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Домашня сторінка / Альбоми / Теґ APTA - American Public Transit Association 130
- ADAPT (349)
San Francisco Chronicle 9/28/87 S.F Protest For Disabled Turns Violent By Evelynn C. White A peaceful demonstration for the rights of the disabled to use public transit turned violent last night when 23 people were arrested, one of them on charges of assaulting a police officer. Following a rally at Union Square, 500 demonstrators converged on City Hall, where members of the American Public Transportation Association were holding a dinner meeting. Police said the melee broke out when demonstrators tried to block members from entering in the meeting. San Francisco police officer Michael Travis, 40, who was thrown down the City Halls steps in the scuffle, was treated for a possible concussion and released. Arrested in the assaulted was Alan Shipley, 40, of San Francisco, who police said is not disabled. Shipley was booked at city jail on charges of assaulted and battery on an officer and resisting arrest. The other 22 demonstrators, 19 of them wheelchair-bound were cited for failure to disperse, blocking a sidewalk and resisting arrest. They were released. Earlier in the day, 250 demonstrators at Union Square, 80 percent in wheelchairs, made a plea for better access to public transit. “In most cities, a person who is disabled can’t go to work, can’t go to school, can’t function,” said Laverne Chase, a wheelchair-bound resident of Washington, D.C. “I am here because I believe that disabled people should have equal access to everything that the mind can imagine, starting with public transportation.” The protest, sponsored by the September Alliance for Accessible Transit, was held in opposition to the APTA, which is convening in the city through the week. In the early 1980s, APTA fought to rescind federal regulations that would have required wheelchair lifts in all newly purchased transit buses and handicapped accessibility to all new rail systems. The organization instead lobbied for a “local option” alternative that allows individual transit systems to determine the best way to serve the handicapped. On Wednesday, the association plans to hold a session concerning the needs of the disabled. “I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a van,” said French. “But other wheelchair-bound people have to impose on friends and family plan weeks in advance to get where they need to go. They should be able to go down to a corner and get on a bus, to live their lives spontaneously.” - ADAPT (377)
Phoenix Gazette September 28, 1987 Photo by UPI (United Press International): A very young girl (Jennifer Keelan) is framed by a gap in the backs of two police officers. Her face is full of concern but not fear. Someone's arm is beside her. Behind her a crowd of other protesters can be seen. Caption reads: Cerebral palsy victim Jennifer Keelan, 6, of Tempe joins demonstrators at protest in San Francisco Sunday. Title: Police arrest 20 in transit protest by handicapped SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Police arrested 20 protestors outside City Hall Sunday, including one man booked for investigation of assaulting a police officer, as 500 handicapped people from around the country demonstrated over restrictive public transportation. Hundreds of disabled people who are demanding access to public transit systems in every U.S. city have threatened to block city streets, hotel lobbies and entrances to the Moscone Convention Center through Wednesday during a national public transit conference. “If it were women or blacks who couldn’t get on the bus it would clearly be a civil rights issue,” said Kitty Cone of Berkeley, a member of September Alliance for Accessible Transit. An unidentified man was arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer when he got into an altercation with officers arresting protestors in wheelchairs who blocked the main entrance to the stately city building. A reception was being held for members of the American Public Transit Association inside. “The officer fell backward and received a slight concussion when he hit his head on the steps,” police spokesman Richard Galliani said. The other 19 people – all of whom were in the wheelchairs – were arrested for investigation of blocking a sidewalk, resisting arrest and failure to disperse, all misdemeanor charges, said Galliani. They were transported to San Francisco jail in several vans equipped to accommodate wheelchairs. - ADAPT (329)
The Phoenix Gazette, Saturday, April 4, 1987 Picture top left by Rick Giase of The Phoenix Gazette: Two police barricades cover most of the view of a city street. Between them a motorcycle police officer sits on his cycle in front of a building. Caption: A Phoenix police officer watchers over barricades that were set up Friday at the Hyatt Regency. Title: Police prepare for wheelchair demonstration By Scott Luck and Scott Craven Phoenix police have set up a command post at the downtown Hyatt Regency to monitor actions of a group of wheelchair activists that plans to protest a convention this weekend. Although the American Public Transit Association convention is not scheduled to begin until Sunday, 20 officers Friday blockaded Monroe Street by the Hyatt. In addition to the officers, two police buses were at the scene, which police spokesman Ken Johnson said would be used, if needed, to take protesters to jail. The protesting group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, plans to picket the convention to demand installation of wheelchair lifts in every bus and transit system that receives federal transportation funds. The group says efforts by the APTA to install equipment for the disabled have been unacceptable. The group has held similar protests in other cities across the country. Members have chained themselves to buses, obstructed bus routes, thrown themselves on to the steps of buses without lifts and generally raised havoc. The conference is scheduled to run until Wednesday. ADAPT organizer Michael Auberger said he is trying to draw 150 people together to participate in demonstrations throughout the week. “I can’t imagine why the police would be there today (Friday), especially in that location,” Auberger said. “I met with the police chief, and I didn’t tell him anything that would lead him to believe we were going to demonstrate today.” Johnson said police chief Ruben Ortega met with Auberger to help minimize any problems that might arise but said Auberger did not outline any plans for his groups protest. “We understand they (ADAPT) have a right to demonstrate just as anybody else would, but were going to make sure the demonstration is done lawfully and peacefully Johnson said.” Past ADAPT demonstrations have led to numerous arrests. “We would rather not make any arrests, but we will if we're forced to,” Johnson said. “This is something between them (ADAPT) and the transit people and we don’t want to be caught in the middle. We must, however, be prepared for the worst.” Picture to the left by Nancy Engebreston of The Phoenix Gazette: A quadriplegic man (Mike Auberger) in a motorized wheelchair sits with his arms hanging by his sides. His hair is pulled tightly back and he has a neat beard. He is wearing an ADAPT T-shirt that is partially obscured by a chest strap on his wheelchair. Caption reads: Wheelchair activist Michael Auberger. The end - ADAPT (328)
The Phoenix Gazette Monday, April 6, 1987 Photo by James Garcia, The Phoenix Gazette: Woman stands with arm raised, chanting. Behind her people in wheelchairs form a picket line in front of a large building. Caption: JoAnn Brown of Colorado Springs leads a protest by wheelchair-bound activists at the Hyatt Regency Sunday. Title: Wheelchair activists block restaurants Compiled by The Gazette About 100 members of a militant group of wheelchair-bound activists blocked the roads and entrances to a restaurant Sunday night in an attempt to keep people from attending a steak fry put on by the American Public Transit Association. Phoenix police arrested 27 protesters. They were taken away in handicapped-accessible vans, cited for trespassing and released, police said. Police were continuing to monitor the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit groups today, with a command post at the Civic Plaza. Adams Street, next to the Hyatt, remained blocked and about 20 officers were stationed there. Chanting and carrying placards Sunday, members of ADAPT lined up across two roads, a stairway and the doors, including the handicapped entrance to the restaurant at The Pointe at South Mountain resort. The 450 people attending the APTA convention arrived in six Phoenix buses. Some were forced to scramble up a steep gravel incline and enter through the kitchen. Others walked up the back driveway. “We plan to be here all week and to inconvenience you as much as we can,” called out one protester, who was blocking the stairs. Earlier in the day, protesters had picketed at the Hyatt Regency, where the conventioneers are staying. The protesting group, known for demonstrations on behalf of the handicapped, wants all public transit to be accessible to the wheelchair-bound. “I think they have a just cause, but I think they are carrying it to an extreme,” said Bob Hocken, general manager of the Phoenix Transit System, who walked up the hill from the lower parking lot because the stairway was blocked. After speaking to the restaurant’s manager, the group agreed to let staff, supplies, and the restaurant’s shuttle buses pass. The restaurant sent a waitress out to serve ice water. Richard Worth, a spokesman for the Regional Public Transportation Authority in Phoenix, said all of the buses currently on order “will offer wheelchair accessibility.” Of the 54 bus routes in metropolitan Phoenix, eight offer wheelchair accessibility, Worth said, and 49 of the city’s 350 buses, or 14 percent, are wheelchair accessible. Handicapped ridership on Phoenix’s routes is estimated at 509,000 per year, or 3 percent of total ridership, he said. - ADAPT (322)
Logo of a sun. The Arizona Republic April 13, 1987, Phoenix, Arizona [This story continues in ADAPT 314 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] PHOTO by David Petkiewicz/Republic: A large group of people are standing, heading into the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Among those standing some people in wheelchairs are visible, and a reporter is there with a camera. Caption reads: Wheelchair-bound protesters and their supporters gather at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Phoenix. The group converged on the American Public Transit Association's convention at the hotel last week. Title: Driven by anger, disabled man has fought long, hard for access. By CHUCK HAWLEY The Arizona Republic Mike Landwehr pushes his own wheelchair, but it's really anger that drives the wheels. "Every day, my anger is brought forward again when l have to push my wheelchair 10 blocks in my own hometown,“ said Landwehr, a Chicago man who has been arrested a dozen or more times since 1978 while demonstrating for access to public transportation for the disabled. “I'm running out of patience.” Landwehr spent much of last week in Phoenix as a spokesman for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. The Denver-based group has a reputation of “getting in the face" of public officials by creating ruckuses at meetings of the American Public Transit Association, a group Landwehr describes as "the enemy." Surrounding hotels, restaurants and buses where transportation officials meet, ADAPT members express demands in rhythmic chants: “What do we want? "Access! “When do we want it? "Now!" It is, the group says, a civil-rights demonstration. Howard Adams is not driven by anger, although he was paralyzed from the neck down in a swimming accident 20 years ago. Adams, a Phoenix councilman, said disability is something he lives with, but he doesn't thrive on it. "I‘m not an expert on it,“ Adams said, “it's not the most important thing in my life." He disagrees with the civil-disobedience tactics used by ADAPT. "I guess I pour my anger into other things," he said. Adams, who served in the Arizona Legislature before his election to the City Council, recently was appointed by President Reagan to the 22-member Architectural and Transportation Compliance Board. The board oversees enforcement of federal regulations governing access for the disabled. It can recommend withholding federal funds from any organization or local government that fails to meet federal requirements for access, Adams said. Although Adams does not use city buses regularly, he said, he has used them and believes Phoenix "is in pretty good shape" with respect to disabled people. The demonstrators, he says, have a beef with the American Public Transportation Association, not with Phoenix. "The goal has always been equal opportunity and to participate in all aspects of life as best as they can," Adams said. "I agree with their goals, but I don't agree with their tactics. "They were not here to point a finger at Phoenix. They were here to protest to a group that provides public transportation to people around the country." Public transportation in Phoenix is inadequate for all people, not just the disabled, Adams said. "If I wanted to go to the council chambers right now, (8:30 p.m.) I couldn't get there on the bus anyway," he said. "If I were in a city with a higher population density, such as Chicago or New York, it would be a different story. I would expect to be able to." Adams said there appear to be "some people who are professionally disabled just like there are people who will always be soldiers in World War II." "We all carry burdens with us, but we have to overcome them," he said. "You can't take away all of the problems everybody has; you just can't. "But, to the extent that society has created barriers, you have to remove them, and I think we are doing it here." Because he uses a lift-equipped van, Adams does not ride Phoenix buses often, but he said he is not unfamiliar with the difficulty of getting from one city to another. In Los Angeles recently, he said, he was told that he could board a plane in a folding wheelchair and that his battery-operated machine would have to be left behind for a later flight in a baggage compartment. "I have trouble with airlines," he said. "They don't care. They just want to get you out of there." When his motorized chair arrived in Phoenix on a later plane, he said, "there was $2,000 in damage to it." Landwehr, 43, was born with spinal bifida, a severe birth defect that now often is correctable. New surgical techniques came too late for him, however. He lost the use of his legs during surgery when he was 12 years old. Landwehr remembers that he once tried to deny his disability, shun his wheelchair and be like everyone else. "I would get myself seated in a restaurant and ask the waitress to take my chair away and fold it up in a corner," he said. "It was a way of being like everyone else. Deep down, disabled people strive to appear not disabled.” It was painful, he said, when his parents had to move from Chicago because he could not attend public high schools there with able-bodied teen-agers. The family moved 60 miles to the suburbs after rejecting the Chicago school system's offer to provide a special bus to pick him up and deliver him to a school for the handicapped, the only school he said school officials would allow him to attend. "Thank God they (his parents) knew I would only learn to live in an institution," he said. In the suburbs, Landwehr said, he struggled to lift himself into a school bus unequipped for handicapped people. Daily, he lifted himself up the school steps as other teen-agers watched. "I know what it is like to be stared at," he said. "It's painful." It also is painful, he said, that Chicago, the nation's third-most-populous city, after New York and Los Angeles, has no city buses with wheelchair lifts for the disabled. Landwehr said that the daily difficulty of overcoming obstacles just to gain access to places others take for granted has hardened his stance for total access. He is militant. Arrests and abuse do not appear to faze him. Embarrassing others and taking the risk of alienating the public also do not seem to faze him. "There is nobody more alienated than people living in little rooms in institutions," Landwehr said. "We want to expose the public to the full range of people who are disabled. "I think our presence here at least gives the public the opportunity to reflect upon their perceptions of disabilities and disabled people. "We hope that a byproduct of our presence will give us some leverage with local politicians." Landwehr, who studied journalism and psychology at the University of Illinois but didn't earn a degree, is unemployed. He once worked with the Disability Rights Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., until federal funding for the group was cut. "We fooled them, though," he said. "Twenty-two of us started collecting Social Security disability checks and just kept on working, doing what we had been doing until the money ran out." Public officials sometimes complain that the cost of total access for the disabled is too great and the need too small. Landwehr says he doesn't believe it. For example, Milwaukee once touted the purchase of lift-equipped buses but operated them randomly on unannounced routes. Photos above: head shots of Howard Adams in white shirt and tie, and Mike Landwher with flannel shirt and mustache. Caption reads: Howard Adams (left) and Mike Landwehr both are disabled, but Adams disagrees with the civil-disobedience tactics used by Landwehr's group. - ADAPT (319)
The Arizona Republic, Monday April 8, 1987 Title: Handicapped Hold Protest Photo by Pete Peters/Republic: People in wheelchairs in ADAPT T-shirts form a picket line in front of a hotel, the Regency Phoenix. They are holding posters. Behind them, in the shadows of the entrance-way to the hotel people are standing looking on. Caption reads: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit picket before the Hyatt Regency. The ADAPT demonstrators have targeted a meeting by the American Public Transit Association. Photo top right Photo by Pete Peters/Republic: A woman standing uses a sprayer to cool a woman in a wheelchair holding a large poster. caption reads: Carla Montez squirts Kelli Bates with cool water. They traveled to Phoenix from Denver to participate in an ADAPT protest. subtitle: Disrupt event; ask transit access By Chuck Hawley The Arizona Republic About 100 members of a militant group of wheelchair-bound activists blocked the roads and entrances to Rustler’s Roost on Sunday night in an attempt to stop those attending a steak fry for the American Public Transit Association’s convention. Chanting and carrying place cards members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit lined up across the two roads, a stairway leading form a lower parking lot and the doors including the handicapped entrance to the restaurant, which is at the Pointe at South Mountain. Police monitored the protest. The 450 people attending the weeklong convention arrived in six Phoenix buses. Some were forced to scramble up a steep gravel incline and enter through the kitchen. Others walked up the back driveway. “We plan to be here all week and to inconvenience you as much as we can,” called out one protestor, who was blocking the stairs. Earlier in the day, protestor had picketed at the Hyatt Regency, where the conventioneers are staying. The protestors at the restaurant carried placards that said, “Police wagons accessible; buses not,” and chanted, “What do we want? Access. When do we want it? Now.” The group, well-known for militant protests across the country, wants all public transit to be accessible to the wheelchair-bound. “I think they have a just cause, but I think they are carrying it to an extreme,” said Bob Hicken, general manager of the Phoenix Transit System, who walked up the hill from the lower parking lot. “We’d like to serve them all, but we can’t. If there were enough money in the world, we could do everything we wanted to.” - ADAPT (317)
Tues., April. 7, 1987, The Phoenix Gazette Title: Vice mayor derides disabled group's tactics By Pat Flannery, The Phoenix Gazette Vice Mayor Howard Adams denounced the tactics of a group of wheelchair activists protesting in Phoenix, saying their actions cloud the “tremendous job” the city has done to make public transit accessible to the disabled. The American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit has staged several protests in the city to dramatize its demand that all public transit buses in the nation be equipped with wheelchair lifts. On Monday, about 30 wheelchair-bound protesters blocked two entrances to the Mansion Club in an effort to prevent 40 American Public Transit Association conventioneers’ spouses from attending a luncheon there. The delegation had arrived via a taxpayer-supported Phoenix Transit charter bus. In a later incident at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Phoenix, police said five protesters were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. The were: Marilyn Golden, 33, of Oakland, Calif.; Arthur Campbell Jr., 43, of Louisville, Ky.; Kenneth Heard, 36, of Denver; Chris Hronis, 47, of Haywood, Calif.; and Robert Conrad, 38, of Dallas. ADAPT has staged protests in every city in which the APTA - an industry lobbying group — has held a major convention. The APTA is holding its Western regional conference this week at the downtown Hyatt Regency. “Arizona and Phoenix have absolutely nothin to be ashamed of,” Adams, who himself uses a wheelchair, told the editorial board of The Phoenix Gazette and The Arizona Republic Monday. “At this point, disruption doesn't serve the cause," Adams said. The Phoenix Mayor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped has taken the same position, saying in a position paper that it endorsed the protesters’ goal but not their methods. “The type of demonstration usually conducted by ADAPT serves only to shed a very negative light on a very worthy cause," committee chairwoman Michelle Goldthwaite wrote. APTA has been ADAPT’s primary target since 1982, when APTA successfully fought a federal regulation requiring all city transit systems to equip at least half their buses with lifts to qualify for federal funds. But Adams said the local protests could unfairly malign the city's efforts to meet the needs of the Valley's disabled. "l would hate for the public to think overall that this is aimed at Phoenix," he said. City transit director Richard Thomas said Phoenix is doing “reasonably well" to accommodate the needs of the disabled through a mix of lift-equipped buses, “dial-a-ride” vehicles and an experimental program in which private transportation for the disabled is subsidized by the city. - ADAPT (316)
The Phoenix Gazette, Wed. April 8, 1987 B-5 37 more arrested in protests by handicapped By Scott Craven The Phoenix Gazette Police arrested 37 members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, most of them for trespassing after they refused to leave the Phoenix bus depot until they were able to board a bus. That brings to 69 the number of arrests police have made since the group arrived in Phoenix Saturday to protest the policies of the American Public Transit Association. Most of those arrested Tuesday were booked into the Towers facility of the Maricopa County Jail, where they were expected to stay the night because they could not raise bail, according to police spokesman Sgt. Ken Johnson. He said the typical bond for trespassing is $206. Although some ADAPT members were arrested at the state Capitol and the downtown Hyatt Regency, site of the convention, most were taken into custody at the bus terminal at Washington Street and Central Avenue. The ADAPT members were attempting to board buses, none of which were equipped with lifts for the disabled. The group is protesting because it wants all buses nationwide to be equipped to handle wheelchair-bound people. ADAPT organizer Mike Auberger said it was a frustrating battle. “Here we are, tourists in the middle of Phoenix, and we can't get a bus to see the rest of the city,” he said at the terminal. “No one else has that problem. We should have the same rights as everybody else." Police arrested 27 ADAPT members Sunday after they blocked the driveway to Rustler's Rooste at the Pointe South Mountain. They were cited and released. - ADAPT (307)
SMITH BY JEFF SMITH Title: ROLL MODELS Civil disobedience tends to be a cyclical form of political expression. It only comes into flower every few years, even decades, and during the intermissions of its popularity, the great masses in the political middle tend to forget what an important tool it is. Indeed, civil disobedience is the only legitimate means of effecting change on behalf of minority needs. Mull it over: • A minority with a valid and pressing need to see some public policy created or changed has the option of going to the polls along with everyone else . . . and losing. because it is, after all, a minority. Or: • Its members could arm themselves and turn their minority cause into a guerilla war, which the majority would agree is hardly a legitimate solution. Or: • They could employ the classic, nonviolent, Gandhian stratagem of civil disobedience. Bingo. Which is why I endorse the protest staged recently by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT). About 200 members of the Denver-based group, most of them in their primary means of transportation — wheelchairs— came here and raised hell a couple of weeks ago with the national convention of the American Public Transportation Association. It was a classic sit-in. Gimps are good at that. But it's been quite a while—a peaceful, soporific, almost brain-dead while—since the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War era, when sit-ins, protest marches and similar styles of civil disobedience were at all common. And six years of Reagan, four of Carter and three of Ford have turned many of us into conservatives like Phoenix City Councilman Howard Adams, who sympathize the problems of certain minorities, but object to the only tactic they really can use to solve those problems. Adams doesn't think cripples ought to be blocking restaurant and hotel entrances, impeding the comings and goings of conventioneers and blockading buses in order to make their point that most public transit is inaccessible to people in wheelchairs and those rendered nearly immobile by the need for canes and crutches. Adams is not an unsympathetic man: He has both sympathy and empathy for the disabled. In case you didn't know it, Howard Adams is a gimp himself. He was crippled in a swimming accident twenty years ago. And in case you think my characterizations mark me as a churl, know that I'm a gimp, too, coming on six years in a wheelchair after a motorcycle crash. (I got to be churlish independent of paralysis.) So both Howard and I know something of the subject. I simply know more than he does on account of I'm smarter. So listen up: Neither Howard Adams nor Yr. Obdt. Svt. is a decent role model for anyone with ambitions of becoming disabled. I am far too pretty and talented; Howard Adams is too powerful and prosperous. It is way too easy for someone like Adams or me to say, Hey, why don't the rest of you gimps just get your own car or van, like me? Adams is a quadriplegic with a specially equipped van. It is his own rig, but he must get someone else to drive it for him. When he's on city business, or going to and from his Phoenix City Council office, the city provides the driver. I am a paraplegic, somewhat less handicapped than Adams, so I drive myself in a station wagon with hand controls. Now you might think owning a car is virtually within the reach of anyone. Even the poorest hovel might have a Caddy parked outside. And you might say that since Smith and Adams manage so commendably, anybody can work and support a family, and get around to do [missing text here] unaffordable. Sensible people of limited means may own one old beater which one spouse takes to work, while the other rides the bus. Consider that even for Homo erectus, hoofing to the bus stop on hind feet in Hush Puppies and making the necessary connections to get from home in Phoenix to work in Tempe can be a major pain in the ass and add several hours to the workday. Now try it from a wheelchair. Listen: I am about as adapted, chipper and successful a gimp as you're likely to meet, and I don't go to Circle K's anymore. How familiar the ritual: You're driving home and you get a lech for a cold one. You hang a quick right, don't even shut off the engine, you're in and out in a flash, and buzzing nicely on your second beer before you've hit the next stoplight. When you're in a wheelchair you don't do stuff like this anymore. It is simply too much bother. Even for a gimp like me, with great strong arms, catlike grace and his own automobile. I run wheelchair marathons, lift weights three times a week, have the cardiovascular system of a twelve-year-old, but I do not visit Circle K's. It takes too long, requires too much exertion, inflicts too much pain, and maybe there's no ramp. Screw it. If I had to call two days, or as much as a week in advance to arrange to have a special van pick me up—just to make a doctor's appointment or go buy - groceries—I don't know if I could cope. If Howard Adams had to plan his daily schedule around Phoenix bus schedules, which provide wheelchair service on only six of 54 bus routes, I wonder if he would be able to discharge his duties as a councilman. I suppose he would, being the Type A he is. "I haven't showcased my activities," Adams told me, "but I am interested in this issue." Indeed, Adams has just been appointed to President Reagan's Architecture and Transportation . Compliance Board, which oversees enforcement of federal access regulation. Adams said he thinks Phoenix is doing well on handicap access, but if he lived in, say, New York, he might be frustrated and angry. Then would he resort to civil disobedience? "Probably not," he said. "I'd work the [missing text here] That might work for Howard Adams, - but not for all of Jerry's kids. I've learned a lot of stuff about gimps since becoming one — stuff that contradicts most of what I thought I knew before. No two of us are alike. Being paralyzed doesn't mean blessed forgetfulness of the concerns of your formerly functional physiology. You can experience constant pain from the paralyzed parts. You can have involuntary muscles spasms that make it impossible to sit still, and even more difficult to haul around those parts that would be tough enough to move if they just lay there like deadwood. You can run out of popcorn and have to get rest before the day is half done. You can spend two hours getting bathed and dressed to go out in public, only to get just out the door and find you've pissed your pants and have to go back and start all over. Think about these things the next time you scoff at the demands of the disabled for better access to public transportation, for ramps at street corners, for rest rooms with doors wide enough for a wheelchair, for wider aisles in airplanes, elevators in two-story buildings. Think what it means when a six-inch curb is as impassable a barrier as a prison wall. Not figuratively. In fact. Think about these things and think about one thing further: Disability is a very Eighties fashion of affliction, tres chic you could say. With speed sports like sail-boarding, off-roading and even sidewalk surfing being so trendy, lots more of you hip, yuppie dudes and dudettes will be joining me on wheels in the very near future. Think of handicapped access as an investment in your own future. Think of all this the next time you find yourself staring at the convenience market — the one with the cold can of beer— from across a lane of oncoming traffic, and you decide it's just too inconvenient to make a left-hand turn. Believe thee me: You don't have a clue as to what inconvenience is. - ADAPT (306)
Disability Rag September/October 1987 RAGOUT WHAT'S COOKIN' [This article continues in ADAPT 305 but all the text has been included here for easier reading.] At the bottom of the page is a cute cartoon of a bus driving along crammed full of folks. “There's been more public discussion in 5 days than there’d been in 5 years" “Now we’re taken more seriously” —As time for ADAPT demonstrations in San Francisco draw near, this story of how one local disability group responded to the influx of ADAPT members from all over the country shows how ADAPT’s style of direct action can work with local disability groups more accustomed to working “within the system." - ed. When ADAPT members from all over the country began descending on Phoenix this spring to protest at the American Public Transit Association’s regional meeting, staff of the Arizona Bridge to Independent Living felt some anxiety over where our loyalties lay. The City of Phoenix had been receptive to the disability community. They'd purchased only accessible buses the last three years. Phoenix's Regional Public Transportation Association had spent hundreds of hours working with us. Yet we also knew from brief interaction with ADAPT that their strongly-worded opinions best expressed our frustration and anger at the system's unwillingness to commit to 100% accessibility. ABIL decided to work with both groups. Prior to their coming, we discussed with ADAPT the guidelines they’d follow in deciding what level of civil disobedience would be involved. We found ADAPT’s demand — that cities purchase only accessible buses in the normal course of replacing a fleet — a reasonable one. ADAPT wasn’t demanding bus systems retrofit their buses, or that they immediately replace all their buses with lift-equipped ones — just a long-term commitment to change. " A month before the APTA meeting, ABIL met with RPTA officials to discuss our and ADAPT's demands for accessibility. To our surprise, RPTA suggested their commitment be put in writing and adopted by their board! ADAPT was already having an effect — and they weren't even in town yet! The day before, ADAPT arrived. ABIL hosted a meeting for those disabled people from all over the community who were most likely to be contacted by media or others regarding the APTA/ADAPT confrontation. A consensus emerged that the disability community would maintain a united front; that the local community's interests were the same as ADAPT’s and that any public discussion beyond that — especially regarding ADAPT's "techniques" — would simply distract from the central issue: accessible mass transit. This single act of meeting and making these decisions was the thing most responsible for the success of our efforts. By spreading the word, we were able to keep from being forced into a public debate over the differences between persons with disabilities rather than focusing the debate on our common interest —- accessible public transit. Negative comments from a few individuals in the community were lost among the events of the next several days. ABIL found itself taking an increasingly larger role as protests and police reaction escalated, with some of us participating in the demonstrations, others calling politicians and media, putting pressure on local bureaucrats and helping to keep lines of communication open. The mayor of Phoenix, in the midst of the media barrage, made a public statement supporting the purchase of accessible buses. After APTA and ADAPT had left Phoenix, ABIL set up a meeting between the Mayor and local ADAPT members. It was the first time the Mayor had sat down with members of the disability community to discuss transportation. Although he and some transit system officials were still angry about the demonstrations, they were taking us more seriously. That's a tradeoff we’re willing to make. The ADAPT experience was a positive one for ABIL and the disability community in Phoenix. The events caused more public discussion about accessible public transit in those five days than there had been in Phoenix in the past five years. The longer the topic stayed in the news, the greater appreciation the public had for the need for accessible public transit. — Robert E. Michaels Executive Director Arizona Bridge to Independent Living, ABIL. - ADAPT (356)
Handicapped Coloradan October 1987 Title: 123 arrested in San Francisco ADAPT blocks cable cars For years San Francisco area disabled rights activists chose to look the other way as that city's historic cable cars transported tourists and locals up and down the steep hills in cars inaccessible to persons in wheelchairs. And then ADAPT (the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) hit town. On Tuesday, Sept. 29, scores of wheelchair militants dodged police barricades and, hauled their wheelchairs onto the cable car turntable at Market Street. Protesters managed to prevent the cable cars from moving for more than two hours until police cut the chains they were using to attach their wheelchairs to the turntable. Of the 75 protesters arrested on the spot, 43 were booked and spent the night on cots in the county prison gymnasium on the seventh floor of the Hall of Justice. Outside the hall, 80 persons in wheelchairs maintained a candlelight vigil throughout the night. Many tourists were upset with the protesters, yelling at them that they were ruining their vacation. Protesters replied that the tourists' inconvenience would last only a few hours, while they faced a lifetime of inaccessible public transportation. ADAPT was in San Francisco to make just that point to the several thousand delegates attending the national convention of the American Public Transit Association (APTA), a trade group which represents most of the country's transit providers. Some 123 demonstrators were arrested during the San Francisco protest. "Every year it's a new record for the Guinness book," said Wade Blank, one of ADAPT's founders. Many of the other arrests took place as wheelchair activists blocked buses and streets to prevent APTA delegates from attending social functions outside the convention hall. A highlight of the week-long action was a Sunday parade when more than 500 demonstrators formed an eight-block-long river of wheelchairs. "It's got to be one of the most moving and impressive sights I've ever witnessed," Blank said. San Francisco police complimented the demonstrators on their organizational abilities, according to Blank. "We couldn't have done this a few years ago," he said. Blank said one of the highlights of the week for him was when police stopped APTA's executive director Jack Gilstrap from climbing over a fence to avoid a confrontation with the demonstrators. - ADAPT (354)
Austin American-Statesman Sunday, October 25, 1987 Lifestyle section Title: Streetcars and Desire Activist couple dedicate lives to tearing down walls between city buses and the disabled By Carlos Vidal Greth, American-Statesman Staff (This is a compilation of the article that is on ADAPT 354 and ADAPT 353. The content is all included here for easier reading.) Most visitors to the Bay Area relish the opportunity to hop a cable car and "climb halfway to the stars," as Tony Bennett croons in his signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Stephanie Thomas, organizer for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, had other ideas. "To mobility-impaired people, keeping those historic symbols of public transit alive memorializes inaccessibility and makes it seem like a positive thing," she said. ADAPT, a national civil-rights group, strives to make it easier for disabled people to ride city buses. They differ from mainstream disability-rights groups in that members sometimes commit acts of civil disobedience when the usual political channels clog or hit a dead end. Thomas, her husband Bob Kafka, and eight other Austinites went to San Francisco in late September to conduct a protest during the national convention of the American Public Transit Association, a lobbying organization. Kafka and 15 others were arrested when they climbed out of their wheelchairs and staged a sit-in at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets. Thomas was arrested twice, once for blocking a shuttle bus and once for blocking a cable car. "I've been arrested eight times or so," she said. "I've lost count. Bob has been arrested 14 times. The police are usually aware it's a demonstration about civil rights, and that we're not out to hurt their city. But it's scary. We're not automatons. Some members break down and cry when they go to prison." As far as Thomas is concerned, the suffering has been worth it. "The demonstrations got national exposure. More important, we got the transit association's attention. They are beginning to listen." Thomas, who is also executive director of the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, could sit for a poster portrait of the committed political activist. Her shock of amber hair shifts of its own accord like the wind ruffling a field of grain. Wide, blue eyes fix visitors with the riveting gaze of a woman who believes she fights for what is right. She was born 30 years ago in New York to parents who fought for justice in their way. Her father organized political campaigns and worked for arms control. Her mother, a writer, was involved in the women's movement. "Mom taught me to question people's perceptions," Thomas said. "The women's and disabled movements have something in common: We're defined by our bodies. You have to fight that all the time." Her first protest occurred when she was in elementary school. Mothers in the apartment building where her family lived wanted to establish a day-care center. The owners didn't want to provide the space. "Women and children took over the building," Thomas said. "We weren't angry college protestors. We were non-threatening moms and kids. But our presence made a difference." Despite her progressive upbringing, she was a shy girl who hid from the world behind the covers of books. When she was 17, her legs were paralyzed when she fell off a farm tractor while doing chores. What could have been a tragedy turned her life around. "I realized that life doesn't go on forever, and that you need to make the most of every moment," Thomas said. Thomas attended Harvard, where she and other disabled students organized a group to help make campus more accessible. "When I look back, I see we were very tame,” she said. “We were polite but usually got what we asked for.” Over the years, Thomas became increasingly active in disability rights. She got involved in independent living centers, communities of disabled people supporting one another so they can live with dignity outside institutions. In the early 1980s, she joined the Austin Resources Center for Independent Living. She went to work for the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities in 1985. The 9-year-old coalition lobbies for, represents and coordinates 90 organizations (including ADAPT) concerned with disabilities, as well as the more than 2 million disabled Texans. “It is the collective voice for the disabled in Texas,” said Kaye Beneke, spokeswoman for the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. "They’re committed - the members live every day with the problems they try to solve. “Stephanie understands there’s a spectrum of political views in the coalition, which tend to be more middle-of-the-road than ADAPT. She takes responsibility for the representing of all those views. But don’t call the coalition passive. They’ve had their way in the legislature and on the local level.” As a leader in two of Texas major disability-rights organizations, Thomas has her hands full. It helps having Bob Kafka, who broke his back in a car accident in 1973, at her side. The experienced trouble maker -- albeit trouble for a good cause -- has made a name for himself. He won the Governor’s Citation for Meritorious Service in 1986. Appropriately, Kafka met Thomas at a disability-rights conference. “Stephanie was real involved, real committed and real attractive,” he said. Sharing home and office has increased their commitment to the cause they serve- and to each other. “Bob and I are an activist couple,” Thomas said. “It’s intense because we work so closely. But it’s rewarding. It has made us an incredibly tight couple.” Thomas has to rework her concept of activism when she joined ADAPT. “Demonstrations force the public to look at disabled people in a different light,” she said. “The cripple is the epitome of powerlessness. We say we’re sorry if it scares you to look at me, but we have to live our lives.” Confrontation, however can cost allies as well as foes. This year, the Paralyzed Veterans of America severed ties with ADAPT and any organization "advocating illegal civil disobedience.” “Our charter states that we must act in accordance with the laws of the land,” said Phil Rabin, director of education. “To act otherwise would be to violate our charter. “The veterans and ADAPT members share first-hand the frustration of living in a society that is not accessible to the disabled. We don’t want to fight ADAPT. It’s a waste of precious resources to divert our energies.” Though Thomas’ group is controversial, it has achieved many of its goals. Albert Engleken, deputy executive director for the American Public Transit Association in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that ADAPT’s street theater has had some effect. In September his organization created a task force to study the issue of providing service for disabled, he said. Engelken, however is not a convert to their cause. “ADAPT wants a lift on every transit bus in the country,” Engelken said. “We believe it should be left to local transit authorities to decide how to handle transportation for disabled people. Transit officials are not robber barons. We’re paid by the public to provide the most mobility for the most people.” Thomas knows how to work within the system. Ben Gomez, director of development for Capital Metro, said ADAPT members have been effective on the Mobility Impaired Service Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations on service to the transit authority board of directors. “They’re well-organized,” Gomez said. “We don’t always agree on the approach and issues. We’ve made many of the adjustments they’ve asked for, but not always within their time frame.” The concessions have been gratifying, but Thomas has only begun to fight. “ADAPT took a dead issue änd made it hot again,” she said. For information on American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, write to ADAPT of Texas, 2810 Pearl, Austin 78705/ To learn more about the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, call 443-8252, or write to P.O. Box 4709, Austin 78765. [curator note: addresses and phone numbers no longer valid] Staff Photo by Mike Boroff: A man (Bob Kafka) with Canadian (wrist cuff) crutches, a plaid shirt, light colored jeans and sneakers sits in the lap of a woman (Stephanie Thomas) with wild big hair and a button down shirt. She is sitting in a manual wheelchair. Caption reads: "Bob and I are an activist couple,” says Stephanie Thomas who met Bob Kafka at a rights conference. “It’s intense because we work so closely. But it’s rewarding.” Photo by Russ Curtis: A group of protesters are looking up at something over their heads and their mouths are open shouting. In the front of the picture a woman in a manual wheelchair (Stephanie Thomas) is sitting on a line on the pavement that reads passenger zone. She has her finger raised pointing and is wearing a t-shirt with the ADAPT no-steps logo. Beside her is a man (Jim Parker) with a headband looking back over his shoulder, beside him another man in a wheelchair. Behind Jim stands a woman (Babs Johnson) with her arms by her sides and her mouth open yelling. Behind her a line of other protesters is arriving. Caption reads: ADAPT organizer Stephanie Thomas traveled to San Francisco to participate in a rally protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association. - ADAPT (352)
Passenger Transport 4/3/98? At San Francisco Meeting Agreement Reached in Suit By Disabled over Access San Francisco, Calif.- A settlement agreement of a class action suit brought by two individuals with disabilities against the Hilton Hotels Corporation, APTA, and Executive Vice President Jack Gilstrap was reached recently. The February 1988 suit stemmed from a protest by persons with disabilities at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel during APTA’s 1987 Annual Meeting. “We are pleased that this litigation is being settled and that we can, hopefully, put it behind us and move forward,” said Mr. Gilstrap. He emphasized that the settlement agreement stipulates that APTA entered into this agreement without admitting any liability in connection with the incident. The plaintiffs who brought the suit in the California Superior Court claimed that their right of access to the San Francisco Hotel was violated during a Sept. 27, 1987, meeting and protest at the hotel. Persons with disabilities had been invited to attend a meeting with APTA that morning, but an accessible hotel entrance was temporarily closed. The protesters sued under California law that guarantees full access for individuals with disabilities. The Sept. 27 incident came during a week when disabled activists held a tumultuous demonstration at San Francisco city hall and also blocked operation of the city’s historic cable car system. The settlement, reached on March 3 and preliminary approved by the court, provides monetary damages to disabled individuals who feel they were denied access to the hotel. The preliminary court approval clears the way for announcement of the settlement in publications distributed throughout the disabled community. Individuals who were invited to the Sept. 27 meeting and were denied access through the temporarily closed entrance are entitled to a minimum of $1,250. Persons who sought access or would have sought access to the hotel but for the temporary closure will have an opportunity to identify themselves and file proofs of claim for damages of up to $250. The damages will be paid out of a settlement fund established by Hilton Hotels and APTA amounting to $100,000. A hearing will be held this June for a final determination by the court concerning the fairness of the settlement. - 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 (349)
San Francisco Chronicle 9/28/87 S.F Protest For Disabled Turns Violent By Evelynn C. White A peaceful demonstration for the rights of the disabled to use public transit turned violent last night when 23 people were arrested, one of them on charges of assaulting a police officer. Following a rally at Union Square, 500 demonstrators converged on City Hall, where members of the American Public Transportation Association were holding a dinner meeting. Police said the melee broke out when demonstrators tried to block members from entering in the meeting. San Francisco police officer Michael Travis, 40, who was thrown down the City Halls steps in the scuffle, was treated for a possible concussion and released. Arrested in the assaulted was Alan Shipley, 40, of San Francisco, who police said is not disabled. Shipley was booked at city jail on charges of assaulted and battery on an officer and resisting arrest. The other 22 demonstrators, 19 of them wheelchair-bound were cited for failure to disperse, blocking a sidewalk and resisting arrest. They were released. Earlier in the day, 250 demonstrators at Union Square, 80 percent in wheelchairs, made a plea for better access to public transit. “In most cities, a person who is disabled can’t go to work, can’t go to school, can’t function,” said Laverne Chase, a wheelchair-bound resident of Washington, D.C. “I am here because I believe that disabled people should have equal access to everything that the mind can imagine, starting with public transportation.” The protest, sponsored by the September Alliance for Accessible Transit, was held in opposition to the APTA, which is convening in the city through the week. In the early 1980s, APTA fought to rescind federal regulations that would have required wheelchair lifts in all newly purchased transit buses and handicapped accessibility to all new rail systems. The organization instead lobbied for a “local option” alternative that allows individual transit systems to determine the best way to serve the handicapped. On Wednesday, the association plans to hold a session concerning the needs of the disabled. "We don't feel it's appropriate to leave it up to local operators,“said Berkeley resident Shelley Bergum. “There should be federal legislation that prohibits discrimination just like there is for housing and employment.“ In Anchorage, where 33-year—old Duane French lives, the “local option" has meant no public transportation at all for the disabled. “I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a van,” said French. “But other wheelchair-bound people have to impose on friends and family plan weeks in advance to get where they need to go. They should be able to go down to a corner and get on a bus, to live their lives spontaneously.”