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Heim / Albúm / Merki APTA - American Public Transit Association + ADAPT - American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit 61
- ADAPT (345)
Contra Costa Times, Monday, September 28, 1987 Serving Central Contra Costa County (This article is continued in ADAPT 343, but the entire text is included here for easier reading) Photo Title: NO TAXATION WITHOUT TRANSPORTATION Staff Photo by Brad Mangin: A solid mass of mostly wheelchair using protesters fill a park. Above their heads you can see palm trees and a monument, on which a couple of camera people are standing. The protesters are chanting, mouths open, and some are raising their fist in the air. A man in the front is holding a sign that reads "No taxation without transportation." Caption reads: DAN O'HARA of Walnut Creek, left, participates in Sunday's demonstration in San Francisco. Title: Disabled arrested in SF protest By Donna Hemmila Staff writer SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters in wheelchairs, chanting "If you can take us to jail, take us to work," were arrested Sunday at City Hall where they disrupted the opening of a national public transit convention. More than 35 disabled people were hauled into special wheelchair-lift equipped vans on charges of disturbing the peace. Groups of demonstrators blocked the entrance to the City Hall rotunda where delegates from the American Public Transit Association kicked off a five-day convention Sunday. As San Francisco police officers pushed the wheelchairs into the waiting vans, other wheelchair riders parked in front of the vans to keep them from driving away. Captain Michael Pera said the demonstrators would be given citations at the Hall of Justice and released. "The situation was getting out of hand," Pera said. "My understanding was by the demeanor of the crowd, they wanted to be arrested." More than 150 disabled protesters and their families had marched from an afternoon rally at Union Square. The parade of wheelchairs had stopped traffic on downtown streets and demonstrated in front of the Hilton Hotel on Powell Street, where convention delegates are staying. The five-day transit convention is expected to bring nearly 15,000 representatives from transit agencies across the United States to the Bay Area. Disabled organizers have vowed to disrupt the convention, being held at the Moscone Center, to call attention to the transit organization's policy on access for disabled people. Disabled organizers say the APTA is responsible for weakening federal laws that require public transit agencies to equip their buses and subways to carry disabled passengers. A successful lawsuit brought by APTA changed federal law to give local transit agencies the right to decide what type of accessible transit to provide. Many transit districts have chosen to carry wheelchair passengers in dial-a-ride-type vans rather than equip their regular buses with wheelchair lifts. Members of the American Disabled for Public Transit and the September Alliance for Accessibility are demanding to ride the same public transit system that able-bodied passengers use. At the rally in Union Square, the protesters heard pledges of support from Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, feminist Eleanor Smeal, the Rev. Cecil Williams from Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco and labor leader Jack Henning. During the rally the protesters chanted curses against APTA and waved signs with slogans such as "No Taxation without Transportation." The songs and chants were punctuated with the clanging bells of passing cable cars, a San Francisco attraction none of the wheelchair riders can board because the cars lack lifts. McCarthy said he backed the disabled community in its fight for independence. Many disabled rely on public transit to go to work and are being denied opportunities because they don't have transportation, he said. "There is no footnote to the Constitution that says everybody gets these civil rights except the disabled," McCarthy said. Disabled speakers fanned the crowd's anger with accounts of their morning meetings with APTA representatives at the Hilton Hotel. Disabled representatives said the wheelchair-accessible door to the hotel was barricaded and they were told to exit through the garage. "The backdoor entrance went out in the '60s with the civil rights movement," said Judy Heumann, of the September Alliance. "We're not going to go through the back door anymore." Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, denied his organization had ordered the hotel barricaded. "This is not a happy situation," Engelken said as he watched wheelchair users demonstrating on the streets below from the fourth floor window of the Hilton. "Obviously it's a sore spot. Nobody likes this." APTA's executive board has agreed to set up a task force to study their policy, but Engelken said the organization is not ashamed of its stand on disabled access. Only California and Michigan have laws that mandate full accessibility on public buses and rail systems. "You folks in California chose Artie you want and APIA thinks that's great," Englenken said. "We just wonder if the people in California should be telling the rest of us what to do." APTA has estimated it would cost $13 billion to make every public transit system in the United States accessible to the disabled. Staff Photo by Brad Mangin: A woman, Paulette Patterson, surrounded by protesters and signs, has her mouth wide in a chant. She is holding a sign on a stick that reads "We Will ADAPT". Beside her another woman, Maryann Collinsworth, holds onto her chair. Behind them another sign that reads "Transit Access Now" is visible. Caption reads: Paulette Patterson of Chicago waves a sign during Sunday's demonstration demanding better access for the disabled on public transportation. - ADAPT (395)
St. Louis Post Dispatch 5-22-88 PHOTO by Ted Dargan/Post Dispatch: A Line of ADAPT people roll down a city street. The first person in line (Mike Auberger) has two long braids and sunglasses. His arms hang on either side of his motorized wheelchair and his ADAPT shirt is somewhat covered by the chest strap on his chair. Next to Mike is a man in a manual wheelchair with curly hair and a beard (Bob Kafka) who has is legs crossed and is wearing the same ADAPT shirt as Mike. Behind them a man (Jerry Eubanks) with no legs in a manual wheelchair is being pushed by a blind man (Frank Lozano) who is smiling. Behind them is another man in a maual wheelchair. Behind him is someone in a motorized wheelchair who is looking off to the side. Behind them is another person in a wheelchair. The photo is grainy so it's hard to make out many details. Caption reads: Disabled people demonstrating downtown last week for more accessible bus service. Title: Bus Stop By Joan Bray Of the Post-Dispatch Staff ACTIV1STS FROM local advocacy groups were absent from the scores of protesters who took to St. Louis streets last week asserting the rights of the disabled to accessible bus service. Leaders of the local groups say tactics, not goals, caused them and their members to opt out of the demonstrations. About 150 people blocked entrances at Union Station and surrounded buses at the Greyhound terminal. A majority of them were in wheelchairs, on crutches or otherwise disabled. And they were out-of-towners. They belong to a loosely woven group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, called ADAPT for short. The group was protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association, which was holding a regional meeting at the Omni International Hotel at Union Station. As a result of ADAPT's civil disobedience, 78 arrests were made, two group court appearances were held and a lawsuit was filed by the group over treatment at the City Workhouse. We support ADAPT's policies on access 1,000 percent," said Max J. Starkloff. He is executive director here of Paraquad Inc., which advocates rights for the handicapped. "But we have not participated in the demonstrations." "Our methods are negotiation, public testimony and organized public rallies," Starkloff said. "Our goals ore the same" as ADAPT's. Both the local activists and ADAPT want the transit association to push for installing a wheelchair lift on every bus in the country. They see 100 percent accessibility as a civil right. Rut the transit association notes in a written statement that no such accessibility is required by the Constitution, the Congress or the courts. It says the number of lifts on buses has increased to 30 percent now from 11 percent in 1981. In that same period, the administration of President Ronald Reagan has slashed the federal transit program's budget by 47 percent, the association says. The association says each local transportation agency should be allowed to determine how it will provide access for the disabled. Special services — like the Call-A-Ride service operated by the Bi-State Development Agency — may work better than lift-equipped buses in some areas, the association says. Local groups' methods for effecting change include working within the system. Starkloff serves on Bi-State's committee on transit for the elderly and disabled. The chairman of that committee, Fred Cowell, is executive director of the Gateway chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America. Bi-State has made a commitment to install wheelchair lifts on all its buses, Cowell said. But the committee wants the agency's board of directors to adopt a policy stating it will do so. "We know that the buses are here to stay," Cowell said. "If or when budget cuts come, special services such as Call-A-Ride would be the first to go." Cowell and Starkloff said they feared that between the bureaucracy and the protests, the primary point — the need for equal transportation — was being missed. "A disabled person is not unlike any other person," Cowell said. Disabled people need to get to their jobs, to medical care and to social engagements, be said. "There is absolutely no difference in their need to get around," he said. Starkloff noted that the cost of a van equipped for a wheelchair — a minimum of about $20,000 — was prohibitive for most people. But the disabled should not have to wait at a bus stop on the chance that the next bus may be equipped with a lift, be said. Nor should they have to plan their trips 24 hours in advance, as Call-A-Ride requires, he said. Cowell said, "The main thing the (BI-State) committee has been trying to do is develop a deepening concern for services for the disabled and elderly." The fact that the committee has been successful in persuading Bi-State to buy only buses with lifts prevented the agency from bearing the brunt of ADAPT's effort here, one of the protest leaders said. The Rev. Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister from Denver, is a co-director of ADAPT. He has a daughter who is disabled. Two months ago, representatives of ADAPT met with State officials in preparation for their trip here and learned of the agency's commitment to lifts, Blank said. As a result, ADAPT aimed its protests at the transit association's meeting and Greyhound Bus Lines. Greyhound is bidding on local routes in some metropolitan areas — Dallas, for one, Blank said. But it does not equip its buses with lifts, he said. A spokesman for Greyhound said last week that, instead, it provided a free ticket for a companion for a disabled traveler. Regarding the transit meeting, Blank said: "Our whole intent is to go after people who are so much wrapped up in the system that they insulate themselves from the issue. They have to live and breathe (ADAPT's protests) when they go to these conventions." Demonstrators here represented some of ADAPTs 33 chapters across the country, Blank said. He said his headquarters was with a group in Denver called the Atlantis Community, which moves disabled people out of nursing homes into independent living arrangements. Funding comes primarily from church donations and foundation grants, he said. From 1978 to 1981, ADAPT protested — and "caused a major disruption" — in Denver every month, Blank said. In 1982, the buses there became 100 percent equipped with lifts, he noted. ADAPT has since protested in all the cities where the transit association has met and where it has been invited by other activists, for a total of about 15 cities, Blank said. [unreadable] ...only buses with lifts, he said. Blank said the failure of local groups to join ADAPT's protests did not weaken the cause. Another success that ADAPT points to is a ruling by a federal Judge in Philadelphia in January striking down a regulation of the US. Department of Transportation that allows transit authorities to spend only 3 percent of their budgets on the disabled. The Judge postponed the effect of the ruling while the Justice Department appeals it. Three percent of Bi-State's budget for the current fiscal year Is $2.6 million, said Rosemary Covington, an agency official who works with the advisory committee. But Bi-State will spend only $1 million because of delays in getting bids on new buses and in expanding the Call-A-Ride service. "We are having budget problems, but that wasn't the reason" the money wasn't spent, Covington said. The remaining $1.6 million does not roll over to the fiscal year that begins July 1, she said. She said that by early next year, Bi-State expected that 221 of its fleet of about 700 buses will be equipped with lifts, 12 of the more than 120 routes will be operated entirely with lift-equipped buses, the Call-A-Ride service will include all of St. Louis County and the city and a voucher system will be available for back-up cab service. Equipping all the agency's buses with lifts will take six to seven years, Covington said. Meanwhile the committee will help evaluate the services for the disabled, she said. "If ridership doesn't materialize" on the buses with lifts or "if it costs thousands or millions (of dollars) to maintain them, that will enter into the decision making," Covington said. Bi-State is training drivers how to use the lifts and plans to promote and advertise the service heavily, she said. - ADAPT (427)
Title: WHEELCHAIR TRANSIT BUSTED English Cultural Tabloid, Oct 7, 1988, p. 8 by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR Montreal's handicapped community is hoping that getting arrested will succeed where letters and phone calls have failed to improve its transit service. About 50 activists were arrested after blocked traffic along Rene Levesque, disrupting the Queen Elizabeth Hotel conference, and demonstrating at the Sheraton hotel, where members of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) were staying for an annual convention from October 1-5. The local disabled population teamed up with the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) in protesting against APTA policy. ADAPT has organized civil disobedience at all APTA conferences for the last five years, with last year's convention in San Francisco resulting in over 70 arrests , while a regional conference in St. Louis led to the arrest of over 40 activists. Stephanie Thomas of ADAPT says that the enmity towards the transit group dates to the late '70s when the U.S. government passed a law which decreed that all new public transit vehicles must be accessible to the handicapped, but APTA lobbying had the law overturned. Thomas, who has been active in each of the protests against APTA, refuted the organization's claim that making transit accessible is expensive and impractical: "A lift on a bus only increases its cost by about 10 per cent, which would be made up as it eases the cost on the separate transportation system for the disabled." Montreal's transit authority (MUCTC) is a member of APTA and has failed to make new buses or subway stations accessible to the disabled: A separate service for the disabled has existed since 1980. This system, according to Francois Gagnon of the Quebec Movement of Handicapped Consumers, is deteriorating. "The Quebec government has ordered that the separate service maximize its use," he says, "and since then, one complaint I received was from a man who gets picked up for work at 7 AM and is delivered to his job at 9:45 AM." Gagnon, whose organization encouraged the disabled community to take part in the protests against APTA, argues that economics and demographics prove that now is the time to make the system accessible. "By the year 2000, 25 per cent of Quebecers will be senior citizens, many of whom will be handicapped, and the longer it is delayed, the more expensive the transition will become." For many disabled, the real issue is the right to enjoy transit facilities made for the rest of society. The protests are an attempt to end the separate transit systems. Stephanie Thomas stresses that ADAPT is not demanding that existing vehicles be modified, only that new equipment should be accessible to the disabled. Thomas is encouraged by the results of the protests. 'We have been active lobbying, and nothing was ever done. But since we started protesting, it has become a major issue. Slowly, cities such as Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas, Syracuse, and Chicago are changing to accessible transit." Montreal may yet be able to join that list. The End - ADAPT (423)
[Headline] "We Will Ride" [Subheading] Disabled Protesters Clash with Transit Authorities National Group Fights for Accessible Transit Disclosure Jan-Feb, 1989 [This article continues on ADAPT 420 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] "These protests are the continuation of an ongoing assault," says Stephanie Thomas of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). In October, ADAPT disrupted the annual convention of the American Public Transit Authority (APTA) in Montreal with a series of protests. "We want all buses to be made accessible to disabled people," says Stephanie Thomas, who lives in Austin, Texas. "And we will continue these confrontations until that happens!" ADAPT is getting closer and closer to that goal. Last year, a task force created by APTA proposed lifts on all new buses. Nevertheless, at the Board of Directors' meeting in Montreal in October, APTA reaffirmed its current policy on transportation for disabled persons. In many cities, transportation for disabled persons means some kind of a pickup service. "It's a segregated system," says Stephanie Thomas, "and it never works out as well as it sounds. Riding public transportation is a civil right." For this civil right, ADAPT turns to civil disobedience. ADAPT has become such a force at APTA conventions that local police now prepare in advance for the group's demonstrations. In Montreal, police watched videos of ADAPT demonstrations in the U.S. and 100 police were put through a day-long training session on how to deal with the anticipated protests. But that didn't stop the ADAPT protesters, who continue to fight tenaciously for accessible transit. The four day series of actions in Montreal began on Sunday, October 1st. Despite a torrential downpour and near freezing temperatures, 120 members of ADAPT marched down Boulevard Rene Levesque to the Hotel Queen Elizabeth, APTA's 1988 convention site. ADAPT protesters were joined by representatives of their local counterpart — Le Mouvement des Consommateurs Handicapes de Quebec (MCHQ) or the Movement of Disabled Consumers of Quebec. ADAPT members swarmed across the road to enter the hotel, despite at least a one-to-one ratio of police to protesters. Even as a wall of police barricades was hastily erected, protesters climbed down from their chairs and crawled under the barriers. They were carried back by the police, but no arrests were made. That evening ADAPT took a more undercover approach. "No small feat for over 100 wheelchairs," commented Stephanie Thomas. Sneaking through back alleys and a back door, 15 people in wheelchairs were carried down a flight of stairs into one of the satellite hotels in which APTA members were staying. Meanwhile, two other `groups` converged on the front door using their wheelchairs to push aside makeshift barriers of luggage carts. Singing and chanting, ADAPT took over the lobby — blocking elevators, escalators, and stairs as APTA members looked on in shock, Finally, the police selectively arrested 28 of the demonstrators, including two who had chained themselves to the stairway. That night, a judge sentenced members of the group to a $50 fine, to be paid on the spot, or they would be faced with three days in jail, with a probation banning those arrested from entering downtown Montreal for six months. Twenty of the group refused to pay the fine and went to prison. Nevertheless, this put no damper on ADAPT's actions. Next hit: the APTA Spouses' Luncheon and Fashion Show, a favorite ADAPT target. The luncheon was held at a chalet atop Mount Royal on Mon-day, October 3. Ten more ADAPT members were arrested, as the APTA buses were stopped and the spouses were forced to walk past chanting demonstrators. On Monday night, October 3, 20 wheelchair users penetrated the Queen Elizabeth Hotel through an underground shopping area. 7 year old Jennifer Keelan, who uses a wheelchair, and her mother, were taken into custody and threatened with arrest, but were later let go. Meanwhile, in two Montreal prisons, the system was showing its inability to deal with severely disabled inmates. The ADAPT inmates were on a hunger strike. Officials decided that, due to good behavior, everyone would be out by Tuesday morning. ADAPT swung into the final phase of operation Tuesday morning. As requested by MCHQ, it was time to hit the local transit system — which is completely inaccessible to people with mobility impairments. Buses were stopped for an hour at a local bus transfer site, while a local woman crawled from her wheelchair aboard a bus and tried unsuccessfully to ride. "We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we are inconvenienced all our lives," said Wade Blank of ADAPT to the crowd. Blank is the founder of ADAPT. On Wednesday, October 5, ADAPT entered the Longueuil METRO subway station and once again tried to ride. The station had no ramps or elevators, and narrow turnstyles. 50 ADAPT members sang and chanted in the cavernous station — and cheered as 15 others crawled out of their wheelchairs, down the steps, and across the floor to the turnstyles where police blocked their passage. From the dirty platform floor, ADAPT held a press conference. We explained our simple desire to use the public transit that our taxes pay for," says Stephanie Thomas. "Lack of access is degrading for people with disabilities." The pressure on APTA is clearly mounting. APTA is now considering a resolution which strongly supports mainline transit access — ADAPT's demand from the start. In addition, Le Mouvement des Consommateurs Handicapes de Quebec has learned first hand the effectiveness of direct action techniques and has vowed to continue the pressure locally in Montreal. "In Quebec, now they are saying 'Nous serons transporte!', says Stephanie Thomas. "That means what we have been saying all along, and will continue to say: 'We will ride!" Photo by Tom Olin: On a Montreal street Mike Auberger pushing his knees through a police barricade as two officers try and hold him back. In the background another ADAPT person is also up against the barricades held by police. Caption: Mike Auberger of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) breaking through police barricade at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where the American Public Transit Authority (APTA) was staying for its convention last October. - ADAPT (435)
Title: Disabled.. protesters at the Queen E. ‘We Shall Overcome’ by Ron Charles Montreal Daily News Inserted in the top center of the page is an image of yesterday's Daily News front page [ADAPT 386 & 385] with the headline A wheelchair army goes to way! and photos of that protest. Captioned: “Yesterday’s Daily News.” Title: The Siege Day 2 TEN disabled protesters were arrested last night for chaining their wheelchairs to doors at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, while 10 others were being arraigned in municipal court. Singing "Access is a civil right," and "We shall overcome," the protesters demanded to see American Public Transit Association (APTA) vice-president Jack Gilstrap. Gilstrap refused to face them. APTA is holding its annual conference at the Queen Elizabeth. The protesters, members of American Disabled for Access to Public Transit, want APTA to endorse wheelchair lifts on all new buses across North America. Police officials said nine of 10 would be arraigned in municipal court sometime last night or early this morning. Cynthia Keelan and her seven-year-old daughter Jennifer were released soon after the wheelchair bus carrying the arrested demonstrators arrived at police headquarters. Police began processing the 10 protesters last night just as the arraignments of 10 others arrested earlier in the day were being completed. The 10 arraigned at 7:30 last night were arrested for blocking the Camillien-Houde parkway atop Mount Royal —to impede the return of APTA conference-goers from a luncheon at Chalet Mont Royal. All 10 pleaded guilty to charges of mischief and obstruction of justice. Municipal court Judge Louis-Jacques Leger sentenced five of the 10 — all of whom refused to pay $50 in fines — to three days in jail. The judge also slapped probation orders on the protesters, forbidding them from taking part in demonstrations on the Island of Montreal for six months. Léger also forbade them from being within 100 metres of an ADAPT demonstration and from being in areas where the arrests were made until the APTA conference ends to-morrow. [Subheading] Waived conditions The judge waived the last two conditions for Marie Barile, the sole Montrealer arrested atop the mountain. Barile protested conditions which said she should not be within the boundaries of Cote des Neiges Boulevard, Pine Avenue, Mount Royal Avenue and Parc Avenue. "But I work on Cote des Neiges near Victoria," she said, leaning forward in her wheel-chair so Léger could hear her. Rev. Wade Blank, one of the five who refused to pay his fine, told the judge that he would go to jail to protest the incarceration of the wheelchair-bound demonstrators. "I'm protesting the punishment of people, who are already punished enough by society," said Blank, who isn't disabled. MUC police moved in after the group of 50 blocked access to the chalet for an hour. "All the APTA people got up to their fancy luncheon, but they couldn't get down," said Molly Blank, Wade's wife. Meanwhile, 20 ADAPT members are expected to be released from prison this morning after serving half of their three-day sentences for invading and refusing to leave the Sheraton Centre, where some APTA members are staying. While 28 were arrested in the Sheraton protest, eight paid their $50 fines after pleading guilty to mischief and obstructing justice in a 2:30 a.m. municipal court session yesterday. The rest refused to pay fines or could not. The 20 — 16 men who were sent to Bordeaux jail and four women sent to Tanguay — went on hunger strikes to protest the probation orders Léger imposed. "Basically, the judge told them not to go into a demilitarized zone encompassing the major hotels where APTA members are staying," said Stewart Russell, the group's Montreal lawyer. [Subheading] Don't have right Russell called the restrictions on their movements unconstitutional because, he said, they didn't allow those convicted freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Again at last night's session, he told Léger the orders were unconstitutional. "These people have not the right to demonstrate anywhere in the city of Montreal for six months, and they can't go see the mountain like other tourists visiting the city," Russell told the court at the arraignment of the mountain demonstrators. Léger said the probation order didn't hinder their rights enough to be considered unconstitutional, and he said, "I think they had an opportunity to see the mountain today." Sidebar: Access is a civil right, they say Singing “Access is a civil right,” and “We shall overcome,” disabled protesters at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel demanded to see American Public Transit Association (APTA) vice-president Jack Gilstrap yesterday. The protesters, members of American Disabled for Access to Public Transit, want APTA to endorse wheelchair lifts on all new buses across North America. Photo by Allan Leishman/Daily News: A group of ADAPTers are sitting in their wheelchairs together (left to right: Bobby Simpson, Terri Fowler, Katie Hoffman, Debbie _______ and in front Lillibeth Navarro. Behind them half a dozen police cars and the "Special" paddy wagon/school bus are parked. About a dozen police officers are standing around the cars; one appears to be chatting with Larry Ruiz and another ADAPT person. Caption reads: “Protest: Demonstrators demand to see the American Public Transit Association vice-president.” - ADAPT (434)
Title: arrested after chaining wheelchairs to hotel doors PHOTO 1 by Allan R Leishman/Daily News: Over a half dozen policemen walk in a row, escorting and pushing Lillibeth Navarro, Jennifer Keelan and another partially obscured ADAPT protester's wheelchairs, as well as Cyndy Keelan down a low hallway. Lillibeth is chanting and Jennifer is looking at her. Caption reads: Young crusader: Even though she's only Seven, Jennifer Keelan, In wheelchair on right, didn't escape a police roundup of disabled protesters yesterday. PHOTO 2 by Allan R Leishman/Daily News: Seven year old Jennifer Keelan and her mom Cyndy Keelan sitting in a bus holding hands and chanting. Caption reads: Cute criminal: Jennifer In paddy wagon. Title/Sidebar: 'Brave' 7-year-old caught in police round-up by Mike Gavin Montreal Daily News A BIG-CITY police round-up is no place for a pretty seven-year-old girl, but then, Jennifer KeeIan is no ordinary little kid. A victim of congenital cerebral palsy, Jennifer will have to fight for everything in a society that still doesn't respect the rights of the disabled, says her mother, Cynthia. And that will probably mean more demonstrations like the one that led to her "arrest" by police last night. "She's a very, very brave little girl and I'm proud of her," Cynthia Keelan said, as Jennifer looked up at burly policemen surrounding her small group. There had been a lot of excitement as the beefy cops first moved in. But the drama waned as everyone awaited special transportation to police headquarters, and Jennifer's little blonde head kept sinking to her chest. Station 25 director Edouard Sarrazin was quick to point out that the little girl hadn't been arrested. [Subheading] Paddy wagon ride "It's her mother who has been arrested." Still, Jennifer had to watch about 40 policemen surround her and her mother and other members of the group. American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. And it meant a ride to police head-quarters in a converted wheelchair bus being used as a paddy wagon. The Keelans, of Scottsdale, Ariz., are in Montreal to protest with other ADAPT members at the annual meeting of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which is meeting at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Later, at police headquarters, police decided to release the mother and daughter without pressing charges, saving Jennifer and her mother the trauma of being separated overnight. [Subheading] Make things better "I hope they don't separate us," Cynthia Keelan had told the Daily News just a few minutes before. "You don't think they will, do you?" Though in perfect health herself, she decided to get involved in ADAPT "so that things will be better for the disabled when my daughter grows up than they are now." ADAPT's specific beef with APTA concerns the 3,000-member group's refusal to endorse a policy requiring all urban transit buses to be equipped with wheelchair lifts. Cynthia Keelan didn't miss the irony of her daughter, wheelchair-bound since infancy, being lifted aboard the police bus with the kind of lift ADAPT would like to see as standard equipment on all buses. "Access to transportation is essential if people in wheelchairs, people like Jennifer, are to have a fair chance," said the young mother. "It's too bad the authorities don't always make these kinds of buses available." - ADAPT (430)
[Headline] Wheelchair Protesters Unfazed by Metro stairs By PEGGY CURRAN of The Gazette It began when Ronnie Smith deliberately hurled his wheelchair down the stairs at the Longueuil Metro station. Horrified commuters stood by helplessly as the frail-looking Dallas, Tex., man tumbled in a heap at the foot of the stairs. Five Longueuil police officers rushed to pick Smith up and ease him back into his chair. "It wasn't bad," said Smith, 33. "I knew if I made it halfway down, I'd be OK. I knew I'd be shaken up a little bit." Minutes later, 10 more disabled activists had abandoned their wheelchairs, slithering or crawling down the steps to the subway level. Holding up bus tickets, they edged toward the wickets - only to be stopped by a police barricade. Another 30 disabled people remained in the rotunda upstairs, chanting "We will ride" and singing We shall overcome. Most of the protesters were Americans, members of ADAPT - American Disabled for Adapted Public Transit. For five years, the organization has taken radical action to press its demands for better public transit. Often it stages spectacular demonstrations and welcomes arrests. The group came to Montreal for four days to stage protests again at he annual convention of the American Public Transit Association. Since Sunday, some 48 protesters have been arrested during demonstrations at the Sheraton Centre, the chalet on Mount Royal and Place Ville Marie. There were no arrests during yesterday's demonstration. Longueuil police Sgt. Pierre Rheault said his officers would allow the disabled protesters to demonstrate, as long as they agreed to leave peacefully when they were done. And the 15 officers from the Longueuil and Metro police handled the situation with gentleness. Officers offered to carry many of the protesters upstairs at the end of the hour-long sit-in and news conference. And they were quick to intervene when a man, who claimed to be a trained paramedic, lunged at one of the protesters as he lay writhing on the ground. The man, who said he works as a night nurse at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, had been drinking in a tavern on the lower level of the Metro station when he heard activity in the corridor leading to the trains. He jumped on the disabled man's chest, ignoring pleas to leave the man alone. But police dragged him away, throwing him back into the brasserie and ordering him to stay there until the demonstration was over. Montrealer Francois Gagnon said disabled Quebecers may be afraid to speak out lest they lose the benefits they depend on, such as jobs, disability pensions or housing allowances. But Gagnon said he hopes this week's actions will encourage more handicapped people to step forward to fight for their right to better transit services, and wheelchair access to public washrooms, buildings and housing projects. Meanwhile, at the transit convention, Robert Zuzworsky, a New York Transit Authority driver, was awarded first prize of $1,000 U.S. in the International Bus Roadeo competition held here Tuesday. - ADAPT (386)
Montreal Daily News Title: A wheelchair Army Goes to War! [This article continues in ADAPT 385 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] Photo 1 by ALLAN R LEISHMAN/Montreal Daily News: In a crowd of uniformed police officers and others, two policemen stand on either side of a protester sitting on the wet ground. The protester sits, back to the camera, wearing a cap and his face and head are obscured by a white trash bag under his jacket. These two police officers are looking back beside the camera. The police barricade is just visible in front of the protester. Caption: Roundup: Police are kept busy by demonstrators last night. Photo 2 on the left and below the other photo by ALLAN R LEISHMAN/Daily News: A person in a manual wheelchair is tipped completely back by attendant and protester Jan Ingram the front wheels of the chair are hooked over a very low heavy metal barrier. Behind that barrier are standard police barricades and uniformed officers are standing behind them. One policeman is in between the standard barricades and the low barrier and he is looking at other officers and pointing at the person in the wheelchair. Caption: Protesting: One of the wheelchair demonstrators near the barricaded Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Title: 25 arrested in downtown demonstration by Ron Charles Montreal Daily News MUC police arrested 25 wheelchair-bound demonstrators last night after they forced their way into the lobby of the Sheraton Centre in downtown Montreal. The demonstrators were protesting the American Public Transit Association's (APTA) reluctance to endorse wheelchair lifts on new buses. They crashed their wheelchairs through a luggage-cart barrier hotel employees had built in an attempt to ward off the protesters. [Subheading] Came along When APTA, a Washington-based transit authority organization, brought its annual conference to Montreal this week, the protesters came along as part of the ticket. The demonstrators, from a group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), have been protesting at APTA conferences for eight years. Only a few members of a local disabled rights group took part in the demonstrations — the rest were from the U.S. Police said all those arrested — who are expected to be charged with assault — were American citizens, many of them Vietnam veterans. About 50 MUC police officers showed up to clear the Sheraton's marble-covered lobby after the protesters, singing "we want to ride," blocked elevators and escalators. Police wheeled the demonstrators one by one to a waiting wheel-chair bus being used as a paddy wagon. Police snipped chains linking protesters Mike Auberger and Bob Kafka's wheelchairs to a handrail in the lobby. Although the APTA conference is taking place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, some of the 3,000 attendees are staying at the Sheraton. Earlier in the day, police turned the Queen Elizabeth into a fortress with metal street barriers as about 75 demonstrators wheeled toward the APTA conference headquarters. They blocked traffic in both directions on Dorchester for more than two hours as police tried to pen the group in with the barriers. Police took two protesters who had crashed the barriers out of their chairs in order to lift them and their chairs over the barriers. [Subheading] Took chair "The police took his chair away, separated him from his legs," said Lori Taylor as she watched from the side-walk when police lifted her husband, Lester, over the barrier. "He can't walk, he's just sitting on the wet ground and all he wants to do is ride a bus like you and me." Bill Bolte, who started ADAPT's Los Angeles chapter, said police overreacted to the demonstration. "This really confuses me because I know that after the Canadians (hockey team) won the Stanley Cup, all types of terrible activity went on," said Bolte. "People overturned cars while everyone, including the police, just looked the other way and went and had a cup of coffee." Several demonstrators who broke through the police perimeter smashed their chairs into barriers in front of the hotel entrance, but hotel security and police stood their ground. Police arrested some 25 wheelchair demonstrators after they forced their way into the lobby of the Sheraton Centre. They were protesting the American public transit association’s reluctance to endorse wheelchair lifts on new buses. It was showdown time yesterday, as wheelchair-bound protesters took on city cops outside the Sheraton hotel on Dorchester Boulevard Some demonstrators where roughly carried and wheeled away as the melee grew ugly. The protesters were making their case for better accessibility to buses at the American Public Transit Association convention. - ADAPT (383)
The Gazette, Montreal, Monday, October 3, 1988 Final [edition] 50 cents Title: Police arrest 28 wheelchair activists after protest in hotel lobby By Michael Doyle and Catherine Buckie of the Gazette Twenty-eight wheelchair protesters were arrested and charged with mischief last night after 50 of them staged a noisy demonstration in the lobby of the Sheraton Center on Dorchester Blvd. The protesters were demonstrating against the lack of mass transit facilities for the handicapped. They sang We Shall Overcome and chanted “Access is a Civil Right!” as they blocked off elevators and escalators at the downtown hotel. Police took the wheelchair activists to the Bonsecours St. station. They were to be arraigned before a judge at 1 a.m. today. “We don’t want to hold them for nothing,” said Const. Bernard Perrier. “We want to put them before a judge as soon as possible. It will be up to the judge to decide what happens to them after that.” The demonstrators were mostly members of a U.S. group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). They are here to badger transit-authority representatives from across the continent – including officials of the Montreal Urban Community Transit Corp. – who are attending the convention of the American Public Transit Association. “We’re just trying to make their convention as inaccessible to them as public transit is for us,” group organizer Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, Colo., said earlier that day. A squad of about 80 police officers was called in to clear the hotel lobby. One protester, Bob Kafka, a 42-year-old Vietnam veteran from Austin, Texas whose neck was broken in a car accident, had chained himself to a railing in the lobby. Police cut the chain with shears. The activists decided to demonstrate at the Sheraton because a large number of delegates to the transit convention are staying there, Kafka said. “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we’ve been inconvenienced all our lives,” he said. Hotel general manager Alfred Heim, who used a bullhorn to read a portion of the Eviction Act to the protesters before the police moved in, said he expected some trouble because the protesters attend each transit convention. The demonstration closed the westbound lanes on Dorchester Blvd. outside the hotel for about two hours. It was the second time yesterday that the demonstrators had disrupted traffic on Dorchester Blvd. Earlier, more than 75 of the wheelchair activists blocked traffic outside the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, site of the convention. Police there put up barricades to contain the activists, who were eventually allowed to line up single-file on the north side of the street, away from the hotel entrance. Picture, Page A-3 The end - ADAPT (393)
The Gazette, Montreal, Saturday, October 1, 1988 - ADAPT (387)
The Gazette, Montreal, Sunday, October 2, 1988 PHOTO by Allen McInnis, Gazette: A woman in a manual wheelchair (Stephanie Thomas) sits in front of a blank wall. She is loosely holding the push rims of her chair. Her left leg, closest to the camera, is broken and has a large cast on it. She is wearing a dark shirt with a button, and cotton wide legged pants with a floral pattern. Her eyes are slightly squinting and she looks determined. Caption: Wheelchair-bound Stephanie Thomas: "We try to hit conventions as forcefully as we can." Title: Transit activist expects ride to jail By LYNN MOORE, of The Gazette Stephanie Thomas of Austin, Texas, expects to see some sights most tourists don't during her stay in Montreal — like the inside of the Tanguay detention center for women. Thomas and her husband are among about 120 wheelchair-bound members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) who are prepared to go to jail in their fight for better access to North American transit systems. "We feel that degree of commitment is necessary to get our cause known and to get attention," said Thomas, who has spent 14 years in a wheelchair after a tractor accident when she was 17. The group is in town to continue its battle with the 900-member American Public Transit Association, which begins its four-day convention in Montreal today. The Montreal Urban Community Transit Corporation, a member of the association, is convention host. About 3,000 people are expected to attend. Transit executives "don't have to think of this problem at all," Thomas said, alluding to inaccessible mass-transit vehicles. "They can just ignore it. That's why we try to hit as forcefully as we can during their conventions." Civil disobedience is the name of the game for ADAPT members, and one they have played in every city where the transit association has held a meeting for the past five years. They have chained themselves to buses and buildings, blocked traffic and created major headaches for police. The group's Montreal targets are not yet known because it is keeping that information under wraps. But Montreal's Metro system, which is not wheelchair-accessible, has not gone unnoticed by the activists. Thomas, her fellow activists and several representatives of a Montreal disabled-rights group met yesterday with a lawyer who briefed them on what to expect from local police, jails and courts. The meeting was closed to the media. "Most of these people have done the letter-writing, the testifying and public hearings and things like that but it doesn't work," she said. Public confrontation gets much better results, she said. She pointed to the increase in the number of transit authorities that have bought buses equipped with mechanical lifts to replace their aging vehicles. According to APTA figures, the percentage of buses with lifts has grown to 30 per cent from 11 per cent in 1981. Once arrested and charged, ADAPT members usually plead guilty and opt for jail terms rather than fines, Thomas said. The end of article - ADAPT (414)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (Editorial Page), Monday May 16, 1988,Vol. 110, No. 137 PHOTO 1 by Jerry Naunheim Jr/Post-Dispatch: Three plain clothes police men in sports jackets surround a slight man in a wheelchair with grey hair in a pony tail (Arthur Campbell). He wears an ADAPT shirt with the no steps logo and a headband he created for the St Louis action. He has a resigned look on his face and his hands are clasped in front of his chest. One officer is trying to drive his wheelchair using the joy stick, and all three are holding onto the chair. Two have orange squares taped to their sleeves. Behind them on the left side of the photo stands Rev. Willie Smith of Chicago, wearing a white hat and white shirt. Between the police officers you can see part of someone else in a wheelchair and they have a poster about "taxation without..." Through the group on the other side of the picture you can see the legs of someone else in a wheelchair and a uniformed officer looking down on that person. caption: St. Louis police officers pushing Arthur Campbell, of Louisville, Ky., toward a paddy wagon in front of the Omni International Hotel on Market Street. Campbell was one of 41 disabled people arrested during a protest Sunday. PHOTO 2 by Jerry Naunheim Jr/Post-Dispatch: A long line of ADAPT folks mostly in red ADAPT shirts and mostly in wheelchairs with some folks pushing or walking along to the side. The line snakes from the bottom right of the picture to the mid left side and back to thte top right side. Over 30 people are in sight. Third from the front is a woman lying in her chair (Beverly Furnice), behind her is Joe Carle, behind him George Roberts rolls beside Lori Eastwood. Behind them is Chicago ADAPT's Rene Luna, then ET (Ernest Taylor), the Bernard Baker. Three women behind is Stephanie Thomas, then someone standing then Clayton Jones has his hand in the air, then Tim Baker, and many others. caption: Members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit - ADAPT - rolling down Market Street outside Union Station during a protest Sunday. Title: Disabled Arrested At Omni By Robert Manor (Post Dispatch Staff) Forty-one protesters in wheel-chairs were arrested at Union Station on Sunday as they demonstrated for equal access to public transportation. The demonstration was non-violent, and there were no reports of injuries or of anyone resisting arrest. The protesters were booked by police on charges of trespassing and were taken to the City Workhouse in vans and buses equipped with lifts to accommodate wheelchairs. Members of a group called the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, ADAPT for short, demonstrated against the American Public Transit Association, which is holding a convention at the Omni Hotel in Union Station. The association, which represents bus operators, op-poses efforts to require that buses be equipped with wheelchair lifts. ADAPT has repeatedly carried out civil disobedience at meetings of the association, and police were prepared. Scores of officers in uniform and plainclothes officers were waiting as about 150 people in wheelchairs and their able-bodied supporters marched from The Arch, up Market Street and into Union Station shortly after 1 p.m. They blocked some entrances and hallways but were unable to close the hotel. Many chanted and called on the public for support. St. Louis police Capt. Clarence Harmon spoke over a bullhorn and tried to order the demonstrators to disperse. But as he tried to speak, the demonstrators sounded portable air horns, drowning him out. "I'll tell each one individually," Harmon said to an aide. He walked from wheelchair to wheelchair telling each person, "I am Capt. Harmon from the police department. You are subject to arrest if you don't leave. Many did leave, but others remained in place, their wheelchairs side by side. Among them was Barbara Toomer, who sat blocking the main entrance to the hotel. "I'm not going to move," Toomer said, as a van driven by a police officer pulled up to the curb in front of See PROTEST, Page 9 [we don't have the rest of this article] - ADAPT (411)
St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 17, 1998 [Headline] No Arrests As Protest Continues By Victor VoIland and William C. Lhotka Of the Post-Dispatch Staff PHOTO by Jerry Naunheim Jr./Post Dispatch: Three people in wheelchairs sit in a line facing away from the camera and toward a line of men standing and facing those in wheelchairs. Behind the men standing is an ornate stone building. On the back of one of the wheelchairs is a poster that reads "Lifts = Buses For All." caption: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit facing a line of plainclothes police officers Monday in front of the Omni International Hotel at Union Station. About 50 protesters, half of them in wheelchairs, continued a peaceful demonstration at Union Station on Monday against a public transportation association meeting inside. No one was arrested. Meanwhile, 11 of 41 demonstrators arrested on Sunday filed a $2.5 million suit late Monday against the city and three police officers. The suit accuses officials at the City Workhouse of taking blood from those arrested against their objections. It also charges police with violating the protesters' right of free speech by refusing to allow them to talk to the press while they were in jail. The demonstrators, who belong to a group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), are protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association, which is holding a regional conference at the Omni Hotel at Union Station. The conference opened Saturday and continues through Wednesday. The ADAPT group wants the association of bus and train operators to adopt a national policy in support of equipping all public buses with wheelchair lifts. It has demonstrated against the association at its meetings for the last several years. Charges against 38 of the 41 arrested were dismissed Monday by Associate Circuit Judge Henry E. Autrey because authorities had failed to get warrants within the 20-hour period following arrest, as required by law. Three protesters were released on their own recognizance and ordered to appear Wednesday in the court of Judge Thomas C. Grady. They are charged in warrants with trespassing and disturbing the peace, both misdemeanors. George Kinsey, commissioner of adult correctional services, said it was standard procedure to take blood and perform tests on all prisoners entering the City Jail or Workhouse to screen for venereal diseases, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases. On Monday morning, remnants of the 150-member ADAPT group wheeled down Market Street from their rooms at the Holiday Inn Downtown to Union Station and the Omni and were met with a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes police outside the main hotel entrance. Workers erected a makeshift barrier of concrete pylons and orange plastic fencing to separate the police line from the wheelchair protesters who drew up opposite. "I want Mr. Gilstrap to know he's got an angry parent out here and that I want the same human dignity afforded to my daughter that is given to an able-bodied person," one of the protesters, Cynthia Keelan of Phoenix, Ariz., barked through a battery-powered bullhorn. She was pushing her daughter, Jennifer, 7, who is crippled from congenital cerebral palsy. The girl is segregated and treated as a second-class citizen because she must use a wheelchair, her mother charged. Jack R. Gilstrap, executive vice president of the American Public Transit Association, declined to meet Monday with the protesters, who repeatedly chanted his name. Gilstrap told a reporter later that the association supported the idea of accessible public transportation for the elderly and handicapped. Implementing such access is difficult because President Ronald Reagan's administration has slashed the federal transit program by 47 percent since 1981, he said. He added that paratransit vans and buses — so-called dial-a-ride vehicles — are used much more frequently and are more cost efficient than buses equipped with wheelchair lifts. Gilstrap said that the Bi-State bus system in St. Louis offered both the dial-a-ride vans and lift-equipped buses. Tom Sturgess, a Bi-State spokesman, told the protesters that the system would have two-thirds of its buses equipped with lifts by next year. Lonnie Smith of Denver, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said he was one of the first people to be subjected to a blood test at the city Workhouse after his arrest on Sunday. Showing a reporter the puncture on the inside of his left arm where the needle had been inserted, Smith said he had been told that he had no choice — that he would be held down unless he submitted to the blood test. end of article - ADAPT (403)
The Riverfront Times, ST. LOUIS' LARGEST WEEKLY: 211,962 READERS EVERY WEEK! MAY 18-24, 1988 [This article continues in ADAPT 398, but the entire text is included here for easier reading] PHOTO: Three plain clothes policemen try to hold back a man in a motorized wheelchair (Ken Heard). One is behind Ken, one beside him holding the armrest and the third is in front bending forward trying to manipulate the driving mechanism that is on the footrest of Ken's wheelchair. (Ken drove his chair with his foot.) Ken is in shorts and an ADAPT shirt and wears a pony tail and head band, and he is leaning forward concentrating on trying to control his chair. A uniformed policeman looks on from behind or is possibly looking to help. On the right side of the photo, another man in a scooter (Tommy Malone from KY) is watching. Behind him is a set of glass doors and blocking one is a woman in a wheelchair (Barbara Guthrie of Colorado Springs). She is wearing dark glasses and a brimmed hat as well as her ADAPT shirt. title: Picket To Ride, Why the disabled take to the streets to get down the road by Joseph Schuster For most who want to take the bus, the biggest problem is finding exact change to drop into the fare box. But for disabled persons dependent on wheelchairs, the fare box is more a slot machine: Their chance of getting on a bus is frequently as unlikely as hitting the jackpot. The problem is an acute shortage of buses equipped with wheelchair lifts to get disabled passengers into the bus. In St. Louis, less than one-fourth of the 690 buses operated by Bi-State Development Agency are equipped with lifts; only half of those available lifts function. The story is the same in almost every city across the United States, and now disabled rights activists are pointing to the lack of accessible transportation as the most significant problem facing the disabled today. "In the past (disabled groups) placed education and employment programs high as a priority," says Mike Auberger, a leader and founder of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). "But we've always seen that as the biggest joke: 'Hire the handicapped.' You can give me a job, one that pays a good salary, but if I can't drive (because of a disability) and can't take a bus, there's no way in heaven you can hire me. It's been, 'Here, let's put this piece of the pie out here for you but not give you a way to reach it. The unemployment rate among disabled Americans is appallingly high. The most recent figures available for St. Louis are from the 1980 census, says Russ Signorino spokesman for the Missouri Division of Employment Security. [at this point in the article the first column is cut off on the left, slightly] According to that census, there were 119.000 [disa]bled St. Louisans. but only 48,000 were in [the] work force. says Signorino. Of the 71,000 of the labor force. 59.000 did not work [bec]ause their disability prevented them from [emp]loyment. The balance of 12,000 disabled [unclear]ons were so-called "discouraged workers." [Indi]viduals who had stopped looking for work [beca]use of various factors. ‘You're going to find a higher percentage of [disc]ouraged workers among the disabled (than [amo]ng the general population)." Signorino [said]. Nationally, less than one-third of the country's 13 million disabled are in the labor force, according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1986, the most recent edition to {unclear] information on the employment status of disabled Americans. Of those who are in the work force, almost {unclear]-fifth are unemployed. ("Discouraged" workers are not included in the work force; those who are unemployed. but looking for work. are.) This is compared, in the same year, with the able-bodied population of the country, which nearly 70 percent of 133 million persons were in the workforce and 9.6 percent of those were unemployed. The problem of lack of access to public transit brought Auberger and more than 100 other members of ADAPT to St. Louis this week to demonstrate at the annual meeting of Eastern region of the American Public Transit Authority [sic] (APTA), the industry's [principal] trade organization. ADAPT wants the transit industry to move toward what ADAPT calls "100 percent accessibility." That is every bus in the country would have wheelchair lifts. But APTA opposes that saying it is impractical and too expensive. It favors, instead, what is known as "local option." Each transit authority would decide how it would make public transportation accessible for the disabled, using either buses equipped with lifts, paratransit vans with lifts (the so-called dial-a-ride services, or a combination of the two. Right now, 18 percent of the nation's systems use lift-equipped buses exclusively, 44 percent use paratransit vans and the remainder — including St. Louis — use a combination. Nationally, according to APTA Deputy Executive Director Albert Engelken, one in three buses is lift-equipped. That is progress, Engelken says. In 1980, only about 11 percent of the nation's buses were lift-equipped. But for ADAPT and others in the disabled community, the progress is too slow. “I'm damned impatient," says Jim Tuscher, vice-president of programs for Paraquad, a St. Louis non-profit agency that serves disabled people. "I personally have been involved with Bi-State for well over 10 years, negotiating, trying to get an accessible transit system and today we still do not have an adequate system. Sure, their attitude is better now than it was 10 years ago, in that they are willing to cooperate with the disabled community. They had to be dragged, kicking and screaming into this. But I‘m a results person and so far I haven't seen any. I still can't go out to the corner and take a bus." Currently, 171 (24.8 percent) of Bi-State's 690 buses are equipped with wheelchair lifts. Tom Sturgess, the company's director of communication, says the system has a goal of 100 percent wheelchair accessibility, but getting there is a slow process. Later this summer, the number of lift-equipped buses will be increased to 238, but that will still mean that only one in three Bi-State buses can be used by a disabled person. Sturgess says Bi-State has notified its manufacturer that it will be buying another 60 lift-equipped buses sometime in the near future. Of the company's present 171 wheelchair lifts, only 85 (or just less than half) function. “We've had a lot of problems with them." says Sturgess. “The new buses we're getting will have a different kind of lift in them, one we think will work. Of those we have, we're in the process of repairing as many as we can, but some will never operate again. We're convinced it wouldn't be economically feasible to do so. The biggest problem is the salt they spread on the streets and highways. It sprays up into the lift mechanism, corrodes the wires and rusts the lifts.“ Because there are so few lift-equipped buses at present, only 16 to 18 of Bi-State's 129 routes have accessible buses, says Todd Plesko, Bi-State's director of service planning and scheduling. But not every bus that travels those routes has a lift. For example, on Bi - ADAPT (401)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (May 18, 1988) PHOTO by Ted Dargan/Post Dispatch: About a dozen people in wheelchairs surround a bus in the middle of a street. A man in a white short sleeved button down shirt and dark pants stands to one side with his hands on his hips, looking at the ground. The photo is grainy so it is hard to tell who the protesters are, but several wear ADAPT shirts and several have large posters taped across their legs. George Florum sits by the bus' left front wheel. Caption: The driver of a Greyhound bus leaving his vehicle Tuesday after it was surrounded by protesters on Sixth Street near the Greyhound Terminal. The protesters are members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. Title: Disabled People Block Buses, 37 Arrested By Mark Schlinkmann, Regional Political Correspondent Thirty-seven protesters, almost all of them in wheelchairs, were arrested Tuesday afternoon as they blocked buses from entering and leaving the Greyhound Lines terminal downtown. Police also arrested a man from Ohio after he became Involved in a scuffle with two protesters. Police said the man, who was later released without being charged, might have been irritated at the delay in a bus departure caused by the demonstration. The incident, which shut down traffic at the terminal on and off for almost three hours, took place on the third day in a row of protests by disabled people seeking the installation of wheelchair lifts on all buses in the United States. The group, called the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, or ADAPT, is in St. Louis because the American Public Transit Association is meeting at the Omni International Hotel. But after two days of protesting at the hotel, the target shifted Tuesday to the Greyhound terminal, at 801 North Broadway. "We demand that they serve all the public, including us," said Bill Bolte of Los Angeles as he and others blocked a bus on Sixth Street from entering the terminal. "We're going to stop their buses everywhere until they stop treating us as less than greyhounds." Boite and others complained that Greyhound allowed disabled people with wheelchairs to travel only if were accompanied by a companion. George Gravley, public relations director or the bus line, defended the company's policies in a telephone interview from his office, in Dallas. While the company lacks mechanical lifts, he said, it for years has had a program that provides a free ticket to a companion of any disabled traveler. The protesters began arriving at the terminal around noon. First, a few people began blocking two entrances to a parking lot on the east side of the terminal along Broadway. Then, when a bus without passengers drove toward the west-side entrance, on Sixth, several protesters wheeled up to block its path. Carrying placards and chanting slogans, the group grew in number to about 20. Police, meanwhile, blocked off Sixth between Convention Plaza and Cole Street to traffic. Other incoming buses were forced to bide their time elsewhere. About 1:30 p.m., Police Capt. Clarence Harmon informed the protesters that they were breaking the law and would be arrested if they refused to move. While that was being mulled over, police said, a man identified as Donald Keiper, 63, of Ridgeville, Ohio, walked from the terminal area and grabbed a wheelchair in which Barbara Guthrie, 48, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was sitting. Keiper started to move Guthrie's wheelchair, but another protester in a wheelchair, Ernest Taylor of Denver, intervened, and a brief scuffle ensued, Police then arrested Keiper. He was released later: warrants were :_aken under advisement. Police said no injuries had resulted. Police later arrested Guthrie, Taylor and the other protesters, some for blocking buses inside the terminal area. The process was slow because the wheelchairs had to be lifted mechanically onto Bi-State buses and vans, which hauled them to the City Workhouse. The episode was over about 3 p.m. The circuit attorney's office said Tuesday night that the protesters had been released on their promise to appear in court after being charged with general peace disturbance, a misdemeanor. Late Tuesday afternoon, Circuit Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr. denied a request from Jerome Schlichter, an attorney from St Louis who is representing ADAPT, for a court order regarding blood tests. Schlichter's request was denied after the city stated that it was not requiring the people arrested to undergo mandatory testing and that only those who agreed to the practice voluntarily were being tested. But Schlichter said ADAPT continued to allege that blood tests were taken without consent Sunday night at the Workhouse from a group of 41 protesters arrested that day in front of the Omni. Bill Bryan and William C. Lhotka of the Post-Dispatch staff contributed information for this story.