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- ADAPT (217)
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. - ADAPT (229)
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. - ADAPT (228)
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. - ADAPT (202)
Handicapped American, 12/84 Two articles: Article #1: [Headline] Anti-APTA Protest Grows as Disabled Demand Bus Lifts Disabled activists in several states are pressing the attack against the American Public Transit Association (APTA) in an attempt to persuade that organization to support wheelchair accessibility. At its seventh annual delegate assembly in November, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities [CTD] urged all transit providers in that state to withdraw from APTA. “It is the urgent desire of CTD and its 77 organizational members across the state that Texas become a model of full, equal access to all transportation systems," according to the CTD resolution. CTD President Marshall Mitchell said that APTA'S transportation philosophy “is a powerful tool for discrimination and denies the vast majority of disabled persons equal access to the community." CTD is also opposed to paratransit as an alternative to wheelchair lift equipped buses because this "provides disabled people only limited use of the locally operated transit systems in all Texas cities." Mitchell said that not only does paratransit violate the equal protection clause of the l4th Amendment but operating two separate systems "is infinitely more expensive than would be totally accessible systems with only limited door-to-door service to meet the needs of those who could not use mainline service." APTA is holding a Western Regional Conference in San Antonio in April (see related stories). Meanwhile in November a spokesperson for disabled groups in neighboring Louisiana has requested that APTA's board of directors reverse its position on accessibility. Susan M. Daniels, in a letter to APTA chairman Warren Franks, said that "disabled people will no longer sit quiet while their rights are abridged." Daniels points out that the Regional Transit Authority which serves the Greater New Orleans area is not accessible, making it impossible for disabled people in that city to participate on an equal basis in community activities with nondisabled persons. In California, disabled activists are seeking to cut off the flow of public money to APTA. At its December meeting, the California Association of the Physically Handicapped (CAPH) passed a resolution calling upon various branches of the federal government to withhold funds earmarked for APTA because such payments represent "a misappropriation of public funds." More than 60 percent of APTA's operating money comes from public funds, according to the CAPH resolution. CAPH charges that this money is being used in part “to deny handicapped individuals the benefits of transportation services requiring federal financial assistance." In addition to blocking the flow of federal dollars to APTA, CAPH urges "that all public transit agencies be prohibited from paying APTA dues" while any investigations of APTA are in progress. Article #2: [Headline] Texans Plan San Antonio Showdown Chances are if you board a public bus anywhere in Texas you won't find any riders in wheelchairs. That's all going to change if Jim Parker of El Paso has anything to do about it. Parker and several other people in wheelchairs from across Texas have organized the state chapter of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), a new national group that is trying to force bus companies and manufacturers to equip all buses with wheelchair lifts. In 1979, the Carter administration's Department of Transportation mandated such a policy, but the American Public Transit Association (APTA) successfully fought those regulations in court, arguing that it was a judgment best left to the discretion of the local transit provider. Disabled activists argued that such "local option” policies are no different from the old states’ rights arguments used in the South to block integration and lead to policies similar to "separate but equal" laws. Reagan's Department of Transportation has generally sided with APTA in this dispute and has suggested that paratransit services could provide similar service to the disabled at less cost. Opponents of lifts argue that they're unreliable. In Houston, Metro's Grumman Flexible buses’ wheelchair lifts were removed because the company said they caused too many maintenance problems. Continued on p. 4 - ADAPT (199)
[Headline] PROTEST: VIA demonstration PROTEST/from B1 door-to-door service,” Cook said. “It’s an effective way to provide transportation. That’s why you don’t see a lot of San Antonians joining you.” But some people speculated the lack of local participation meant the San Antonio handicapped community either is afraid to speak out or did not have transportation to get to the demonstration by ADAPT members from other parts of the country, including Denver and New York. While yesterday’s demonstrators did not include San Antonians, a local handicapped man was summoned by Police Chief Charles Rodriguez to help mediate. "There is a definitely a problem here in San Antonio,” said Tommy Leifester, who calls himself a local leading handicapped rights activist. He said the city’s van system that transports the handicapped has several inadequacies, including a requirement that users must request service up to a week in advance. “If I don’t have a medical certificate and prior approval by VIA Transit, then I don’t ride,” he said. “There’s a judge and a jury who says you can ride a bus. A normal person doesn’t need a medical qualification to ride a bus.” ADAPT leaders said they have asked transit association leaders to introduce a resolution to the full APTA membership proposing the handicapped be provided equal accessibility to public transportation. Ford told the demonstrators the APA board’s policy allows officials from various transit authorities to decide the best ways of serving handicapped people in their separate communities. “APTA has no power to force its attitudes on its members,” he said. “The local option makes sense.” Ford yesterday did grant ADAPT leaders their request to publish an article in APTA’s trade magazine by September. “We got one tiny concession out of the president, ADAPT leader Jean Stewart said after the meeting. “They are utterly in contempt of the needs of the disabled.” The protesters requested VIA officials endorse the resolution to provide public transportation to the disabled and to establish a forum in which the disabled community would be allowed to participate. Cook promised to plan a forum. Stewart said the local community has long supported ADAPT’s proposal of a multi-modal system with both lift equipped buses and door-to-door service. - ADAPT (195)
Handicapped Coloradan, vol 7 no 5, December 1984 [Headline] ADAPT HEADS FOR SAN DIEGO The executive board of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) has agreed to vote on a resolution calling upon the nation’s transit systems to provide accessible mainline bus service. That vote will take place when the executive board meets in San Diego Feb. 9 or 10. Wade Blank, a spokesperson for the group pressuring APTA to endorse the resolution, said he expects that the APTA board will summarily vote it down. Two years ago the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) put such a resolution before the national convention of APTA when it met in Denver. While APTA allowed the presentation, it refused to vote on the resolution. Twenty-eight ADAPT members were arrested for civil disobedience outside the convention hall when APTA met in Washington, D.C., in October 1984. Following that convention, ADAPT asked new APTA chairman Warren Frank, director of the Syracuse, N.Y., transit system, for a meeting to discuss accessibility. Frank responded by reiterating his opposition to mandatory accessibility. “The transit industry has thoroughly studied the matter and as a result strongly endorses current federal requirements which provide the flexibility for each local community to meet the needs of their handicapped citizens with specialized services or full accessibility or a combination of both," Frank said in a letter to Blank dated Nov. 2. Blank wired this response: “Your letter . . . is a sign of your bad faith and lack of moral resolve when it comes to the rights of disabled people. To offer us a statement of APTA's policy toward the disabled citizen and indicate your unwillingness to be flexible is no different than Governor Wallace standing in the doorway to prevent blacks from integrating." The telegram concluded with a warning that ADAPT would show up at the Western Regional Convention of APTA in San Antonio, Tex., April 20-24. Frank finally agreed to meet with representatives of ADAPT in Chicago Dec. 6. Frank was accompanied by APTA attorney Robert Batchelder and executive vice president Jack R. Gilstrap. Gilstrap, who runs the daily APTA operations, has been the target of a number of vocal attacks by ADAPT members. "For the first time Jack Gilstrap actually shook my hand and smiled at me," Blank said after returning from the Chicago meeting. APTA agreed to allow ADAPT to make a 20-minute presentation of the merits of accessibility at the San Diego board meeting. APTA further agreed to provide the names and addresses of board members so that ADAPT could lobby them in advance of the meeting. ADAPT has said it will cancel the demonstration in San Antonio in the unlikely event the APTA board supports mainline access in all cities. In the meantime, ADAPT has continued working on plans for the San Antonio convention. Organizers believe the smaller nature of that regional convention will make it easier for them to disrupt it. Blank said ADAPT intended to be at every APTA meeting until they agree to total accessibility. ADAPT is still working with Rep. Pat Schroeder's (D-Colo.) office on a fundraiser to help pay the bond money for the 28 demonstrators arrested in Washington during the October APTA convention. The Washington chapter of ADAPT has pressured the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) board of directors to establish a policy that all newly purchased buses will be equipped with wheelchair lifts. WMATA was to vote on that resolution Jan. 10. - ADAPT (188)
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. - ADAPT (186)
San Antonio Light, Monday April 22, 1985 METRO Section PHOTO by Jim Blaylock, San Antonio Light: ET, Earnest Taylor, holds his long lanky self in a wheelie on his manual wheelchair down on street level while other folks in wheelchairs and a couple of touristy looking walking people go by on the sidewalk by the edge of the hotel A woman in a motorized wheelchair up ahead has a sign on the back of her chair. Behind ET on the sidewalk, George Roberts?, rolls his motorized chair forward; he is wearing a cowboy hat and has a camera on a tripod attached to the front of his wheelchair. Caption reads: EQUALITY IS THE ISSUE: Members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation temporarily blocked the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel yesterday afternoon to protest the lack of transportation access to the handicapped. [Headline] Protesters on Wheels Want Access By Laura Fiorentino [This article continues in ADAPT 185 but the entire story has been included here for ease of reading.] About 75 placard-carrying people in wheelchairs rolled through downtown streets, then stormed the lobby of a hotel, to protest the lack of transportation access to the handicapped. More than 30 San Antonio police officers were called in to keep the peace as the protesters, who belong to the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), temporarily blocked the Hyatt Regency Hotel lobby yesterday afternoon. The demonstrators – many who had traveled from as far as Denver and El Paso – came to San Antonio yesterday to emphasize the need for wheelchair accessibility to conventioneers attending the American Public Transit Association’s weeklong meeting at the hotel. The group assembled at the Alamo, then moved to the Hyatt, which they circled four times before entering the lobby. “We’re talking about equality.” Mike Auberger of Denver, an ADAPT spokesman, said. “For so long blacks were separated, and that’s what we see happening here. The cost of these lifts isn’t what we’re talking about. It’s integrating everyone into the system.” In addition to the protesting transportation group, ADAPT also condemned the lack of wheelchair lifts VIA Metropolitan Transit buses and trolleys. Auberger said there are about 12,000 people in the San Antonio are confined to wheelchairs. He said only a small number of those are served by special buses provided for the handicapped every day. He said seven of the protesters outside the hostel yesterday were from San Antonio. But VIA General Manager Wayne Cook said local handicapped population does not want wheelchair lifts and instead prefers door-to-door service provided by special buses. “They (wheelchair lifts) are not an option,” Cook said at the hotel. “The local handicapped population does not want it. They want door-to-door service. We spent $1.2 million on the handicapped this year. They told us they don’t want lifts - they want special VIA trans buses instead.” Cook said each wheelchair costs about $15,000 and extra funds would be necessary to train a staff to maintain them. “What’s the point in having the ability to vote if you can’t participate?” Auberger said. “How can you give handicapped individuals jobs if they can’t get to work? Association officials at the hotel said that while they understood the protesters’ desire they agree with allowing each city to decide whether to install the lifts. “I sympathize with their desires and I wish I had the resources to make them (buses and trolleys) more accessible,” said association spokesman Jack Gilstrap, who met with the protesters before they disbanded. “The ironic aspect to all this in that we are on the same side. We want the best for the handicapped. We feel the courts’ decision that each city should decide how it should be handled is correct. They (the protesters) believe that ought to be dictated by Washington,” Gilstrap said. - ADAPT (200)
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]. - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be." - ADAPT (172)
Washington Post 10/2/84 PHOTO (Associated Press photo): Up in the air, Mike Auberger, long hair and a beard, in a wheelchair yells in passion from a van lift. Below him the police who are loading him into the van look at each other with a startled expression. Caption reads: Protester in wheelchair is lifted into a van after his arrest at convention center. [Headline] Dole Praises Plan For 39.5-Mile Metro As ‘Positive Step’ By Stephen J. Lynton Washington Post Staff Writer Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Hanford Dole yesterday praised Metro's new plan for completing 89.5 miles of the proposed rail system, calling it a “highly positive step." Nevertheless, in her first comment on the transit agency's proposal, Dole stopped short of saying whether the Reagan administration would approve the plan. The administration has limited federal construction funds to 76.4 miles of the proposed 101-mile Metro system. The new Metro plan calls for using federal funds previously authorized by Congress to complete 89.5 miles, including a long-delayed Green Line branch connecting Fort Totten with Greenbelt in Prince George's County and a Yellow Line spur to a proposed Van Dorn Street station in Alexandria. Metro officials have said they will eventually seek an additional congressional authorization of more than $1 billion to complete the rest of the planned 101-mile system. Dole cited the new Metro plan in a speech to the American Public Transit Association, which opened its annual meeting at the Convention Center here yesterday. The association, which represents the nation's transit systems, is holding its three-day conference in Washington for the first time in recent years. About 8,000 officials are expected to attend the sessions. Shortly after Dole spoke, 14 handicapped demonstrators, including several in wheelchairs, were arrested outside the Convention Center, according to D.C. police. The protesters were charged with blocking entrances to a public building and disorderly conduct. Since last week, members of a Denver-based group called ADAPT, an acronym for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, have staged demonstrations here to demand improved access to buses and trains for handicapped patrons in transit systems throughout the nation. The group contends that all buses should be equipped with special lifts for wheelchairs. ln her speech, Dole expressed "deep concern for the plight of the handicapped" and argued that proposed regulations now under review by federal officials would provide "adequate access" to transit services for disabled riders. The federal proposals are less stringent than those sought by ADAPT, but they appear largely acceptable to the transit association. Several years ago, the association sued federal officials to block stricter requirements. Jack R. Gilstrap, the association's executive vice president, said the new proposals would provide flexibility for local governments. "We support the local option concept," Gilstrap said. Dole described the 89.5-mile Metro plan as evidence that "there can be progress" in state and local efforts to devise new methods to finance transit projects. The Metro plan still must be ratified by county and city governments, in the Washington area. and Dole indicated the administration would withhold a decision on the plan until local governments act. Federal financing of the nation's transit systems is expected to be a focus of debate at the convention. Dole indicated no shift in policies, and she reiterated the administration's reluctance to subsidize operating costs, a controversial issue. "The most crucial issue facing public transit today is funding." Metro General Manager Carmen E. Turner told the conference. Twelve of the handicapped demonstrators were arraigned before a U.S. commissioner and released pending further hearings. Two protesters forfeited collateral of $l0 each. Police said one policeman suffered several broken fingers after being rammed by a protester's wheelchair. Staff writer Alfred E. Lewis contributed to this story. - ADAPT (635)
Different TIMES, September 24, 1990, p. 6 ADAPT fights for attendant services (Reprinted with permission from the Disability Rag; Box 145; Louisville, KY 40201.) [This story continues on 623 but the text is included here in full, for ease of reading.] “People with disabilities have the civil and human right to dependable attendant services that meet our daily needs in the location and manner of our choice." This simple declaration, made in Denver this summer, signaled the offensive being launched by ADAPT against “the nursing home lobby feeding off peoples' lives." It's ironic, says ADAPT member Mark Johnson. "Here we've finally got our rights now, in a law, and here you have more and more severely disabled people wanting to kill themselves—literally kill themselves—because they're being forced into nursing homes." “That Ken Bergstedt in Nevada [who petitioned the court in May to disconnect his respirator] is literally saying, “l'll end my life before I'll go in a nursing home," Johnson said. “What do you expect when people only have institutionalization to look forward to?" adds actress Nancy Becker Kennedy, one of the group that conducted a hunger strike in Los Angeles in July to protest the cut of California’s In Home Supportive Services. “Their attempts to stay in their homes are thwarted." lt’s the same with Georgia's highly publicized Larry McAfee, who was just put into a “group home," says ADAPT. Even after all the publicity, the State of Georgia will not put any money into funding attendant services in one's own home. And ADAPT is fed up. Recalling the phrase the transit industry used to argue that each city should decide whether or not to put lifts on buses, ADAPT calls the patchwork system of funding in-home services “the old ‘local option’ stuff all over again." “We're sick of it,"says Johnson. There needs to be a national commitment. In California, activists battled for several months to restore their In Home Support Services program which had been entirely cut from the state budget—and succeeded only in restoring it to its former level, which allows a disabled person to hire an attendant only at minimum wage and for no more than eight hours a day. People who need an attendant around the clock, like Ken Bergstedt, have little hope of avoiding a nursing home even in California, often cited as the state with the best attendant services program in the nation. Yet such battles sap the energy of disability activists for the larger fight for a national commitment. ADAPT has modified its former name, “American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation" to “American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today" to reflect its new focus. ADAPT says attendant services are a right. The group wants the program it's calling for to make attendant services available "based on functional need" rather than “whether a person can work or not." They don't want "employability" to be a "condition for getting services. And they don't want eligibility based on any specific disability, as it is in many states now. They want it to be available “to people of all ages, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with back-up emergency services."They stress they're not asking for “someone to hold your hand" but are speaking of the realistic needs of people like McAfee, Rick Tauscher, and Bergstedt who need an attendant available around the clock. They also say a program that allows the disabled person maximum control over an attendant is mandatory. Maybe a disabled person won’t want that control; maybe they'll want someone else to handle the paperwork and hiring decisions. That should be the disabled person‘s option, they say. There’s a quality-control issue here, they insist; they want to make sure disabled people get quality care but are allowed maximum say over personal services they receive—which is all too often not the case today as home "health" agencies muscle their way into the home "care" field. They‘re sick of the word “care.” They want a program that doesn’t keep anyone from services because they make too much money; they're willing, they say, to deal with a sliding scale for fees for such a program; but they want it available to anyone who needs it—regardless of income. It's a right, and cost is simply not an issue, they say. Keeping disabled people in institutions is ludicrously more expensive than providing in-home services in this country today. They blame that lack for the problems Larry MeAfee's constantly found himself in; they blame the nursing home industry for siphoning off the money that could go to fund such services. And they charge that home health agencies are nothing more than “the new nursing homes." Home health agencies “take people on Medicare and give them services and then bill them for $60 a pop," says ADAPT organizer Wade Blank. “Then when their Medicare coverage runs out after six months, they drop ‘em." The group says it’s also targeting “the big insurance companies like Prudential" and health maintenance organizations, who they say have a vested interest in keeping the system like it is. “We're saying that ethically and morally, nursing homes are not the place to go," says Blank. “When I see my severely disabled friends, living in their own homes, when l visit them in their apartments, listen with them to records or order in a pizza—and then I see my friends living in nursing homes, wasting away, waiting to die, I get very, very angry,” said Southern California ADAPT member Lilibeth Navarro. A survey of ADAPT members through their newsletter, Incitement, led them to decide to shift the focus to attendant services, said Navarro. And they're emphatic about the term too. “It’s not ‘attendant care‘ anymore," said Blank. “Whenever anybody said ‘care’ everybody booed,“ he added. It is fitting that ADAPT, whose original members came from Denver‘s Atlantis Community, will focus on attendant services. It was that need which led to the start of Atlantis, a “community” of disabled people and attendants. Atlantis “has a neat system,"agrees Navarro, noting that the 24-hour rotary attendant services allows any Atlantis person to have an attendant available whenever it's needed. “We could call an attendant at 11:30 p.m. and have somebody here," she said. “People who are having trouble with attendants can call and get an emergency back-up." Navarro, like others, said she knew of people “who endured abuse because they were afraid to lose their attendant"—"because it's so hard to find somebody, and nobody to turn to in an emergency situation." She related the story of a man whose attendant simply walked out on him and left him, unable even to reach a phone, for four days. “If his father hadn't checked on him, he'd be dead." “Only a national attendant program," she stressed, “will free us from emotional slavery Nancy Becker Kennedy agreed with Navarro. “The linchpin for independent living is in-home attendant services. It’s humane; it gives us a future." The group has sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan demanding a meeting in Atlanta Oct. 1; they've given Sullivan until Aug. 15 to reply. ADAPT activists from around the nation will descend on Atlanta the first week of October to launch the fight. They’ll be calling for a quarter of the money now going to the nursing home industry to “go into a pot for attendant services." As usual, ADAPT doesn’t expect this to happen without a fight -- primarily from the “nursing home lobby.” “This October," says Blank, “we will serve notice on those groups who are the enemies of a national attendant services program." TEXT BOX: ADAPT will converge on Atlanta — home of Morehouse College, HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan’s alma mater — on Sept. 28 for week-long direct action protest and training. Nationally known organizer Shel Trapp will conduct the session Saturday, Sept. 29. For more information on travel and hotel arrangements, contact ADAPT in Denver at (303) 936-1110. — Reprinted with permission from the Disability Rag; Box 145; Louisville, KY 40201. - ADAPT (441)
DISCLOSURE September-October 1989, Issue No. 112 the national newspaper of neighborhoods [Headline] Disabled Protest Across Country: “Accessible Transit Is a Civil Right" This story continues on 436 but is included here in its entirety for ease of reading. PHOTO by Tom Olin: A large group of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, many carrying posters, are massed in front of a MCI New Jersey bus. Joe Carle is in the middle of the group with his back to the camera and on the back of his wheelchair is a sign that reads "I can't even get on the back of the bus." Also visible (right to left) are Cassie James, Diane Coleman, Brian Shea, Mike Early from CORD, two other guys in wheelchairs, Kent Killam, Julie Nolan, a white haired blind person with a big sign, and a short woman, perhaps a child, looking to her left and holding on to the back of a wheelchair. The group is blocking the bus and the street, while others walk by on the sidewalk. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) and affiliated groups stages demonstratlon on disabled rights issues in front of buses at the federal court building, Philadelphia, May, 1989. by Mike Monti The message is clear: “We will ride,” say the members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). From a series of demonstrations to a controversial court case, this relentless group keeps fighting for accessible transit around the country. Among its victories are a July, 1989 federal court ruling that transportation agencies no longer have a 3 percent cap in providing wheelchair lifts or paratransit. For the members of ADAPT, accessible transit is a basic civil right — and is always worth fighting for. We reported in Disclosure #l08 on ADAPT’s actions in Montreal at the annual convention of the American Public Transit Authority (APTA). APTA and other transit authorities continue to make it extremely difficult for people with disabilities to use public transit. Nevertheless, ADAPT has shown that it will confront APTA wherever it shows up. Last April, at the Western Regional Conference of APTA in Sparks, Nevada (just outside of Reno), over 125 ADAPT members staged actions at the conference, calling for public transportation that can be used by everyone — including people with disabilities. Members started off with a march from their hotel to the conference hotel. When they were about halfway there, ADAPT was met by a police blockade. Obviously, authorities already knew about ADAPT: here is a group that won’t stops until it forces permanent changes. In Sparks. the marchers were able to get around the police barriers. But when they got to APTA’s hotel, they were met by private security forces. The hotel security outnumbered the city’s police three-to-one -— and were able to chain the door shut before ADAPT entered. Forty-seven ADAPT members were arrested, and seven were sent to jail. “The Sparks police had obviously decided that we weren't going to march in the streets,” said Stephanie Thomas, an ADAPT member who lives in Austin, Texas. “But we were able to go around the car barricades. it was like water going around the rocks." The following afternoon, ADAPT staged another demonstration with many crawling across the street and around police barricades, blocking traffic until they reached the front door of the hotel. It was locked from the inside. This time, 25 were arrested. The charge: blocking a fire door which was locked. Many of the ADAPT members who were arrested went on a hunger strike. Meanwhile, ADAPT members on the outside held a press conference calling attention to the problems jail staff were having providing for several of the disabled people’s needs. A final protest was held the next day. One day later, the Sparks judge who sent the hunger strikers to prison made a deal with the protesters: he let out two protesters for the price of a $100 fine. The judge had imposed a much stiffer sentence a couple of days earlier, but changed his mind in the face of a group of arrested ADAPT members who made it clear that they would rather starve and stay in jail than pay a huge fine. Meanwhile, disability groups on the east and west coasts were raising money to help support ADAPT. On the fourth day of the hunger strike, the judge relented and the fine was reduced. By the end of the day, all arrested ADAPT members had been released — and many in the group headed to Denver, for more demonstrations. In Denver — which is the home of ADAPT — the group protested at the annual conference of the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA). This time, demonstrations focused on the federal government's request for a re-hearing of the ADAPT vs. Burnley case. In February, ADAPT won a major victory from the Department of Transportation (DOT) - only to have it undercut by the government. The first of ADAPT’s arguments stated that the rule saying transportation agencies should not have to spend more than 3 percent of their budget on wheelchair lifts or paratransit was unconstitutional. Second, ADAPT held that the option allowing agencies to decide whether or not to provide new buses with wheelchair lifts was unconstitutional. DOT kept flip-flopping on the issue: first it said yes, and then it backed off, asking for a rehearing to vacate the decisions. In Denver, ADAPT confronted Michael Norton, U.S. Attorney for the Tenth District in Denver. “Why is the government working against disabled rights?” asked ADAPT. Norton eventually read a 20-page statement from Attorney General Thornburgh stressing “the need for concern, compassion, and commitment” — but also saying that the law never mandated integration. “It was a really offensive statement, ” said Stephanie Thomas. “On one hand, he was affirming the government's commitment, and on the other he’s fighting tooth and nail to stop rights for the disabled.” When the case was reheard in Philadelphia on May 15, ADAPT was ready. With help from the local chapter of Disabled in Action and the Cape Organization for Rights of the Disabled (CORD), protesters gathered at the federal court building. Four ADAPT members met with the U.S. Attorney, who listened to their concerns. Two days later, a protest was staged at Independence Hall. Dressed in revolutionary garb complete with wigs, three-cornered hats and fife and drum, the “Disability Rights Patriots” marched around the Liberty Bell. Court Decision On July 24, ADAPT won a significant victory as the original ruling striking down the 3 percent cap on wheelchair and paratransit lifts was upheld. On the local option issue, judges decided that the stipulation was legal. Now, it's back in the hands of DOT, for "clarification." Meanwhile, ADAPT will be working with lawyers to plan its next strategy in the legal arena, even though the courts have dodged the issue of equal rights for the disabled. Nevertheless, ADAPT is still ready for action. “We are not going to sit around and wait for the government to put a piece of legislation through,” said Wade Blank. What's next for ADAPT? The next APTA Conference will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 23-28, 1989. “The court’s decision on local option will make our demonstrations in Atlanta bigger,” says Mike Auberger, a co-director of ADAPT. Sparks Nevada, Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta. . .ADAPT marches on for rights for people with disabilities. “Someday,” says Wade Blank, “ It will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’ ” end of article Pictures of 2 graphic symbols: One is the ADAPT no-steps logo with American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit around the outside and a circle with a set of steps rising to the right and a bar across the circle and steps with the word ADAPT on it. The other is a power fist, with wheelchair warriors written below the arm. Caption reads: These symbols are part of ADAPT’s continuing fight. Says Wade Blank of ADAPT “Someday it will be just as appalling to see buildings without ramps as it was seeing signs that said ‘Whites Only.’” - ADAPT (487)
The Handicapped Coloradan ADAPT wins transit access VlCTORY! Federal court orders all new buses to be equipped w|th wheelchair lifts APTA pressures DOT to appeal decision Feb. 13,1989. Call it V-D Day. Victory over the Department of Transportation (DOT). Or call it V-A Day. Victory over the American Public Transit Association (APTA). Because on that day in Philadelphia, within earshot of the Liberty Bell and walking distance of the hall in which the Declaration of Independence was forged, disabled Americans won not only the right but the means to ride mainline public transportation. On a 2-l vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that in the future every transit system in the nation that buys buses with assistance from the DOT must purchase only buses equipped with wheelchair lifts. That decision reverses a 1988 ruling by U.S. District Judge Harold Katz who upheld DOT’s policy of allowing transit systems the “local option" of providing public transit to people with disabilities through a paratransit system. APTA, which reaffirmed its support of local option at its last national convention, has urged DOT to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such an appeal must be filed within 90 days, or by May 13, 1989. DOT already has filed for a rehearing, and the court is expected to announce by March 29 if they would be willing to reconsider the decision. Justices Carol Los Mansmann and A. Leon Higginbotham wrote the maiority opinion with Judge Morton Greenber dissenting. The case was brought to the Court of Appeals by a dozen disability rights organizations, led by the militant American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) and the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans of America. Timothy M. Cook, director of the newly formed National Disability Action Center, argued the case. It wasn't the first time wheelchair lifts have been in the courts. in 1979, the DOT, at the direction of President Jimmy Carter, ordered all transit systems to install lifts on new buses, but that mandate was struck down in federal court after an appeal by APTA. APTA’s insistence on local option led to the creation of ADAPT by a handful of militant wheelchair users in Denver, who set up pickets outside the Hilton Hotel headquarters of APTA's I983 national convention. At the insistence of Mayor Federico Pena, ADAPT was allowed to speak before the convention and no arrests were made. That was the last time either situation would exist. At every subsequent national convention or regional APTA meeting, wheelchair militants have shown up in force, blocking buses and hotel entrances until local police forces were forced to cart them away to jail. “Who would have thought a bunch of ragbag crips from Denver could have started something that would have grown this big?" asked ADAPT founder Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community, a local independent living agency. Both Blank and Cook cautioned that the war was not over yet, although both said they were pleased that the 73-page court opinion was filled with the language of the civil rights movement and would go a long way toward convincing those on the fence that their cause was just. The Court of Appeals opinion reads, in part: “We find the goal of eradicating the ‘invisibility of the handicapped‘ led Congress to enact measures to facilitate, if not immediate and complete mainstreaming of the handicapped, then affirmative and aggressive steps in that direction." The decision involves only new buses, as the justices argued that requiring systems to retrofit old buses would subject them to "undue burdens." Cook said after the decision was handed down that the "opinion is completely consistent with President Bush's call last week, in his speech before Congress, for Americans with disabilities to be ‘in the economic mainstream.‘ Nothing is more essential to meeting that goal than the provision of accessible public transportation." Mike Auberger of the Denver ADAPT chapter, who's been arrested in several cities while engaging in civil disobedience, agreed that accessible public transit is the key to enabling disabled people assume full citizenship. "People are dying out there," Auberger said. "Disabled people go into nursing homes because they don't have any options. I personally know people who have committed suicide because they don‘t have any options. Wheelchair lifts will give them that option." Auberger said that ADAPT doesn't plan to rest on its laurels. They'll be Reno April 7-ll for a regional APTA convention and back in Denver April 23-26 for the national meeting of the Urban Mass Transit Association (UMTA). “Our demand is simple," Auberger said. “We just want them to drop the appeal process and accept the decision." If they don't, Auberger promised that protesters would try to fill the jails one more time. To that end, ADAPT members intend to picket DOT offices in 12 cities on Good Friday, March 24, and ask staff members there to call the Presidiential assistant in charge of transportation matters and ask that the court decision not be appealed. "If they don't make the call, then we don't go," Auberger said. "I'm sure we'll take some heat because we're doing it on Good Friday," he said, explaining that he expects many offices to be shorthanded because of workers leaving early for the Easter weekend. "That should just add to the confusion." - ADAPT (484)
METRO Magazine March/April 1989 pp.18 - 21 Court Rules On Wheelchair Accessibility U.S. Court of Appeals orders that all new transit buses be wheelchair lift-equipped and paratransit service provided. by Jason Knott (This story continues through 484, 471, 470, 465, and 466. However, the entire text of the story is included here for ease of reading.) DRAWING: A large balance scale with a bowl hanging from each side of the balance. One bowl has the acronym APTA in it, the other has ADAPT. QUOTE below the picture: “I don’t think the government should mandate installation of lifts. It can become expensive for the smaller transit properties." —Davis There are more than 40 million disabled Americans and an estimated 67 percent of them are unemployed, according to the National Easter Seal Society. Meanwhile, a recent Harris poll revealed that three out of every 10 disabled persons say they cannot work because of a lack of accessible transportation. Moreover, the same poll shows that 49 percent of the disabled believe their mobility is limited because of transportation barriers. These statistics confirm that public transit accessibility is an important ingredient to mainstreaming the handicapped into society. On the flip side of the coin are the public transit authorities who are in the business of transporting ambulatory, as well as handicapped, persons in the most economical method possible. It would seem that the handicapped, who depend on public transit, would be natural constituents of transit agencies; however, the two groups have been at odds for years, grappling with each other over the accessibility of service. In particular one handicapped rights group — ADAPT (Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) — has been fighting with public transit across the nation. ADAPT wants every fixed route transit bus equipped with a wheelchair lift. In order to express its point, the group conducts disruptive protests at conferences held by the American Public Transit Association (APTA). (See September/October 1988 METRO Magazine, “When Rights Clash," page 79) Today, disabled Americans can chalk up a victory in their constant battle for a broader distribution of handicapped-accessible transit service. On February 13, a federal appeals court ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation to require transit authorities to equip all newly purchased buses with wheelchair lifts. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia also determined the 3 percent cap placed on transit agencies for handicapped expenditures was too low in the case entitled “ADAPT vs. Burnley." Wade Blank. director of ADAPT, applauded the court decision, saying the ruling is significant in the sense it is "evolutionary." Blank said, "We are now getting back to where we were in 1978. When we filed originally, we targeted the 3 percent cap. We decided to broaden the case because the climate in the country has changed. We talked with our attorneys and they broadened it to include the original intent of Section 504, and to really challenge the 1980 case that APTA brought. We are victorious because of a major mood change in the country regarding handicap accessibility." Blank cited two other recent rulings in Detroit and Chicago favoring handicapped accessibility. The Philadelphia ruling is in conflict with APTA's official policy, which was spelled out in a position paper reissued in October 1988. The association favors the local-option approach by which each local transit authority determines its own handicapped transportation policy. APTA's Board of Directors recently rejected a similar proposal calling for all new transit buses to be lift-equipped, according to Albert Engelken, deputy executive director. In other words, APTA believes that each local transit authority should create its own balance between demand response - or dial-a-ride — service, and fixed route accessibility. “It is very important that people realize that APTA is not against wheelchairs on transit buses," said Engelken, “rather, we are for local decision. The board of directors unanimously supports this approach. Every transit system makes their decision after in-depth consultation with the local disabled community. They are not making their decisions blindly." What next? The Department of Transportation is currently exploring its options, which include seeking a rehearing by the appeals court, appealing the-decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, or accepting the ruling. Michael Jacobson, spokesman for the DOT, could not give an estimate on when a decision might be made. An appeal is possible despite President Bush's recent campaign commitment to handicapped programs. Whether the decision will affect bus procurements that are currently - underway is unclear. Jack R. Gilstrap, APTA's executive vice president, issued the following statement concerning the ruling: “Because of the cost impact of the decision which requires lifts on all new buses plus paratransit service, and because it is inconsistent with other court decisions which create conflicting obligations on the part of the DOT and local public transit systems, APTA is urging DOT to challenge the decision." “Obviously this decision is extremely important," said Charles Cowie, national sales manager for Mobile Tech Corporation, a Hutchinson, Kansas-based manufacturer of wheelchair lifts for transit buses. “The objective is to make accessibility and mobility easier for the disabled, but to some, the decision favors a sector of the populous that is not altogether popular." “In a philosophical sense, the ruling is great," said Bill Hinze, National Sales Manager for Ricon, a dedicated lift manufacturer in Sun Valley, Calif. “It’s like a mandate for racial integration — it should have been done years ago." However, Hinze indicated he is still an advocate of demand response systems. “I don't think the government should mandate installation of lifts," said Bob Davis, vice president of Bus Manufacturing USA, a Goleta, Calif.-based distributor of semi-automatic lifts. “It can become expensive for the smaller transit agencies." The court also ruled that the current 3 percent cap on handicapped spending was insufficient; however, many agencies were already spending a higher percentage. In fact, in California and state law already requires all newly purchased transit buses to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. “Other states were already adhering to a similar policy, although it is not written in law," said Don Smith, director of marketing for Lift-U, Inc. in Escalon, Calif. According to Engelken of APTA, an average of 6 percent of transit expenditures are directed toward improving handicapped transportation already — double the required limit. Moreover, an APTA survey indicates that 31 percent of all transit vehicles are lift equipped, with the number steadily rising. The court decision comes in the wake of several different movements toward the improvement of handicapped accessibility to public transit. [Subheading] Project ACTION As part of the APTA’s Elderly and Disabled Task Force, a three-year Congressional program called “Project ACTION" (Accessible Community Transportation In Our Nation) will soon establish six demonstration sites nationwide to study handicapped transit accessibility. The National Easter Seal Society is conducting the three-year, $3 million undertaking. Congress has earmarked $1 million in fiscal year 1988 UMTA research and technical assistance funds to initiate the project, and an additional $1.35 million in fiscal year 1989. Project ACTION is designed to improve access to transit services for the handicapped. It will involve national and local organizations representing public transit operators, the transit industry, and people with disabilities in the development of a cooperative model program promoting greater access to transportation. Project ACTION is the result of a mandate from Congress to find ways to better accommodate the transportation needs of people with disabilities. The program will focus on five key concerns of people with disabilities and local transit operators seeking to improve transit: * Identifying persons with disabilities in the community. * Developing effective outreach and marketing strategies. * Developing training programs for transit riders. * Developing assistive programs for people with disabilities. * Applying appropriate technology to solve critical barriers to transportation and accessibility. “APTA’s task force is examining numerous areas to improve handicapped transportation," said Engelken. “We are looking at how to improve the marketing of service and we are struggling with the wrenching problem that exists in that area. "We have to make sure that people are riding the buses,” added Engelken. “If we don't, then the federal and state government are going to say that transit agencies are spending their money unwisely.” [Subheading] Operating costs The court decision also comes at a time when some transit agencies are lowering their wheelchair lift operating costs. In fact, figures released by ADAPT, claim that Seattle Metro operating costs were $3.13 per lift in 1987, with a reliability rate of more than 98 percent. In comparison, the Bay Area Regional Transit Association cited operating costs of $118.55 per trip for wheelchair lift-equipped transit buses among the several different transit authorities operating in the region. This disparity is due to widely different methodologies for calculating costs, a condition that has led to an absence of reliable nation-wide data. Tim Cook, director for the National Disabilities Action Center in Washington, D.C. and the attorney representing ADAPT in court, said, “I’m not sure accurate figures exist because it varies from system to system. National figures are meaningless because many systems haven't made a decision to make a commitment to accessibility." “Every property has it differently organized. Some agencies will designate one mechanic to maintain 75 to 100 lifts," said Smith of Lift-U, “But it really depends on how committed the maintenance director or general manager is to wheelchair lifts." [Subheading] Technology Mobile Tech and Lift-U manufacture electro-hydraulic passive wheelchair lifts for the transit industry. These lifts do not require the driver to leave his seat to operate the device. Ricon is a leading manufacturer of dedicated lifts, which are common on paratransit vehicles. These lifts are ideal for the handicapped, but cannot be used by ambulatory passengers. The lift does not utilize hydraulics. Another lift on the market is the AMF Hubmatik swivel-lift manufactured in West Germany. The lift is marketed in the U.S. by Bus Manufacturing USA and Ortho Safe Systems in Trenton, N.J. The semi-automatic, electro-hydraulic lift requires the driver to swivel the unit out the door for boarding and departure. It is currently in use by Sun Line Transit Agency in Thousand Palms, Calif. Due to constant R & D by the manufacturers, lift technology is dynamically improving. According to Smith, future innovations in passive lift technology will include state-of-the-art circuit boards, LED's and microchips. Cowie of Mobile-Tech predicted a 180 degree turn in technology within the next two years. Hinze indicated his company is developing a lift that can be utilized by both handicapped and ambulatory passengers and reduce maintenance costs by up to 10 percent. The court ruling does not touch upon rail accessibility at all. Installation of wayside wheelchair lifts for rail systems has not been as active as bus development. According to Smith, some transit agencies have requested lifts be designed for installation on the railcars themselves; however, because of the small demand, this is not profitable for passive lift manufacturers. More R & D is necessary on the shock and vibration of railcars to produce a passive lift that can withstand that environment. However, San Diego Trolley has been using on-board lifts for three years, and recently ordered 41 more units according to Hinze of Ricon. This onboard lift eliminates the problem of railcar operators “spotting” their stops for wayside lift access. The ruling could also mean increased specification of wheelchair restraint systems such as the one manufactured by Q'Straint in Buffalo, N.Y. The system consists of four stainless steel floor plates mounted flush with the floor. Four belts, two in front and two in the rear, and a shoulder harness and lap belt secure the rider. [Subheading] Solving the problem Despite the jubilation one might expect among wheelchair manufacturers, many seem to believe a mixture of demand response service along with fixed route wheelchair service is the ultimate solution to transporting the disabled and elderly. "The degree of demand response versus fixed route service should be a local decision," Cowie said. “It is important to mainstream the handicapped in the bigger cities through fixed route service; however, demand response is good in rural areas." These thoughts were echoed somewhat by Smith, who is a member of APTA’s Elderly and Disabled Services Task Force. "There should definitely be a mixture of services," he said. “[The government] can't dictate how every community should handle this problem. Some communities have spent a lot of money of their dial-a-ride service. You need to have a local option. “Another solution," continues Smith, "might be to make fixed route service fully accessible and let another organization — outside the realm of public transit — take care of special needs or demand response service." He believes the transportation problems of the elderly and the disabled should be handled separately. the end of article BOXED TEXT next to main article: [Heading] The Long Road To Wheelchair Accessibility A federal appeals court has ordered the U.S. Department of Transportation to require transit authorities to equip new buses with wheelchair lifts, and provide public transport for riders unable to use lift-equipped buses. Attorneys who brought the lawsuit called it the most important decision ever handed down for handicapped people needing public transportation. The decision, in the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals was, 2-1. “We conclude that ordering that newly purchased buses be accessible to the mobility disabled does not exact a fundamental alteration to the nature of mass transportation," Judge Carol Mansmann wrote in the majority opinion. “Also, by requiring that newly purchased buses be accessible, we are not imposing undue financial or administrative burdens on the local transit authorities." In the dissenting opinion, Judge Morton I. Greenberg said the section requiring new buses to be accessible was not meant to apply to transit systems choosing a paratransit system. Timothy M. Cook, director of the National Disability Action Center, argued the case before the appeals court and called the decision, “a major, major victory for the handicapped community. We can't say enough positive things about it.” Cook expressed hope that the ruling would not be appealed in light of President Bush's recent comments about his desire to bring the handicapped into the mainstream. The Transportation Department had appealed an earlier decision by U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz in Philadelphia that canceled a 1986 department regulation calling for mass-transit authorities to spend up to 3 percent of their operating budgets on providing services for the handicapped. In his decision, Katz called the 3 percent requirement unreasonable, but ruled the department must resolve differences between equality for the handicapped and cost efficiency. Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) appealed Katz's simultaneous ruling that upheld the right of transit authorities to decide whether to fit vehicles for the handicapped or provide other services. The appeals court ruling affirmed Katz's decision in favor of dropping the 3 percent provision, but it reversed his other decision by ordering transit authorities to equip new buses with chair lifts or other accommodations for the handicapped.