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Rocky Mountain News - Saturday June 7, 1975 continued from page 55 [we don't have first part of this article] 2 PHOTOS by Bill Perry: Top photo of someone sitting in a wheelchair by a window. There is a TV set and other furniture, and in the foreground, the wheel of another wheelchair. Bottom photo of what appears to be the same room, with two people in wheelchairs facing one another, talking. Caption reads: Kathy Vincent talks with Glenn Kopp, one of two executive directors of the Atlantis project, in one of remodeled apartments. [Headline] Atlantis offered for handicapped SAID GLENN KOPP, one of two executive directors of the project, and himself confined to a wheelchair: “You have to be in a wheelchair to realize the specific needs of the handicapped.” Under the direction of those who will live at Atlantis, doorways were widened, entrance and exit ramps installed, ovens and stoves made more accessible, disposal units moved down and doorsills made flush with flooring, among other things. "We want to push people out a bit on their own," said Kopp. “So far as we know, this is the first project of its type in the United States. The entire project, too, is financially feasible for its handicapped residents. Most receive state grants of $155 a month for living expenses, and can apply for and receive another $217 per month to pay for needed attendants. WHILE NOT a great deal of money, the combined dollars from two young adults sharing an apartment make the plan workable. And plans now call for many more apartments to be converted. Some $82,500 in pre-planning money already is available, and co-executive director Wade Blank estimates some $4 to $5 million will be spent ultimately for the total project. Daily medical support services already have been arranged through the combined efforts of a 24—hour-a-day staff of attendants and the Denver General Hospital staff of doctors and nurses working out of the West Side Health Clinic at 10th Avenue and Federal Boulevard. Assistance in personal care, housekeeping and food preparation also will be available on a 24-hour basis. Mobility, too, is assured both by an RTD bus stop directly across from the project and by an RTD bus stop directly across from the project and by a large utilitarian van owned by Atlantis. IN CASE OF any emergencies, a 24-hour hotline will be in operation, capable of both receiving and transmitting, with each unit connected directly to a central office on the premises. Residents, of course, are required to pay rent for their apartments, but, as Kopp notes: "We are now getting some people out of some difficult living conditions." And, when the project was first announced, Ingo Antonitsch, director of the Denver Commission of the Disabled and chairman of the seven member board created to help administer the project, said: “We want to prove that even the severely disabled, when given a little moral support, can become self-sufficient and integrate with the community at large."
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The Selma of handicapped rights By Melanie Tem One recent Sunday morning, Kathy Vincent, a 41-year-old Denver woman with cerebral palsy, decided to go to church. She left her apartment, which she had just moved into after spending years in a nursing home, and propelled herself to a No.15 bus stop downtown. She saw "what looked like a wheelchair bus" approaching, and prepared to board it via the hydraulic lift. Instead, the driver told her the lift had been disconnected and, "this isn't a wheelchair bus anymore." The next wheelchair-accessible bus would arrive, he told her, in 30 minutes. "By that time," Vincent later recalled, "church would have been over." That incident has made Vincent a sympathizer with the more militant of Denver's disabled community - led principally by the Atlantis Community and HAIL(Holistic Approaches to Independent Living) - who are demanding that Regional Transportation District dramatically increase the number of wheelchair-accessible buses in its system. Specifically, they want the 89 new "articulated" buses on order to be equipped with wheelchair lifts, and have filed a lawsuit to force the issue. Articulated buses aren't suitable for conversion to wheelchair accessibility, according to RTD spokesman Kathy Joyce. Since they can carry more passengers and travel at higher speeds - their articulated (bendable) design allows them to take corners faster - they are intended for use on heavily traveled express routes. Joyce estimates it takes 5 to 7 minutes to load a passenger in a wheelchair, and another 5 to 7 minutes for unloading - delays which RTD considers unacceptable in a high-speed, efficient transportation system. FOR STEVE SAUNDERS, the issues go beyond personal convenience and articulated buses. Saunders, 31, also has cerebral palsy. He lives alone in a Capitol Hill apartment and works at HAIL. Saunders, along with other demonstrators assembled in RTD offices a few months ago, protested the board's decision to order the articulated buses without wheelchair lifts. Demonstrators blocked stairways and chained themselves to doors, to dramatize their point they said. Saunders was the only demonstrator to accept a summons from the police, an action which guaranteed a day in court. Last month he got his day, but had little opportunity to express his views, as the charges against him were dismissed. But, he said later he views the conflict as “a clear human rights issue. What we're demanding is equal access to public transportation, just like everybody else." Many bus drivers and able-bodied passengers seem skeptical about this view of the situation. While all sides in the dispute agree that so far public reaction to the wheelchair-accessible buses has been positive, there seems to be some sentiment now that the activists have gone too far. Several drivers put it this way: "They keep saying they want to be treated like ordinary people, when the fact is they're not ordinary people and they'd better accept that." Attitudes like that are, said Wade Blank of the Atlantis Community, disturbingly reminiscent of earlier civil rights struggles. He calls Denver, "the Seima of the handicapped rights movement." Similar battles have been or are being waged in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and other cities across the country by the handicapped. The 90 percent accessible transportation in Seattle is lauded as proof of what can be done. Blank, who is able-bodied, thinks of himself as a "liberator," and contends the issue of full accessible public transportation is critical as disabled people across the nation organize and develop their power. RTD's Joyce, whose younger sister Heannie is disabled and a member of Atlantis, seems to echo this perspective when she says, "We feel that all this has less to do with RTD’s commitment to accessibility, which goes back a long way and hasn't changed, and less to do with articulated buses than with politics and economics." As corporations bring new money into Denver, she says, Atlantis and HAIL are moving to ensure that disabled citizens will be taken seriously. "They're making a statement," she says. "We understand that. But we can't allow it to change what we do." RTD, she says, is committed to making half of its entire system wheelchair-accessible by July of this year. ANOTHER POLITICAL FACTOR is RTD's first board election, to be held in November. Members of the disabled community are interviewing candidates to determine their willingness to support issues of concern to that constituency. HAlL's Saunders already has announced his candidacy. In other cities, much has been made of the low usage of wheelchair-accessible vehicles by the disabled. RTD's records indicate that of a total 160,000 rides per average day, disabled riders average between 90 and 260 per week. Neither RTD nor the disabled seem alarmed by this fact. Training, they agree, is the key. Saunders and others provide one-on-one training in bus riding to disabled passengers, and RTD trains both drivers and potential passengers. Both sides also seem willing to be patient with the equipment failures that plague any intricate mechanical apparatus. The issue ls complex, emotional and, for the disabled, very personal. Says Kathy Vincent, who can't travel anywhere on her own and has to rely completely on wheelchair-accessible buses: “l never was militant before. But now l don’t have any choice."
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Rocky Mountain News [Headline] RTD board stalls action on bus lifts By JERRY Brown News Staff Photo by Jose R. Lopez, News: A man sits in a manual wheelchair with a somewhat disgusted look on his face. He is wearing glasses, has a goatee type beard and a powerful looking body, in that CP, non-body builder way. He holds a coat in his lap. Caption reads: Leroy Duran speaks at RTD hearing on the subject of wheelchair lifts for 89 articulated buses. He was one of more than 20 people, many of them handicapped, urging RTD board members to reverse a decision not to buy the lifts. The Regional Transportation District board of directors made no decision after spending three hours Tuesday listening to appeals from the handicapped community that the directors reverse a decision not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983. With only ll of the 20 members present for the special meeting, the directors postponed action on a compromise proposal to put lifts on 45 of the high-capacity articulated buses until its regular monthly meeting on Dec. 17. Eleven affirmative votes are required for any board action, so it would have required a unanimous vote of those attending Tuesday’s session to reverse or amend the board's Nov. 19 decision not to buy the wheelchair lifts. Most of the board members at the meeting also attended a secret two-hour staff briefing on the issue before the public session. L.A. Kimball, RTD executive director, said public notice of the board briefing wasn't necessary because it wasn't a formal board meeting. At the public meeting, more than 20 speakers urged board members to reverse their decision not to buy the lifts. Attomey John R. Holland, who represented the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in an earlier lawsuit against RTD, said the decision not to put lifts on the articulated buses violates a 1979 negotiated court settlement under which Atlantis agreed to drop a lawsuit against the agency on the accessibility issue. Gregory D. Jones, RTD's legal counsel, disagreed. In that agreement, RTD promised to make its fleet accessible to the handicapped “through a program of accessible new bus purchases and the wheelchair-lift retrofit of existing buses susceptible to retrofit." In a separate policy statement, the board members promised to make half of RTD's peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped — a policy that some board members have suggested should be rescinded. Even without lifts on the articulated buses, Kimball said, RTD will meet the commitment to make half of its.peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped. RTD has [846? the number is very difficult to read] lift equipped buses in its [646? unclear] bus fleet, but only 60 of the lift-equipped buses are used for wheelchair-accessible service. Kimball promised that the lifts on the remaining 286 buses would be operating by next summer. The buses first must be equipped with wheelchair restraints, RTD officials have said. Holland also said RTD may be required by state civil rights legislation to make the articulated buses accessible to the handicapped. Members of the Atlantis Community have threatened to sue RTD an effort to force the agency to put lifts on the buses if the agency doesn't order the lifts. RTD's staff recommended that the lifts be eliminated from the bus order because of the cost — $1.1 million, or more than $12,000 per bus — and expected maintenance problems. Eighty percent of the money for purchasing the lifts would come from federal funds. RTD originally ordered the buses with the lifts, but on Nov. 19 the board voted 11 to 5 to rescind the decision to buy the lifts. When the buses were ordered in March, federal regulations required that wheelchair lifts be installed to all buses purchased with the aid of federal funds, but that rule has since been withdrawn by the Department of Transportation.
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PHOTO, News Photo by Steve Groer: A view from above down into a room filled with people, most in wheelchairs, sitting in a rough circle with one person in the middle. Next to that person is a desk with typewriter and paperwork on it. Caption reads: Members of Atlantis Community stage protest at RTD headquarters. Handicapped protest lift vote RTD’s rescission of plan assailed By JERRY BROWN News Staff About two dozen handicapped people, most of them in wheelchairs, staged a two-hour sit-in at the Regional Transportation District’s executive offices Thursday after RTD’s directors voted to rescind plans to install wheelchair lifts on 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983. The protestors, all from the Atlantis Community, agreed to leave, but only after: * RTD Executive Director L. A. Kimball and three board members promised they would try to arrange a meeting between the full board and Atlantis members unhappy with Thursday’s vote, with the possibility that the board will reconsider its vote. * Kimball agreed to delay implementing the decision to rescind the lift order until after the proposed meeting takes place, if possible. Before the compromise was reached, the Atlantis members said they were prepared to spend the night at the RTD office -- unless removed by the police. RTD official called police and Denver paramedics, and they waited in a nearby room, ready to remove the protesters if the negotiations failed. Co-director Wade Blank said Atlantis members are prepared to stage daily visits to Kimball’s office and take the issue to court if the board sticks by the decision not to buy lifts. Blank said Atlantis members also plan to stage demonstrations during Kimball's public appearances. Blank said Atlantis members say Kimball, who became RTD’s executive director Sept. 14, is the one who persuaded the board to rescind the order for the wheelchair lifts. Last spring, when RTD ordered the articulated buses federal regulations required that all new buses purchased with federal funds be equipped with wheelchair lifts. Eighty percent of the $2l.6 million purchase price of the buses, including the lifts, will come from federal funds. Eliminating the lifts would reduce the purchase price by $1.1 million, or $12,571 per bus, according to RTD. The regulations requiring wheelchair lifts on new buses were rescinded by the Department of Transportation in July, and Kimball said Thursday that eight of the nine other bus agencies who have ordered the articulated buses as part of a consortium that includes RTD have decided not to buy the lifts. Anticipating that the regulations might be rescinded or overturned in court, RTD and the other bus agencies included the wheelchair lifts as a revocable option in their order. RTD has until Nov.27 to cancel its order for the lifts without penalty. After that date, RTD would have to buy the lifts or pay a penalty to drop them from the manufacturer's specifications. More than 100 handicapped people or representatives from agencies providing services to the handicapped were present for the board vote, and more than 20 speakers argued against rescinding the lift order. With only 16 board members present and 11 votes required to rescind the lift order, it appeared at one point that the speakers had swayed enough board members to win their case. But the board voted 11-5 to revoke the order for the lifts, with chairman Lowell Hutson casting the deciding vote after he counted to see how many board members had voted on each side. The Atlantis members then left the board meeting room in the basement of RTD’s headquarters at 1325 S. Colorado Blvd. and occupied part of the building's fifth floor, where Kimball and other RTD executives have their offices. Nearly two hours later, Kimball and board members C. Thomas Bastien, Kathi Williams and Mary Duty came upstairs to negotiate an end to the demonstration. Atlantis, which has long advocated making all of RTD‘s buses accessible to the handicapped, staged a series of sit-ins and other demonstrations against RTD a few years ago because the agency wanted to provide separate service for the handicapped. Relations between the two organizations improved significantly two years ago after RTD agreed to make half of its peak-hour service accessible to the handicapped.
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The Denver Post 12/2/81 Two photos by The Denver Post / Anthony Suau: First photo: A young man with CP in a wheelchair in a jacket and flannel shirt, his head thrown back, speaks in a microphone that is being held by another man standing slightly behind his chair. Both men are looking intensely at someone or something to their left. Behind them is another person, as if in line. Second photo: An older man in a suit sits behind a table with a microphone. His fingers and thumb are lightly pressed together and to his lips, and his eyes are looking ahead. His expression shows he is listening, taking in information. The two pictures are set so that it appears the man in the suit is listening to the man in the wheelchair testifying. Caption reads: Wheelchair Rights Left [first photo], handicapped persons, including Barry Gin, left, met with Regional Transportation District officials Tuesday to discuss the use of wheelchair lifts on buses. Holding the microphone for Gin is Eloy Espinoza. Above [second photo], Lowell Hutson, RTD board chairman listens as members of disabled community argue that not putting wheelchair lifts on the new buses is a violation of their civil rights. Story on Page 4-B.
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Denver Post Thurs., Sept., 14, 1978? or 9? [Headline] One arrested during confrontation Photo by Denver Post photographer [Kunn B*s*0?]: Two people in uniforms carry a woman along a corridor. One has her under her arms, the other by the legs, which are crossed. A man in a suit looks from a distance down the corridor. Caption reads: Demonstrator Patsy Castor is carried from RTD building. She was one of more than 20 ejected after refusing to [unreadable.] Handicapped Protesters Forcibly Ejected From RTD Offices By BRAD MARTISILS, Denver Post Staff Writer One man was arrested and more than 20 handicapped protesters, some wailing and yelling and others kicking and resisting, were ejected forcibly from RTD headquarters Wednesday afternoon after they refused to leave voluntarily. The single arrest was made after Jeff Franek, 24, or 1123 Adams St. [unreadable] struck and knocked down an RTD employee. Franek, who isn't handicapped, was booked on suspicion of assault and released on a $50 cash bond. The demonstrators were removed from the building by about eight Denver policemen assisted by ambulance crews from Denver General Hospital. The ambulance [unreadable] there to assist demonstrators confined to wheelchairs included paramedics trained to handle disabled persons. Police also arranged for [unreadable] ambulance cabs to provide transportation for the demonstrators desiring it. THE PROTESTERS had occupied the fifth floor of RTD offices at 1225 S. Colorado Blvd earlier Wednesday. lt was one of a number of demonstrations over the past few months aimed at pressing RTD officials to provide more service for handicapped persons on regular bus routes. Protesters said they had planned to stay in the offices for three days. But when RTD's Executive Director John Simpson met with them shortly after 5 pm he explained that the building was closing and that they couldn't stay. The protesters refused to meet with him in a downstairs conference room. SIMPSON WAS interrupted by catcalls several times as he tried lo speak to the protesters. "You're not leaving me many choices," he told them when they refused to leave. Bob Conrad, 29, of 750 Knox Court, acted as spokesman for the protesters. When Simpson tried to explain RTD's policies, Conrad said he had been hearing the same explanations for years. "John, you've been telling us the same crap for three years," Conrad said. "We are being denied our rights because we can't ride the buses." Conrad said his group wants to take advantage of regular bus service. But Simpson said such service simply doesn't work for the handicapped. He pointed to a program in St. Louis, in which lifts were installed on 157 buses. In a year's time, he said, only 1,000 rides were given to persons in wheelchairs, at a cost of $200 per ride. THE IMPEDIMENTS to travel for the handicapped aren't primarily with buses," Simpson said. "Studies have shown that inability to get over curbs, to get to the bus stop, and to travel from the bus are much more important factors." Simpson said RTD's service -- which is due to be expanded -- is a better alternative than putting lifts on all buses. He said RTD's service accommodated more than 45,000 trips for handicapped persons in 1977, at a cost of about $10 per trip. He said service to the homes of handicapped persons is being provided by 12 special HandyRide buses. He said 18 more lift-equipped buses soon will begin running on fixed, circular routes, once their lift mechanisms meet the standards of the Denver Commission on the Disabled. Finally, he said 10 more specially equipped buses will soon begin running between RTD Park and Ride areas and various college campuses and shopping centers, where many handicapped persons need transportation. THE HANDYRIDE service operates by subscription, meaning the potential riders must arrange with RTD for the buses to stop at their homes. The fares are the same as for regular bus service. Simpson said the subscription service is filled to capacity, serving 55 wheelchair users and 78 persons with other disabilities. He said there is a waiting list of persons wishing to take advantage of the service. Simpson said equipping RTD buses with lifts to accommodate persons in wheelchairs would cost $4 million. Annual operating costs would be more than $6.5 million, he said. However, the protesters didn't hear his facts and figures because they refused to meet Simpson in the conference room and then were ejected. SEVERAL OF the protesters struggled violently when they were ejected from the building. At least one, Patsy Castor, 18, was slightly injured. She was hauled from the building struggling violently with ambulance crews call to assist police officers. A few onlookers said attendants purposely dropped her outside the door. Others said she struggled so violently that they dropped her accidentally. Wade Blank, director of the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in Denver, said the group was prepared for everything but forceful ejection. "We've asked to be arrested," he said, "But the way things look, I don't think we even have the right to expect that."
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THE DENVER POST Thurs., July 6, 1978 p 24 [Headline] Having ‘Made Public Aware,' Disabled End Bus Barricade By FRED GILLIES, Denver Post Staff Writer and COKE DeBRUIN More than 30 severely disabled persons, most of them in wheelchairs, ended their 24-hour barricade of two Regional Transportation District buses in downtown Denver Thursday morning. The barricade was lifted by the disabled and their leaders at 9 a.m. Thursday. The demonstrators, still in high spirits after a night in the open near the buses, left the site in five specially equipped Handy-Ride buses that RTD sent to the scene. THE BARRICADE “served its purpose" in making the public aware that the handicapped aren't being adequately served by Denver’s public transportation system, said Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in Denver. All but a few of the demonstrators are from Atlantis. At a press conference just before the barricade was lifted, Blank vowed that the disabled's civil disobedience action will be continued, but on a smaller scale, at various locations in Denver. The disabled will attempt to board other RTD buses and a demonstration probably will be staged at RTD's executive offices, Blank said. The barricade of the two RTD buses Wednesday near the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street created a major traffic jam and caused police to reroute traffic away from the blocklong demonstration site. Traffic was back to normal at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. ALL DURING the demonstration, some of the disabled remained close to the buses. The number of handicapped persons guarding the immobilized buses thinned Wednesday night and early Thursday as many of the disabled slept in a nearby park area. Blank said Thursday that he and the disabled were"‘concerned" about the “paternalistic” attitude of Denver police called to the scene of the bus barricade. Police “gave the disabled special treatment when we broke the law, and they didn’t arrest us," Blank said. THE DISABLED want to he treated like everyone else, and were fully prepared to be arrested for their actions, said Blank who has no disability himself. Three persons, including two Atlantis attendants and the director of a Lakewood home for disabled children, were arrested Wednesday morning after they refused to comply with a police order to move out of the street. However, police records show that only two of those persons were booked and then released on bond. NONE OF THE handicapped demonstrators was arrested during the demonstration. But a police spokesman said Thursday morning that arrests of the disabled would become a very real possibility if the demonstration had continued into the day Thursday. While the demonstration generally was successful, it failed to inform the public that the federal govemment has made a commitment to pay 80 percent of the cost of all transportation for the disabled in the City and County of Denver, Blank said. “All RTD has to do is to ask for that money," Blank maintained. In a continuing effort, Blank said, Atlantis officials will be, contacting Colorado’s congressional delegation seeking their follow-through on the issue of transportation for the disabled. The demonstration apparently was "sparked by a ruling last Friday by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch in federal court in Denver. In that ruling, Matsch rejected charges that the Regional Transportation District's failure to provide special access for handicapped persons on its buses constituted an unconstitutional infringement on those persons’ liberty to travel. THAT SUIT WAS the culmination of nearly five years of effort in trying to work with RTD in updating and equipping its fleet to accommodate the disabled, Blank said. “We thought the best way to change the system was to go through the courts, but that failed,” Blank said Wednesday night. "Now, where do we get the power to change RTD?" John Simpson, director of the RTD, spent four hours Wednesday talking with members of the handicapped group, attempting to persuade them to end their barricade of the buses and discuss the situation through existing channels. “We volunteered to meet with them there or at any other time,” Simpson said. “We have met with them many times in the past," he added. THE COURT DECISION, Simpson said, indicates “what we are doing isn't a violation of their constitutional rights. Our Handy-Ride service is one of the best in the nation. But they say they won‘t go away until every RTD bus has a chair lift on it." In a discussion with one of the demonstrators Wednesday, Simpson said that since 1975, RTD has operated 12 buses specially equipped to serve the handicapped. Eighteen similarly equipped buses are being readied for service “in the near future," Simpson said. And 10 other buses will be provided with equipment to serve the handicapped, hopefully by September, he added. But the coalition of the handicapped maintained RTD's Handy-Ride—a system equipped with wheelchair lifts and stairs-is “foul joke" inasmuch - as it serves only “a handful" of the 1,000 disabled persons on the waiting list. SIMPSON RESPONDED by maintaining there are 700 disabled persons on that waiting list, and many of those have indicated they need only occasional Handy-Ride service. RTD‘s last order for 231 buses, Sim said, specified that the vehicles have wide doors to accommodate the handicapped “when and if it becomes financially and economically feasible." Eighteen of the 231 buses will have wheelchair tie-down devices, and those buses [will] be placed in regular service whenever we're sure they‘re safe,” Simpson said. One of the demonstrators. Kerry Sc[_?__] 25, of Denver, said, “We're paying to support these buses. I have my rights. There's (handicapped) people tied up in homes. They can't get nowhere—shopping, to the movies or sports. In [lndia]neapolis, they have buses for the handicapped and they're running really g[ood.] I don't see why Denver doesn't have the same thing.” GLENN COPP, co director of the Atlantis Community, maintained that RTD Handy-Ride buses pick up the handicapped “only at a certain time and [bring] them only to a certain destination. Using private Ambocab service, [the] disabled must pay $17 for a round trip in the Denver area, Copp said. Blank, who is co-executive director the Atlantis Community for the handicapped, said it was the group's intention to have one of its members arrested to set a precedent. “But even if we busted, I don‘t know where we'd be Blank said. Police records show that one non-handicapped sympathizer, Lisa Wheeler, [of] Corona St., was booked then released on bond early Wednesday morning. She was arrested for failure to obey a police order to move out of the street. The demonstration took RTD office by surprise, and Jerry Richmond, “ma[nager] of communications, said the company hadn't been informed of the protest.
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Rocky Mountain News Wed., Dec. 9,1981, Denver, Colo. [Headline] Handicapped set back in battle for lifts on buses The Operations Committee of the Regional Transportation District’s board of directors voted 4-0 Tuesday to stick by an earlier proposal that RTD buy 89 articulated buses scheduled for delivery in 1983 without wheelchair lifts. Its action seriously diminishes the chances that the board will reverse its decision of Nov. 19 to delete the lifts from the articulated buses. But RTD Executive Director L.A. Kimball and three board members agreed to ask the board to reconsider the action after members of the Atlantis Community for the disabled staged a sit-in at RTD headquarters on the day of the earlier vote to protest the decision. The board held a three-hour special meeting on Dec. 1 to hear appeals from the handicapped to put wheelchair lifts on the buses. Atlantis spokesman Wade Blank said members of his organization have been discussing the issue with individual board members and plan to meet with Kimball next week. Blank said he expects to fall short of the 11 votes needed for the board to reverse its position when the issue comes up at the board’s regular meeting on Dec. 17. Blank renewed Atlantis’ threat to file a lawsuit challenging the decision not to buy the lifts and said Atlantis will resume demonstrating against RTD. Atlantis filed a lawsuit in federal court and staged a series of demonstrations aimed at RTD a few years ago after RTD bought nearly 200 AM General buses without wheelchair lifts. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch ruled against Atlantis in that case, but the case was on appeal when Atlantis and RTD in 1979 negotiated a settlement under which RTD agreed to make half of its peak-hour fleet accessible to the handicapped. The settlement was reached after the federal Department of Transportation issued regulations requiring that all new buses bought with federal funds be equipped with wheelchair lifts and that half of all buses used for peak-hour service be accessible to the handicapped. Those regulations were rescinded by the department in July. RTD officials ordered the articulated buses with lifts in March, while the regulations requiring lifts on new buses were still in effect. Buying the buses without lifts will save $1.1 million, 80 percent of RTD’s federal funds, RTD officials said.
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Rocky Mountain News, Fri., Sept. 2, 1977, Denver, Colo p.6 [Headline] Handicapped seek ruling on RTD service By CLAIRE COOPER News Staff Wheelchair-bound witnesses Thursday urged a federal judge to order the Regional Transportation District to equip new buses with devices to facilitate transportation of the disabled. RTD has 231 buses on order. Only 18 of them will be outfitted for passengers in wheelchairs. Handicapped and elderly plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit in Denver U.S. District Court claiming RTD will discriminate against them if it fails to provide them with suitable bus transportation. The plaintiffs have asked that the buses be equipped with boarding ramps or hydraulic lifts and with interior devices to hold wheelchairs in place. During the hearing before Judge Richard P. Matsch, an arthritic youth complained that he faces “social isolation“ because of lack of transportation. ROBERT CONRAD SAID. “lf l don‘t get out, l’ll go crazy. I don't like looking at four walls." Conrad said it’s often impossible for him to board regular buses because oi‘ the pain in his legs. When he can do it, he said, he suffers embarrassment because it takes him three minutes to negotiate the steps. Other witnesses also complained about the social and psychological consequences of being unable to use the public transportation system. Glenn Kopp said he feels like “a second-class citizen.” Kopp is co-director of Atlantis Community Inc., an organization of disabled persons. His job is to help the handicapped become self-sufficient. But for Kopp to go to work, he said, "I have to depend on somebody to pick me up.” Carolyn Finnell said, “I just don't like using people as tools" for transportation. Marilyn Weaver said the lack of transportation isolates her from" her friends and her parents. "They do come to see me, but it would be nice sometime to go home," she said. Ms. Weaver and others testified that economic burdens are forced on them by the necessity of hiring private transportation. Ms. Weaver said she spends about $120 a month, one-fifth of her income, for “ambocabs," a private taxi service for passengers in wheelchairs. Ambocab charges $18 for a round trip, Kopp said. Ms. Weaver claimed the high cost deters all but essential use. “I should be getting therapy more than I do,“ said the 38-year-old polio victim, adding that her financial situation determines whether she can afford transportation to her therapist. SEVERAL WITNESSES said confinement to their neighborhoods means they have to pay more for groceries and other necessities. Kopp said he doesn’t like to ask friends to take him shopping because it takes along time him to go through the stores. The witnesses said RTD’s HandiRide service for the disabled isn't a good solution to their transportation problems because it makes only scheduled stops at medical facilities, schools and places of employment. Ms. Weaver, who works at Atlantis, said she takes the HandiRide to work because she starts at a set time. But she has no set quitting time, so she can't take it home. According to the complaint, HandiRide serves fewer than 150 persons. The complaint says about 17,600 persons in the Denver-Boulder area are being denied public transportation because of "unnecessary physical and structural barriers in the design of transit buses." Lawyers representing RTD have not presented defense testimony. The hearing continues Friday.
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Rocky Mountain News, Mon., June 7, 1982 Denver, Colo. p.37 WE’RE ACCESSIBLE! We set our sights on July 1 for increased accessibility. We've beat our goal by nearly a month. During peak hours 50 percent of all Denver-area local service is now equipped with wheelchair lifts. Nearly 100 percent of off-peak local service is now accessible. Please check your schedule for times of lift-equipped buses. Trips will be marked with the wheelchair symbol. If you need special assistance in learning how to use the lift, just give us a call at 628-9000, extension 2118. We are pleased to be able to accommodate our handicapped patrons with expanded service nearly one month ahead of schedule! (signature) L.A. Kimball Executive Director and General Manager 3 PHOTOS (in clockwise order; no credits given). First: A man in a wheelchair sits on a lift into the front door of a city bus. An access symbol is visible by the driver's door of the bus. Second: A woman in a manual wheelchair entering the front of an accessible bus, by the farebox. Three: An RTD bus with RTD "The Ride" written on the side of the bus. In large print at the bottom it says: Striving for the Best Service RTD The Ride
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RTD bobbles budget, buys rejected lifts By: Burt Hubbard News Staff The Regional Transportation District board of directors rejected to move to equip its new buses with wheelchair lifts but unknowingly included $1.2 million in its budget to buy them. The revelation came one day after the RTD board approved a $185.8 million budget that includes $21.4 million to buy 89 articulated buses for 1983. But the buses will cost the district only $20.2 million. The remaining $1.2 million is slated for wheelchair lifts that won’t be put on the buses. RTD Executive Director L.A Kimball has said that handicap ridership on the more than 300 buses that now have lifts do not justify the cost for the new buses. “WE HAVE CARRIED as many as 50 (handicapped) individuals on any particular day using 331 vehicles,” he told the board Thursday. RTD board member Charlotte Houston said Friday she didn’t realize that fact when she made a motion Thursday to add $1.3 million to the 1983 budget to outfit all 89 buses with lifts. The board defeated the motion 10-5. Those voting against the lifts said current low-frequency ridership by handicapped people doesn’t justify equipping more buses and cited increased maintenance costs of the lifts. Asked about the snafu, Houston said, “I guess I should have known.” Nor did RTD board member Tom Bastien know the lift money had been kept in the budget when he moved to equip half of the new buses with lifts. The board rejected the move 8-6. “THAT’S INTERESTING,” said Bastien Friday. “Why didn’t the (RTD) staff tell us?” Even Kimball said he wasn’t aware that the lift money was still in the budget. Kimball blamed the error on a staff member who, he said, apparently had failed to delete the money for the lifts from the budget. The confusion dates back to July 1981 when the district signed a contract with M.A.N. Truck and Bus Corp. to buy the 89 buses for $21.4 million with the lifts included. The buses were to be delivered between June and September 1983. But in December 1981, the RTD board voted to take the lifts off the buses and reduce the total price by $1.2 million. The 1983 budget, however, failed to reflect the reduced price. Kimball said the omission won’t alter the budget. “THERE’S NO NEED to change it,” he said. “We won’t spend it.” About 80 percent of the cost of the lifts would have been paid by a federal grant. And Houston and Bastien said the fact that they wouldn’t have had to increase the budget to get the lifts didn’t affect the vote. “I don’t think it would have made much difference,” said Houston. “We needed 11 votes to pass it.” The votes on the lifts came after about a dozen people, including several politicians, urged the board to make the buses accessible to the handicapped. The handicapped community has vowed to try again for the lifts after a newly elected RTD board takes office in January to replace the appointed 21-member board.
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RTD Executive Promises To Try Wheelchair Bus Travel Firsthand ATLANTIS From 1-B The Handi Ride, 12 buses which provide curb-to-curb service for 150 handicapped persons each day on a flexible schedule, was to have been eliminated in July. It will be retained for the rest of the year, Kimball said. Starting in July, 334 buses equipped with wheelchair lifts — plus the Handi Ride - will circulate on more than two dozen routes, the RTD official said. Specially equipped buses now operate on only 11 routes. He also promised that the Handi Ride program would continue until another program has been developed. The official also told the group that “RTD alone can’t solve all (their) transportation problems" and urged them to think in terms of a “regional consensus” of agencies dealing with the disabled. He also suggested that they seek state funding. Spokesmen for the Atlantis Community for the disabled, one of the parties to the lawsuit, on Wednesday declared the Handi Ride shouldn't be phased out, and many attending the session agreed. They included Don Burton, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy, who said he feared many disabled persons would lack access to community services; Barb Sokol, a social worker with Western Dialysis Center, who said other transit alternatives weren't “as reliable or flexible,” and a number of handicapped persons, who asked for continuation or expansion of the service. Teresa Breda, executive director of Holistic Approaches to Independent Living (HAIL), said, “In no way do I want Handi Ride to stop. “But that’s just one segment of transportation services tor the disabled,' she noted, adding that it was “one part of a lot of needs.”
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Denver Post Tuesday, January 19th, 1982 Editorials, Opinion, 2, 3 Weather 4 Ski Report, 4 Suit over Bus Lifts Hits RTD By Howard Pankratz, Denver Post Legal Affairs Writer Some of Denver’s handicapped, who believe the Regional Transportation District has broken a promise to install wheelchair lifts on 89 new buses, turned that belief into action Monday by suing the district. In a lengthy brief filed in Denver District Court, seven wheelchair-bound individuals and the Atlantis Community for the disabled accused the district of violating both state and civil law and a settlement reached in federal court several years ago. In that settlement, alleges the suit, RTD agreed that all new buses would have wheelchair-lift equipment. But that promise has been broken, said the suit, which asks that RTD be required to install lifts on 89 new buses due for delivery beginning next year and on all new equipment in the future. The Monday suit is based on RTD’s having contracted for 89 new buses, worth $21.3 million. The suit says that 80 percent of the purchase price is to be paid by the federal government. Originally, said lawyer John Holland, who represents the handicapped, all the buses were to have had lifts to make them accessible to the handicapped. But last November, the RTD board decided not to have lifts installed. The total cost of the lifts would be $1.1 million, with the federal government again paying 80 percent of the cost. The suit alleges that it wasn’t the cost, technical feasibility or the maintenance of the lifts that caused them to be dropped, but rather a decision by RTD to use the new buses on “express bus service” from which the handicapped are to be excluded. This, claimed the wheelchair-bound complaints, blatantly violates the state’s civil rights act. Reacting to that alleged broken promise, handicapped individuals demonstrated on the RTD properly, for three straight days in early January, an action that caused the district to go to court seeking an order banning such demonstrations. However, late last week, Denver District Judge Daniel Sparr told both sides he feared that if he issued a restraining order against the handicapped, it would only widen the gulf between the two sides. He noted that the handicapped had legal avenues to follow if they felt a promise had been broken. On Friday, heeding Sparr’s advice, the two sides reached an accord, whose points will be made public February 2. RTD lawyers Alan E. Richman and Russ Richardson said Monday that RTD has a policy of not commenting on such pending lawsuits.
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Denver Post 1/82 PHOTO (no credit given): A man in a wheelchair (Stephen Saunders) is tipped back in a wheelie by one man, as another bends forward over his legs and reaches down on the side of his wheelchair. Behind them a couple of police officers are visible. Caption reads: Stephen Saunders is carried away from the offices of the Regional Transportation District during a January protest over an RTD decision to not make some new buses accessible to the handicapped. [Headline] RTD Fighting Handicapped Act By Howard Pankratz Denver Post Staff Writer The Regional Transportation District, long at odds with various segments of Denver’s handicapped community is asking Denver District Judge Harold Reed to declare the Colorado Handicapped Act unconstitutional. At the time the state Legislature passed the act, it said it was doing so to “encourage and enable the blind, the visually handicapped, the deaf, the partially deaf, and the otherwise physically disabled to participate fully in the social and economic life of the state and to engage in remunerative employment.” But RTD in motions filed in recent weeks with Reed, has charged that the statue is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. RTD also says that those who violate the act are subject to a criminal penalty. In particular, RTD lawyers Alan E. Richman and Lawrence D. Stone take aim at a section the act which says the handicapped are “entitled to full and equal housing and full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of all common carriers, airplanes, motor vehicles, railroad trains, motor buses, streetcars, boats or any other public conveyances or modes of transportation…” Does that mean, ask the RTD lawyers, that “cab drivers are liable for criminal penalty for refusing to buy cabs which can transport persons in wheelchairs? What about persons in iron lungs or on other life support systems? Does this mean that a private automobile has to be wheelchair accessible?” The act, they contend, is sweeping in nature and poses an “impossible conundrum… to an organization or a person who wishes not to violate its provisions on pain of criminal sanctions.” Those who violate the act are guilty of a misdemeanor and are subject to a maximum sentence of a $100 fine and 60 days in county jail. In January 1982, seven wheelchair-bound individuals and the Atlantis Community for the disabled accused the district in a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court of violating both the Colorado Handicapped Act and a settlement reached in federal court several years ago. Basically they contended that in the federal settlement RTD agreed that all new buses would have wheelchair-lift equipment. Although many of the new buses are accessible to people in wheelchairs, they contend that RTD has decided against making 89 new buses, due for delivery in June, accessible to the handicapped. By denying such access, says the lawsuit, RTD has breached both the terms of the federal settlement and the duties it owes the handicapped under the Colorado
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Denver Post (approximately 12/4/81) [Headline] Bus Life Decision Delayed By: George Lane Denver Post Urban Affairs Writer Local transit officials, noting that there were barely enough of them to make a quorum Tuesday delayed for two weeks any decision about whether to alter plans not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 new buses. It was suggested during a special Regional Transportation District board meeting that the board order wheelchair lifts on 45 of the 89 high capacity, articulated buses, rather than no lifts at all. Board member Norma Anderson told fellow directors that there was no reason for postponing the issue “when everyone on this board knows the outcome of the vote.”. She said following the meeting there aren’t enough votes on the board to reverse the earlier action, and the buses ultimately will be ordered without the wheelchair lifts. The announced reason for postponing the vote was that only 12 of the 20 board members attended the special meeting, and only 11 were left when the compromise proposal was presented. It takes a minimum of 11 votes for the RTD board to conduct any business. Postponing the action for two weeks could mean that RTD may have to pay some kind of penalty for not informing the bus manufacturer of the lift decision before the extended deadline of Dec. 10. But the board’s action delayed for at least two weeks another possible wheelchair-bound –sit-in following an RTD board meeting last month. About two dozen persons from the Atlantis Community for the disabled staged a 2 1/2 hour sit-in following an RTD board meeting last month. They claimed the board’s decision then not to order the lifts was a “breach of promise” subjecting handicapped bus passengers to second-class ridership. After the RTD officials agreed to hold a special board meeting to reconsider the decision against the lifts, the wheelchair-bound sit-in ended peacefully. It had been feared police force would have to be used to end it. Eighteen handicapped persons and supporters and representatives of disabled people spoke during Tuesday’s special board meeting. RTD officials again attempted to convince the disabled congregation that not putting the lifts on the articulated buses will free other buses with lifts and result in better service to handicapped people.