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Home / Albomlar / Tags Denver RTD
+ Mayor McNichols 2
ADAPT (90)
Denver Post [This article goes with photo in ADAPT 89] [Headline] Wheel Chair Delegation Accuses Board of Ignoring Them Howard Pankratz, Denver Post Staff Writer A 17-year-old crippled girl Tuesday told the board of the Regional Transportation District (RTD) it cost nine handicapped adults in wheelchairs $90 to take a four-mile trip to a Denver Bears baseball game at Mile High Stadium last summer. Her testimony and that of other Denver handicapped individuals highlighted a public meeting at which the RTD was accused of not caring about the handicapped and elderly. By the time the meeting ended board members voted not only to intensify their efforts to help the handicapped but to do everything in their power to see that 120 new buses the RTD hopes to buy have facilities for the elderly and impaired. The board authorized chairman John Fleming Kelly, to file an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for a $12.4 million grant to finance purchase of the 120 buses; and to build a new bus administration and maintenance facility and 100 bus shelters. At the meeting at the Colorado Highway Department building, it was obvious the board was moved by the presence of approximately 40 persons in wheelchairs, some who accused board members of not being “sincere” in their efforts to help the handicapped. [Subheading] NOT SURE OF CARE “I want to make sure we take care of these people,” board member Leo F. Sullivan, declared near the close of the session. “From the remarks I've heard tonight, I'm not sure we are." John Harper, another board member, assured the group that the RTD is sincere but he acknowledged that he thought maybe the RTD might have been a "bit-remiss" in regard to the handicapped and “could do a better job." The most moving testimony of the night came when Inez Regge, severely crippled and confined to a wheelchair, told of how nine adults from the Heritage Nursing Home had to pay $10 each to attend the ball game. “That is high by any standard, but for these young people whose total income was approximately $20 a month, it was exorbitant," she said. “There have been similar ‘rip offs’ in the past, including a $92 fare for one young man going from Heritage House downtown-and back." She said not all private companies who provide such services to Denver's handicapped are “mercenary,” but overhead forces them to keep their rates high. Until Sept. 7, the day Denverites approved the RTD bond issue, she said “there didn't appear to be any transportation alternatives for most of Denver's disabled. [Subheading] COMMITMENT SOUGHT But she said that a commitment by RTD officials prior to the bond election to provide bus service to the handicapped, plus a provision in the Federal Transportation Act which says special effort must be made to accommodate the handicapped on mass transportation, gave them an alternative. Miss Regge said Denver has one of the highest percentage of handicapped people in the country because of the large number of facilities here. “It is the goal of the handicapped community to see to it that all public transportation is accessible to the handicapped," she said. John D. Simpson, RTD executive director, said RTD had hired Al Coulter of the Denver Board for the Mentally-Retarded and Seriously Handicapped, Inc., to try to find out about the transportation needs of the region's elderly and handicapped. But he said RTD and Coulter had run into a business community which had refused to give the agency help in locating the handicapped. “We have been unable to ascertain where handicapped people want to travel to and from,” Simpson said. “There is some real difficulty in talking to companies — and we have approached half a dozen of the major employers - who have handicapped employees. “They either say ‘We don't know who they are' or ,‘We do know, but we don't want to tell you.'" Les Berkowitz, representing the Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation for the Handicapped, reminded the RTD that not only does the organization have a moral and philosophical obligation to the handicapped, but also a “specific, expressed requirement” under federal statute. He quoted a public law which directs “that special efforts shall be made in the planning and design of mass transportation facilities and services so that the availability to elderly and handicapped persons of mass transportation which they can effectively utilize will be assured." Berkowitz, sitting in a wheelchair a few feet away from the 15 board members, said despite RTD assurance it is interested in the handicapped. “we have some reason to believe that RTD is not entirely sincere in its efforts." Although seeking assistance from a citizen’s task force, he said RTD has expected from that task force, composed entirely of volunteers, “far more than we can be reasonably expected to give.” He said the volunteers have had little or no training in the collection of data or research design. Further, he alleged that Coulter had only been hired for a 60-day period. While Denver's handicapped community asked that the RTD do more, a wide variety of spokesmen enthusiastically backed RTD's $12.4 million federal government application. They said the buses which the money would buy would do everything from helping alleviate Denver's air pollution problem to providing a badly needed form of economical transportation. State Rep. Richard Lamm, D-Denver, said that after Denver “won the dubious distinction as one of the nation's six most polluted cities.” the Colorado legislature created RTD and charged it with developing a transit plan. “Tonight we are here to publicly discuss the first and a vital phase of this plan -- the early action bus program,” he said. “RTD will be able to improve bus service by more than 60 percent in the region with this one capital grant alone. That, to me, is an important first step toward cleaning up the environment." Gordon Appell, principal planner for the Denver planning office, read a statement by Mayor Bill McNichols in which McNichols said the demand for public transit in the Denver area “has reached almost emergency proportions." McNichols noted that in January, the Denver Metro Transit system had 1.9 million passengers, a 22 per cent increase over the same month a year ago. He forecast that the number of passengers may exceed 25 million this year. Thus, he said, the money for the buses is imperative.
ADAPT (54)
Denver Post, Photo by John Sunderland: Ten people in wheelchairs [including, left to right, George Roberts, Les Hubbard, Bob Conrad and Debbie Tracy?] sit in the street in two rows along a curb. George and Les are hammering the curb with sledgehammers as the others watch. The woman to the far right holds a sign that says "We [unreadable] curb cuts, and has a stick figure picture of a woman in a wheelchair. in the background on the left side you can see part of someone else in a chair with a hammer. Cation reads: George Roberts, left, and Les Hubbard Bludgeon a Curb in Protest. Other members of the Atlantis Community surround them in a demonstration against obstacles to their mobility. [Headline] Atlantis Members Bludgeon Curb in Protest By Bill Scanlon, Special to the Denver Post An 8-inch curb is not much of an obstacle to most pedestrians. But when you are in a wheelchair and you’ve counted 44,000 of them and each one of them is an obstacle to your movement and your freedom, that 8-inch curb can become a symbol of intense frustration. Two handicapped Denverites bludgeoned such a curb with 20-pound sledgehammers Monday afternoon to show their anger at the mayor's office for what they described as a failure to make the sidewalks and streets of Denver safe and accessible to the disabled community. THE DEMONSTRATION at the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Colorado Boulevard was put together by the Atlantis Community, an organization of handicapped people. According to a press release, the group staged the protest to “express our anger and frustration at the 44,000 curbs in Denver which prevent us from using the sidewalks and crossing the streets." A crowd of about 30 people watched and cheered as a like number of handicapped people wheeled their chairs westward down the sidewalk in front of National Jewish Hospital. When they reached a curb that had been cut to provide automobiles access they crossed Colfax Avenue. Then they proceeded eastward along the Colfax Avenue sidewalk until they reached the Conoco service station at the corner. There was a rounded curb there, so the protesters wheeled their chairs across Colfax. They were forced to edge into Colorado Boulevard traffic to go around the concrete median. At the corner they found themselves up against an 8-inch curb, symbolic of thousands of others that had stirred the protest. THERE, LES HUBBARD and George Roberts began wielding their sledgehammers. Amid cheers of “Down with the curbs," they succeeded in inflicting slight damage to the concrete slab. Drivers stopping at the corner traffic light were mostly curious, often supportive, but also a little wary about hitting the wheelchairs. The chairs impeded but did not stop traffic at the busy intersection. During a break from hammering, Hubbard said, “We have the right to go places like anyone else, but we can't. I'd like to put (Mayor Bill) McNichols in a wheelchair tor about a month." Two years ago Atlantis staged a protest against the Regional Transportation District for failing to provide adequate means for disabled people to ride the bus. Bob Conrad, co-administrator of Atlantis, said the group was not protesting RTD this time. By 1982, RTD expects to make its bus system the nation's first that is fully accessible to the physically handicapped. CONRAD SAID the city has been “pretty responsive" in the downtown area to the needs of handicapped people, but it has not responded to particular curb problems elsewhere. He said, “The city only cuts curbs that have been damaged" and added that the city budget no longer provides money for cutting undamaged curbs at particular problem areas. Edward Ellerbrock, a spokesman for Denver's Traffic Engineering Department, said there has been less money budgeted for building wheelchair ramps the past two years only because the demand has been less. He said his department met with Atlantis officials less than a week ago for "some brainstorming." He said both sides agreed that Atlantis would start identifying specific spots where ramps were needed and the Traffic Engineering Department would respond to them within the limits of its budget. Ellerbrock said his department is requesting $100,000 to cut curbs and build wheelchair ramps. He added that there is “no guarantee we're going to get it," so for publicity's sake the protest might have had some merit. CONRAD SAID that for a wheelchair person “one curb is just as bad as a flight of stairs." He said handicapped people usually have to wait in their chairs at an intersection until some people come along to help them up the curb. “Unless you're really trained at doing it he said, “you can dump the person out while trying to lift him." Hubbard said he has been hit four times by automobiles “because of these curbs. Once I had to have back surgery." He said he wanted to hammer the curb “just enough to get the message across." After about a half-hour of hammering, cheering, chanting and impeding of traffic, a Denver police car arrived and the group was told to clear the intersection or the protesters would be ticketed. The group agreed to move, apparently believing the point had been made. Denver Police Sgt. Richard Nelsen later said, "They got the publicity they wanted. They're happy. I'm happy it's all over.