that have bought buses equipped with mechanical lifts to replace their aging vehicles. According to APTA figures, the percentage of buses with lifts has grown to 30 per cent from 11 per cent in 1981. Once arrested and charged, ADAPT members usually plead guilty and opt for jail terms rather than fines, Thomas said. The end of article - ADAPT (599)
PHOTO: An African American woman in a motorized wheelchair sits in front of a group of other people in wheelchairs and standing. Several are wearing ADAPT no stairs logo T-shirts. The woman in front has a sign across the front of the wheelchair that says "Access Now. We will Ride." They are on a city street in an urban downtown area. Caption says: SINCE 1983, ADAPT has picketed APTA is national and regional conventions, always an unwelcome guest. Scores of demonstrators have been arrested hundreds of times as they blocked the entrances to APTA's various hotel headquarters in such cities, as Denver, Detroit, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, San Antonio, and Reno. Only once, in Denver in 1983, was ADAPT allowed to make its plea for accessible public transit before an APTA meeting, and then only after the city's mayor, Federico Pena, intervened. APTA insisted throughout the demonstrations that they weren't opposed to lifts per se, only to making the lifts mandatory on all public transit systems. APTA argued that it was a matter best decided by local transit providers.