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The Cincinnati Enquirer Photo by the Cincinnati Enquirer/Michael E. Keating: Four police officers holding a thin, tall man (Jim Parker)by his legs and arms suspending him in the air while they try to place him in the wheelchair. Another police officer and a passerby at the street corner are visible in background, as well as a city bus parked with its doors open. Caption: Cincinnati Police lower ADAPT activist Jim Parker into his wheelchair after removing him from a Metro bus. He had crawled aboard. [Headline] Group seeks access for wheelchairs By David Wells George Cooper and Bob Kafka climbed aboard a City Metro bus at Government Square Monday, paid their fares and were arrested. Cooper and Kafka were among several dozen members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) demonstrating this week against Metro and the American Public Transit Association gathered at the Westin Hotel. ADAPT disrupted operations at Metro’s main downtown stop on Government Square for about two hours Monday. Following arrests of Cooper and Kafka, Metro rerouted its buses and avoided further confrontation with the wheelchair-bound demonstrators. ADAPT wants full accessibility for the handicapped on all public transportation facilities. Regular Metro coaches do not have wheelchair lifts. The company does provide transportation for the handicapped with special, lift-equipped Access vans. ADAPT claims that Access vans are unreliable in poor weather and even in good weather require a 24-hour advance reservation. The group also wants the national transit association to adopt a resolution at its Cincinnati convention requiring full access for the handicapped. Wheelchair-confined demonstrators picketed Westin entrances throughout the day but were denied admission to the hotel or adjoining public atrium. Cooper of Dallas, and Kafka of Austin, Texas, were charged with criminal trespass after they refused requests from Metro and the Cincinnati Police to get off the bus. “There are no lifts in these buses. It is not safe (for the handicapped), “said Murray Bond, assistant general manager for the company. Yet, after Cooper and Kafka were arrested, they were transported to the Hamilton County Justice Center on the bus rather than being transferred to a lift van. “That was a judgement call on my part,” said Capt. Dale Menkhaus, who headed the police detail. “It was decided it would be much easier and safer to transport them on the bus than to try to carry them off of it.” Four officers rode with the prisoners to ensure they were not jostled on the five-block trip to jail. Also arrested at the demonstration was Mike Auberger from Denver, who Menkhaus said attempted to block the bus carrying Cooper and Kafka. Auberger was charged with disorderly conduct and taken to the Justice Center in a lift van. Menkhaus said it was “a no win situation” for the police. No matter how sensitively the officers acted, they still had to confront and arrest people in wheelchairs. Officers in that detail were briefed on handling the demonstrators. Menkhaus said. “Our officers were told to ask each individual what the best way to lift him was, even to the point of which limb they would prefer to have moved first.” Still, to the members ADAPT, they were being dragged off the buses. “People were being dragged off the buses because they just wanted to ride,” said Bill Bolte of Los Angeles. When ADAPT member Rick James, a cerebral palsy victim repeatedly tried to roll his motorized chair into the street and in front of buses, police officers unplugged the chair’s battery. It left James immobile on the sidewalk. Other ADAPT members reconnected the battery and James pulled up in front of another bus. Metro eventually took the bus out of service and left it parked at the stop during the demonstration. At the Justice Center, all three prisoners co-operated fully with deputies, said Sheriff Lincoln Stokes. About five other demonstrators boarded buses that pulled in the stops at Government Square but they got off the bus when asked to do so, Menkhaus said.
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Cincy orders protesters out A May bus protest in Cincinnati has been described “as the most effective, courageous and fun action ever accomplished in the movement for disabled rights," according to literature mailed out by the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). Some 85 members of ADAPT were in Cincinnati in mid-May to picket a regional convention of its arch-enemy, the American Public Transit Association (APTA) and to dramatize what a lack of accessible buses means to the disabled population of that Ohio city. The action began with the customary march on the convention hotel on Sunday, May 18. No arrests were made but marchers were greeted at the Westin Hotel by police and double barricades. None of the protestors was allowed into the hotel. Pointing out that other people were passed through the barricades, Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, said the wheelchair protestors were being discriminated against. However, Cincinnati police captain Dale Menkhaus said that such actions, were proper when taken to protect private property from any group seeking to disrupt other lawful gatherings. The following day Kafka and fellow Texan George Cooper of Dallas dragged themselves onto a City Metro bus, paid their fares, and were arrested. They were reportedly told that “it’s not safe for disabled people to be on the regular bus.” The two were later released on $3,000 bond and ordered out of town, an action that ADAPT leaders described as blatantly unconstitutional. A third protestor, Mike Auberger of Denver, who is a former resident of Cincinnati, was arrested when he attempted to block the bus on which Cooper and Kafka were riding. Auberger said he originally left Cincinnati because of that city's “nineteenth century” attitude toward persons with disabilities. None of the Queen City Metro buses are accessible to the disabled, although 87 of the buses do have lifts which have been bolted down. Metro officials estimate it would cost them $350,000 to return those lifts to operational status. A local Cincinnati disabled activist said that's why she agrees with ADAPT’s goals, even if she can't go along with their methods. Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, said that the city’s service for disabled riders was inadequate. A disabled person must request space 24 hours in advance from Access, the paratransit system, but even then there's not always a space. “They dictate our lives to us because we have to go and come as there's space available.” ADAPT members said that's why they were willing to go to jail to publicize their cause. Police, however, made no arrests when 15 wheelchair protestors rolled onto a highway where vehicles were traveling at 40 miles per hour and blocked seven buses that were carrying APTA delegates and their spouses to a dinner at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in nearby Canton. Police were caught by surprise, as they had barricades to turn back protestors at the entrance to the Hall of Fame. Two local disabled leaders who were accompanying the APTA delegation to the dinner were taunted as “Uncle Toms” in front of TV cameras. Early the next day ADAPT members were back in front of the Weston Hotel where they erected a huge cross and hung a wheelchair from it in a mock crucifixion. On the final day of the convention, 17 protestors were arrested when they blocked the hotel driveway and refused police orders to move. Many of those arrested were ordered to jail unless they agreed to leave town. Three protestors, Auberger, Cooper and Kafka, decided the time had come for disabled protestors to do “hard time” and ended up serving 10 days. Five other protestors were turned out of jail because they had special medical problems or speech impairments. Others were released after pleading “no contest” to the charges in hastily organized trials. “Even the story we had left town and the protest was over made TV news," an ADAPT spokesperson said.
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Cleveland Plain Dealer p.8 Title: Cincy frees wheelchair access bus activists CINCINNATI (AP) -- A judge granted early release yesterday to three wheelchair-bound activists who were arrested last week for participating in protests to demand access for handicapped people to public transportation. Hamilton county Municipal Judge J. Howard Sundermann, Jr. granted a defense lawyers request for early release of Michael Auberger of Denver, George Cooper of Dallas and Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, who had served six days for criminal trespassing. Sundermann had sentenced the three to jail terms of 10 days each for their part in last week’s demonstration at the headquarters of Queen City Metro, Cincinnati's public transit agency. Their lawyer, Joni Wiikens, had argued against a jail term, saying the men could have suffered health problems if they were jailed for an extended period. Before he granted the early release, Sundermann asked the men if they planned to go to another city and repeat the demonstration. Auberger and Kafka said they planned to return home. Cooper did not reply. “I think we made our point. The issue won’t go away,” Kafka told reporters after the hearing. Auberger, Cooper and Kafka are members of Americans’ Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), a national organization that sponsored last week’s protests outside a downtown Cincinnati hotel where the American Public Transit Association was conducting a regional meeting of bus system executives. The activists were protesting Queen City Metro’s policy of requiring the handicapped ride on separate vans for the disabled rather than on regular buses. ADAPT members urged the system to fit the buses with wheelchair lifts, but Metro officials said they did not have money to do so because of the Reagan administration’s cuts in federal transit funding. The vans must be reserved 24 hours in advance. Handicapped people complain that the vans often are booked days in advance, leaving them isolated and unable to get to work or other destinations.
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8B The Cincinnati Post, Tuesday,May 20, 1986 [Two articles in this clip.] PHOTO Patrick Reddy/The Cincinnati Post: A man in a power wheelchair (Rick James) with a leather hat with a wide brim, sits in a semi-reclined position, hand partially hidden by his sleeve, finger on the joystick. On the side of Rick's chair you can see an ADAPT "We Will Ride" sticker. Two police officers are behind him; one is standing holding the push handles on his chair, the other is squatting down and sticking his nightstick through the spokes of Rick's chair. Behind them is the street and bus, and behind that some city buildings. Caption reads: A Cincinnati police officer jams a nightstick into the spokes of a wheelchair to prevent Rick James of Salt Lake City from blocking a Queen City Metro bus Monday at Government Square. Title: Activists block buses’ route By Edwina Blackwell, Post Staff reporter On a stretch or road near the College Football Hall of Fame, strong beliefs over the rights of the handicapped to public transportation confronted the steel frames of buses. lt happened Monday night when 15 disabled activists rolled into the pathway of vehicles traveling 40 mph. Seven buses carrying conferees attending the eastern meeting of the American Public Transit Association in Cincinnati were on their way to the Hall of Fame at Kings Island in Warren County for a reception. As the buses neared the Hall around 6:30 pm about 15 members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation moved onto the road, blocking a portion of Kings Island Drive. Police had set up barricades by the hall earlier. However, that didn't keep the ADAPT members from rolling onto the roadway. "I remember flashing in my mind that these might be the first deaths of the civil rights movement of the handicapped," said the Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, Colo., co-founder of ADAPT. No one was injured and no arrests were made. But the members of the Denver-based group say their action shows how far they are willing to go. The protesters want the transit officials to change their national policy on accessibility and Queen City Metro to have wheelchair lifts on all new buses. Today ADAPT members plan to demonstrate in front of the Westin Hotel, where the APTA convention is being held. There were also disabled people riding the buses that were halted Monday night. Dixie Harmon was one of the people who got off the bus Monday in the midst of the ADAPT protest. Ms. Harmon, a quadriplegic in a wheelchair. is co-chairwoman of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee, a local committee which works with Queen City Metro in reviewing handicapped needs. But when she met her peers on the protest line, the reaction was less than cordial. Both she and Dan Cleary, president of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition of People with Disabilities, were subjected to name calling for their decision not to demonstrate. Wednesday she will be on a APTA panel discussing transit system services to disabled individuals. "I was very uncomfortable," she said of the Monday night confrontation. "(But) I have to understand that they're angry, too." Queen City Metro and Cincinnati police say they are ready for any more protests during the convention, which ends Thursday. Judith Van Ginkel, director of Metro communications, said bus drivers have been instructed to stop immediately and call police if a protester tries to block the vehicles. Earlier Monday, three ADAPT members — Michael Auberger, Bob Kafka and George Cooper—were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for attaching themselves to Metro buses downtown. [Second Article] Title: Disabled lament lack of transportation beyond city limits By Edwina Blackwell Post staff reporter For Linda Geraci, ACCESS provides a step toward independence. Every weekday morning, she can expect to see the specially equipped van in front of her apartment, ready to transport her to work. Confined to a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy, she needs the lift-equipped vehicle to survive on her own. For many, ACCESS inhibits mobility, however, because it does not travel beyond Cincinnati city limits. "lf we want to go in a closed mall, there is none inside city limits. Most of your movie theaters seem to be in those areas also," said Ms. Geraci, a counselor at Total Living Concepts Inc., an organization that promotes independent living among handicapped individuals. Riders who utilize the curb-to-curb service of ACCESS must make reservations at least 24 hours In advance and preferably one week in advance. The 19 specialized transportation vans used for the elderly and the disabled serve only Cincinnati proper in addition to Elmwood Place, St. Bernard and Norwood. Even short trips like running to the grocery store must be scheduled in advance. "You tell them when you want to go and when you want them to come get you and you hope that your ice cream doesn't melt," Ms. Geraci said. Dixie Harmon, co-chair of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition of People With Disabilities, said the scheduling becomes an invasion of privacy for the individual because ACCESS knows your every move. Several local handicapped organizations have publicly supported the demonstrations of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation although they shy away from their methods.
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The Cincinnati Enquirer Monday, May 19, 1986 Comment/A-7 PHOTO by Jim Callaway/The Cincinnati Enquirer: Three protesters in wheelchairs form a diagonal line across the picture. On the right in the foreground a heavy set man (Jerry Eubanks) sits in his manual wheelchair, a cab of soda in his right hand. He is a double amputee below the hips, and is wearing a look of concentration, and appears to be chanting. His right hand is resting on the back of a motorized wheelchair to his right. In that chair is a slim man (Greg Buchanan) who is wearing a very large sign across his legs that reads "A Part of NOT Apartheid." (The message is a bit obscured by the curve of the sign around his legs.) He is also wearing a light colored ADAPT T-shirt. To Greg's right and a bit further away and behind is a third man in a chair, a slim man with dark hair and a beard (John Short). He also has a sign on his legs but the quality of the picture makes it unreadable. Caption reads: Members of ADAPT picket in front ol the Westin Hotel Sunday afternoon. Gary Eubanks of Chicago, right, Greg Buchanan of Colorado Springs and John Short of Denver were among them. Title: Protesters converge on city Disabled demand full access to public transportation BY KAREN ROEBUCK The Cincinnati Enquirer Former Cincinnatian Mike Auberger said he left the city because of its lack of accessibility to the handicapped and because "the mentality toward people with disabilities is really 19th century at best." Auberger, who now lives in Denver, is one of about 75 members of ADAPT (American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit) in Cincinnati Sunday through Wednesday demanding full accessibility to public transportation systems for the handicapped. But the approximately 50 members of ADAPT demonstrating in front of the Westin Hotel, where the American Public Transit Association (APTA) is holding its regional convention, were denied access to the hotel Sunday. "The only people they're stopping are people in a wheelchair; that's blatantly discriminatory," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas and ADAPT community organizer. Cincinnati Police Capt. Dale Menkhaus, Operational Support, said public easements can be barricaded to any group that might disrupt the hotel, which is private property. ADAPT members publicly stated they would try to disrupt the conference and have attempted to do so at other APTA conferences, police and Westin officials said. The hotel's first priority is to its guests, in this case the APTA, said Larry Alexander, general manager of the Westin. The ADAPT group blocked entrances and exits to the hotel for a short time Sunday, and rode their wheelchairs in downtown streets, somewhat disrupting traffic to the Reds-Pirates game, Menkhaus said, but did not cause any major problems. Armed with signs, T-shirts and badges, the group chanted slogans expressing their desire to ride public transportation systems. Some of the signs read, "Buses won't roll without us," and "We have a dream. . . We will ride." Kafka said ADAPT members will most likely try to stop some Queen City Metro buses. In other cities, members have sometimes chained themselves to the vehicles. Murray Bond, assistant general manager of Queen City Metro, said if ADAPT members try to stop the buses, the drivers will put the vehicles into park and let the police move the demonstrators. Menkhaus said ADAPT members will be arrested if they break the law. Despite the barricades, ADAPT members also will try to get into the convention, Kafka said, to get a resolution requiring full accessibility for the handicapped onto the convention floor. Albert Engelken, deputy executive director of APTA, said the executive committee and board of directors have discussed voting on such a resolution, but decided that decision should be made at the local level. Every system in the country has some way of transporting the handicapped, he said, which was decided upon with the advice of local agencies for the handicapped. About 30% of the systems nationwide are fully accessible, he said. Queen City Metro has an access program which will pick up handicapped people at their homes and take them where they need to go in Cincinnati, Elmwood Place, St. Bernard and Norwood, Bond said. "We understand their goals of total accessibility. It's certainly a laudable one, but also a very expensive one." The customer pays 60 cents for a ride, but it costs Queen City Metro about $10, he said. A ride must be scheduled 24 hours in advance under the Queen City's rules, but space is not always available, said Dixie Harmon, co-chairperson of the Specialized Transportation Advisory Committee to Queen City Metro and a member of Greater Cincinnati Coalition of Persons with Disabilities. "They dictate our lives to us, because we have to go and come as there's space available," she said. Kafka said ADAPT does not expect public systems to make all their buses wheelchair accessible, only all new buses. In about 20 years, the entire system could then be used by the handicapped, he estimated, pointing out that Queen City now owns 87 buses with wheelchair lifts, but the lifts have been locked down. Bond said those buses were bought with federal money at a time when wheelchair accessibility was required for any purchased with federal funds, and would be too costly to operate. The Greater Cincinnati coalition supports the goals of ADAPT, Harmon said, but chooses to negotiate for changes instead of demonstration.
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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.