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Hjem / Albumer / Merknader APTA - American Public Transit Association
+ Rehabilitation Act of 1973 - section 504 3
ADAPT (350)
San Francisco Bay Guardian 9/23/87 Disabled to march for transit access By: Cheryl Davis When members of the American Public Transit Association gather in San Francisco during the last week of September, they will be met by disabled people from across the country who plan to demonstrate against a national transit policy they say is unfair because it separates them from other transit users. Specifically, disabled activists intend to protest the widespread use of special vans to transport disabled riders door-to-door, a system commonly referred to as “paratransit.” That system, they say, is a form of segregation. In its place, they argue, all buses and trains should be equipped to accommodate people in wheelchairs as part of as overall policy fully integrating the disabled into society. “Full accessibility,” they argue, is a right that should not be denied because of cost. Paratransit is impractical as well as offensive, disabled transit riders say. Burr Overstreet, a Santa Rosa man who uses a wheelchair, called paratransit “a paternalistic system that screws people over, costs a fortune and it’s the first thing cut during economic downturns.” Paratransit users “are made to feel like helpless hospital patients,” Les Treece-Sinclair, a wheelchair user and staff person at the September Alliance for Accessible Transportation, a Northern California coalition, told the Bay Guardian. Most Bay Area transit districts, including the San Francisco Municipal Railway, use a combination of buses with lifts and paratransit vans for disabled and elderly patrons, and California law requires that all new buses be equipped with lifts. Local transit agencies have a good reputation nationally for working closely with disabled and elderly patrons. But, even so, there are problems. “Supposedly we [in Marin] have one of the better systems,” Overstreet said. “The combination of fixed-route and paratransit should in theory be fairly effective, but it’s not. The paratransit only runs Monday through Friday, 9 am to 3 pm. Disabled riders have to reserve in advance and disabled people who work cannot use such a paratransit system either to work or to socialize.” “Paratransit doesn’t come close to meeting the transport need of elderly and handicapped people,” said Treece-Sinclair. “At the moment, on many bus lines only every third or fourth bus will be accessible.” Jose Rodriguez, a public information officer for the Metropolitan Transit Commission, told the Bay Guardian Bay Area transit districts “are working hard to meet a basic level of service but we are aware of the need for improvement. As always, this is contingent on securing needed funds.” The debate between disabled people and much of the public transit industry centers around interpretations of Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which states that persons with handicaps cannot be discriminated against under any program receiving federal funds. Since mass transit relies heavily on federal funds, Section 504 serves as a rallying point for disabled activists who argue for making all public transit wheelchair-accessible. The U.S. Department of Transportation in 1979 issued regulations that required full wheelchair access on newly ordered buses and called for retrofitting existing buses and modifying portions of existing rail systems to accommodate disabled users. Disable activists applauded the regulations, but APTA lobbied Congress vigorously, claiming the regulations were costly, unworkable and designed to reach only a small percentage of the disabled population. A 1979 Congressional Budget Office report supported APTA’s claims and called instead for paratransit systems. APTA sued to overturn DOT’s regulations and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in 1981 that the regulations exceeded the scope of the Rehabilitation Act. DOT interim regulations gave local communities the option of determining levels of accessibility and many transit districts opted for paratransit. Paratransit advocates argue that outfitting buses with lifts and other special equipment is too expensive, given the number of disabled riders. Santa Clara County Supervisor Tom Legan, for example, said at a January board meeting, “We’re spending $3.5 million per year [maintaining] lifts for what amounts to 57 boardings per year.” But disabled activists say the official estimates of disabled ridership are too low. Palo Alto resident Brian Bolitho, who uses a wheelchair, told the Bay Guardian his commute to work alone account for more than 200 boardings per year on Santa Clara buses. Dennis Cannon, a transportation, specialist the federal Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, told the Bay Guardian, “The actual use of accessible buses could be five times higher, or more, than transit agency estimates. The driver often simply guesses the number of obviously disabled passengers.” Much of the expense of repairing lifts, Cannon added, could be avoided by improved maintenance and better training of bus operators. Some APTA members, Canon said, are reappraising the adequacy of paratransit. James Lee, accessibility coordinator for Alameda County Transit, agreed. “Since 1976, study after study has documented the inadequacy of paratransit. It is not cost-effective, nor is it demand responsive,” he told the Bay Guardian.
ADAPT (219)
Denver Post, Issues, 10/6/85, no page number [Headline] Transit leaders to face protests from disabled By Jack Farrar Special to the Denver Post The American Public Transit Association will run into some political street theater when it rolls into Los Angeles today for its annual meeting. Waiting for the group will be a militant cast of handicapped individuals, including members of a Denver organization called Atlantis, who want full accessibility to the nation's public transportation system. As APTA delegates convene at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, more than 100 people in wheelchairs – members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit – will be “marching” single-file from MacArthur Park, more than a mile away, to begin a week-long series of demonstrations. They won't have a parade permit. They haven't asked for one. Through such acts of civil disobedience, the demonstrators hope to force the APTA, public officials and the news media to think about what they consider to be the most pressing issue facing the handicapped: access to public transportation. One contingent of protesters will be led by Wade Blank, a 44-year-old Denverite who cut his activist teeth in the 1960s, marching with blacks in Alabama and peaceniks in Ohio. Access 'a right'[boldface] Blank is the founder and executive director of Atlantis, one of ADAPT's most militant member organizations. “Jobs and education don't mean much,” Blank argues, “if you can't take a bus to get there. Accessibility to public transportation – moving from one place to the other – should be a right, not just a consumer service.” For the past three years, ADAPT, largely under Blank's leadership, has demanded that APTA adopt total accessibility for the handicapped as an official policy rather than as an objective. Transit association officials have responded by citing numerous improvements made in service for the handicapped – improvements that the handicapped have applauded – and contends that total accessibility is financially impractical. “We have not ignored the handicapped,” says APTA Deputy Executive Director Albert Engelken. “Accessibility is a compelling issue. But total accessibility is an enormous undertaking, and with federal dollars shrinking, our resources are limited. In any case, it is not the role of an association like ours to establish policy.” Disabled activists, however, believe the costs of accessibility are distorted by the transportation industry. Moreover, they argue, the issue is civil rights, not economics. “Public transportation is a tax-supported system,” Blank says. “The handicapped pay taxes. It's as simple as that. How would the average taxpayer feel if he was denied access to a facility he paid for?” Long regarded as a quiet minority, disabled individual recently have added a more confrontational approach to their struggle for equality, and the man frequently in the front lines of that movement is Blank, whose long blond hair and granny glasses evoke the image of the 1960s activist. He encourages the handicapped to take to the streets when they feel their demands are being taken less than seriously. Members of Atlantis have made headlines locally and nationally with their tactics in Denver – chaining themselves to seats of fast food restaurants, occupying intersections that don't accommodate wheelchairs, and blocking the entrances to buildings with architectural barriers. Rules watered down [boldface] Progress in making public transportation available to the handicapped can be traced to the Urban Mass Transit Administration's adoption of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1979. [sic] Section 504 generally made it illegal to exclude any individual, by reason of handicap, from any program receiving federal dollars. UMTA's regulations stated that all new buses purchased with federal money must include wheelchair lifts and aimed for 50 percent of peak-hour accessibility on regular bus routes. RTD standards strict [boldface] The Regional Transportation District in metropolitan Denver has adopted accessibility standards that are more stringent than required. Even after Section 504 regulations were softened in 1981, RTD's board chose to maintain its commitment to provide 50 percent peak-hour accessibility on all routes, and 100 percent off-peak accessibility. And RTD will soon become the first public transit system in the United States to introduce wheelchair lifts on its larger, regional commuter buses. Despite such advances, Blank will not be satisfied until disabled individuals throughout the United States can board and ride a bus whenever and wherever the able-bodied do the same. “We simply want APTA, as the association which speaks for the public transportation industry, to declare its intention to make the system accessible. We know it will take time. But isn't this the country that put a man on the moon?”
ADAPT (207)
Los Angeles Herald 10/7/85 Two photos on right side of page. Top PHOTO: Looking down from above at a busy street corner, with a curb cut. A bus stopped at the curb is completely surrounded by dozens of protesters in wheelchairs and some standing. Several have signs and they go from the front, along the outside of the bus and out behind off the edge of the picture. The second lane is empty of cars, and the third lane is stacked with cars. On the sidewalk beside a big building is another large group of the protesters, most with signs. A couple of people are moving between the two groups. Lower PHOTO: A man (Bill Bolte) in a motorized wheelchair wearing a tall cowboy hat and a sign around his neck, glasses and a salt and pepper beard, is flanked by a police officer on each side. They lean forward, one is driving the chair, the other resting his hand on the armrest. Behind them a mass of people is just visible. Photo caption: Wheelchair-riding demonstrators demanding special lifts on public buses fill the streets around the Bonaventure Hotel, above, while one of them. Bill Bolte, below, is arrested. [Headline] Wheelchair-bound demonstrators tie up mass transit meeting By Philipp Gollner Herald staff writer 10/7/85 Eight wheelchair-bound protesters were arrested yesterday while close to 200 others jammed the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel downtown to demand greater access for the disabled to public transportation. The demonstrators, members of about 15 disabled-rights advocacy groups from around the country, are demanding a federal law that would order all public transit operators to install automatic wheelchair lifts in buses. Such a law existed as part of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, but was successfully challenged in court six years ago by the American Public Transit Association, a trade group representing more than 400 transit districts nationwide. The association began its four-day annual convention yesterday at the Bonaventure, and protesters picked the occasion to voice their demands. “We're going to show the American (Public) Transit Association that we don't take crap and we're going to let them know that we are not passive crips," protester Bill Bolte, who has been on crutches or confined to a wheelchair for 52 of his 54 years, told demonstrators at the start of yesterday's protest. The demonstrators rode their wheelchairs down Wilshire Boulevard from MacArthur Park to the Bonaventure, where they hoped to talk to association executive vice president Jack R. Gilstrap and visit convention exhibits. But police blocked elevators and escalators leading to the convention floor, and after about 40 minutes, officers began handcuffing protesters who refused to disperse from fire exits of the second-story lobby where they had assembled. As police carried a wheelchair-bound demonstrator from the lobby, a sympathizer shouted: “Why don't you handcuff his legs? He might run away.” Six wheelchair-bound protesters blocked the path of a departing Airport Express bus that they said was not equipped with a lift. The bus was able to leave after police lifted the protesters and their wheelchairs onto the sidewalk. Inside the hotel, startled guests looked on as protesters chanted “we will ride" and “Gilstrap, Gilstap, where are you?" Seven of the eight protesters who were arrested were driven by specially-equipped vans to the county‘s Central Jail, where they were booked for failure to disperse and interfering with police. One female protester was taken to Sybil Brand institute for Women. All eight were being held last night on $500 bail each. “We certainly aren't unsympathetic to the people involved, but we are responsible for enforcing the law,” Deputy Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite, commander of operations at Central Bureau, told reporters following the arrests. in addition to demanding wheelchair lifts in all public buses, demonstrators at yesterday's protest demanded that the association fire its president, Gilstrap, and pass a resolution pledging commitment to restoring wheelchair access legislation. Albert Engelken. the association's deputy executive director, told reporters yesterday that "Mr. Gilstrap has no intention of resigning" and that there are no plans to vote on any resolutions proposed by the protest groups. Engelken said the group opposes federal wheelchair access laws mainly for what he called "geographical and climatic reasons." The lifts are cumbersome in snow and on curved roads. he said. In addition, it would cost transit districts nearly $270 per disabled passenger boarding if such legislation were implemented, he said. Usha Viswanathan, spokeswoman for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, said the district spends between $15,000 and $20,000 for each automatic lift that it buys. Viswanathan said 1,891 of 2,445 active RTD buses are equipped with lifts. Engelken said the association prefers decisions over access legislation to be made at the local level. But demonstrators at yesterday's protest believe that federal legislation is needed to guarantee the civil rights of the disabled. They argue that current policies violate their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws. "The small things in life that non-disabled people take for granted we have to work harder for," Christina Keeffer. who suffers from cerebral palsy, said. "l'm 42 now and I don’t want to wait until I'm 75 to get the changes."