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Home / Albums / Tags Denver RTD
+ 100% lift equipped + Atlantis Community 2
ADAPT (1789)
The Handicapped Coloradan / Page 15 & 16 [This article continues in ADAPT 1786, but has been completely included here for easier reading.] Title: "If heaven isn't accessible God had better Watch out!" Photo: Waist up picture of Wade Blank with his below shoulder length blonde hair and round tinted glasses. He is smiling and wearing a vest. Caption reads: Wade Blank ADAPT founder dies in Mexico. Wade Blank went down to Baja, California, in February and drowned there trying to save his eight year old son Lincoln. He was there vacationing with his family. The money for the trip came from Wade’s share of a legal settlement in San Francisco when bad guys violated the civil rights of ADAPT demonstrators. He couldn't afford that kind of trip on his own. He never made more than $16,000 in his life. Lincoln was in the water swimming. An undertow got him and Wade went in after him. He had to know there was very little chance either one would survive. Some fisherman from a nearby village fished Wade’ s body from the water. His wife Molly brought his body home and they covered the coffin with an American flag. Only the stars on this flag formed a wheelchair. Lincoln’s body was never recovered. A few days before he left on that vacation, I told him to skip Baja and its treacherous waters for the calmer seas off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Wade said he’d think about it but we both knew he wouldn’t alter his plans. Wade Blank liked to be where the action was. Many of the 1100 people who filled the ballroom at the Radisson Hotel on Sunday, Feb. 21, to say goodbye to their fallen comrade had accompanied him into battle. “If heaven isn’t accessible,” one of them warned, “God better watch out!” Wade founded the Atlantis Community in 1975 when he helped several disabled people move out of a nursing home and into their own apartments. Then he went on to help organize protests against RTD for not having wheelchairs lifts on its buses, a move that later led to the creation of ADAPT, which then stood for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (“The hard part is getting the acronym right,” he told me at the time.) I asked Tom Olin who was going to replace Wade. “No one,” he said. “Wade was into empowering disabled people. It’s a tribute to him that we’ll just keep on going.” Maybe. But it won’t be the same. People like Wade Blank don't come along very often. A writer for Westward once called Wade the nearest thing to a saint he had ever met. But Wade wasn’t perfect. After all, he was a Cleveland Browns’ fan. He had it so bad that on game day he’d call home to his folks in Ohio and have them put the phone next to the radio. He was president of the Cleveland Browns Fans in Exile Club. A small part of him died when Elway found Jackson in the end zone in the 1987 AFC Championship game. He was a devoted father who had a vasectomy reversed after he married Molly. He called me soon after the operation and bitched about having to lie still to prevent the tubes from severing again. It was the only time I knew him to stay still. The time spent was worth it. He loved Lincoln and Caitlan just as he loved Heather, his adopted daughter. He instilled in them special values. A neighbor recalled a time when she came home and observed Lincoln in front of his house directing some other kids. They weren't playing cowboy and Indian or war or any of the usual childhood games. They were playing rally. “All right,” Lincoln said. “United we stand, never apart.” Wade was a Presbyterian minister whose language would make a coal miner blush. I quoted him a lot on these pages over the past ten years or so but I never quoted him accurately. He used four letter words the way other people use punctuation. Someone made a TV movie about the events at Heritage Nursing Home and Wade said it was close to the truth. But the actor who played Wade didn’t quite capture his style. Wade wore his hair long and looked a little like a construction worker who took a wrong tum back in the 1960s. He once asked me if I wore ties. “I own one,” I said. “It keeps my sleeping bag rolled up.” He liked that. He hated ties. At the memorial service, those few men who showed up wearing ties were asked to remove them—out of respect. By then I owned a real tie. You can‘t go to a funeral in my small hometown without one. I left it at home for Wade. He didn’t have the eloquence of a Martin Luther King. He didn't need it. He wasn’t interested in grabbing the spotlight for himself. He taught his friends that their wheelchairs were a weapon and if they used them right, the whole world would take notice. RTD took notice. Denver became one of the first cities in the U.S. to adopt accessible public transit. Wade helped carry that message to countless other cities. He showed people how they could make a statement by going to jail and then he went out and raised the bail money. Eventually, in a parking lot in Atlanta, the feds gave in. Accessible public transit would be the law of the land. Wade wasn’t about to rest on his laurels. He turned his attention to an earlier cause. ADAPT changed the acronym to American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today and took on the nursing home industry. Wade knew that the disabled warriors who took on the federal government over accessible transit and got themselves arrested scores of times were strong enough to live in their own homes. He vowed to force the federal government to take money away from the nursing homes and make that dream a reality. That battle goes on. His friends at ADAPT are planning a memorial service in his honor in Washington, D.C. this May. At the same time, they’re going to make sure Bill Clinton honors his promises to provide funds for such attendant care. It's a fitting memorial but you can find plenty of monuments to Wade Blank in this country. There one at every street comer where there’s a curb cut and one on every bus equipped with a lift. And every time someone who is exploited because of a physical disability raises a fist in defiance and fights for his or her freedom and humanity, you’ll see Wade’s image in their eyes and his dream in their hearts. So long, Wade. If it’s really heaven, there won’t be a dress code. Written by Tom Schantz
ADAPT (88)
Rocky Mountain News 7/6/78 [This story continues in ADAPT 91 but the entire text is included here for easier reading.] NEWS Photo by Dick Davis: A city bus is parked at an angle to the street across 2 or 3 lanes. In front, a small woman in a power chair and dark sunglasses, sits holding a very large sign that reads "Taxation without Transportation" and has a wheelchair symbol of access. Two other people in wheelchairs are backed up to the side of the bus and a small group of other people in wheelchairs are in the street by the blockers. Mel Conrardy is in the wheelchair closest to the camera. Caption reads: A group of handicapped persons "seized" two RTD buses Wednesday, protesting what they called the firm's insensitivity to handicapped. [Headline] Buses seized, police decline to make arrests [Subheading] DISABLED SNARL TRAFFIC IN PROTEST By GARY DELSOHN News Staff Protesting what they said was the Regional Transportation District's insensitivity to Denver's handicapped, about 25 disabled persons "seized" two buses during Wednesday morning's downtown rush hour, snarling traffic and daring police to make arrests. While supporters helped them board two eastbound buses on Colfax Avenue at Broadway, several persons in wheelchairs surrounded the crowded vehicles. Early morning commuters had to walk two blocks to catch other buses while RTD drivers radioed their headquarters for assistance. Shortly after the 8:30 takeover, police arrived, admitting they weren't sure what to do. As commanders came to assist, police decided not to arrest any handicapped protesters because, as one sergeant said, “We don't want to be the fall guys on this.“ Police said they didn't want to risk injuring any of the severely disabled persons by loading them into police vans, nor did they wish to be pictured in television newscasts or newspapers arresting persons in wheelchairs. TWO PERSONS WERE arrested for refusing to obey police orders, but they were local counselors - not in wheelchairs - who work with many of Denver's approximately 8,000 handicapped. John Simpson, RTD executive director, arrived at the scene about 10 a.m. and talked with the demonstrators, asking them to leave the street and explain their grievances away from traffic. The protesters refused to move, saying Simpson and RTD have been meeting with the handicapped for years and done little to solve their transportation problems. "Handicapped people have a right to ride the bus just like everyone else," said Lin Chism, a disabled University of Colorado at Denver student studying rehabilitation counseling. “Today is the first of many times we will have to do this to get RTD to come to some agreement with us.“ Calling themselves the Colorado Coalition of Disabled Citizens, the protesters, organized and led by Denver's privately owned Atlantis Community for the handicapped, said the demonstration was a response to last week's federal court ruling that RTD was not violating the constitutional rights of the city's handicapped by not providing them access to RTD buses. ATLANTIS AND OTHER groups representing the handicapped and elderly last year sued RTD to require installation on all new buses of devices providing access to persons in wheelchairs. Wade Blank, director of Atlantis, which helps handicapped persons adjust to non-institutional life, said demonstrators hoped to get the attention of U.S. District Court Judge Richard P. Matsch, who made last week's ruling, and "others in the judicial system so they know what we‘re up against. “Like Martin Luther King. we have tried to go through the system," Blank said. "Now, like Dr. King, we must practice civil disobedience until the judges change their minds or Congress makes new laws." A clerk for Judge Matsch said, “The judge does not respond to reporters‘ questions and makes no comment on a ruling he has made." Blank said Atlantis lawyers will appeal Matsch's decision. He said the group also plans additional disruptive protests. “These people have no place else to go," he said, adding that they would not even be able to attend meetings on the subject proposed by Simpson because they could not find transportation. Simpson, talking with protesters, police and reporters throughout the morning, said RTD is trying to help disabled persons get around town and is one of the most progressive agencies in the nation in that area. RTD HAS I2 BUSES equipped with hydraulic lifts and locking safety clamps for persons in wheelchairs. Simpson said. Transporting several hundred persons to and from work and school daily, the "special service", buses appear to be the best way to move handicapped persons, he said. Equipping other buses with elevator lifts wouldn't be feasible, according to Simpson, because many handicapped persons can't get to bus stops located throughout town. Simpson pleaded with the demonstrators to move and let the two stalled buses continue down Colfax Avenue, even ordering one of the special buses into the area to handle the crowd. He also took reporters through the bus, demonstrating its features. But the protesters refused to move, saying their problem wasn't one of immediate transportation but rather a long-term dilemma exacerbated by the fact that only nine of the 12 special buses are in use. The other three, they said, are in storage at RTD garages. Simpson said RTD will have another 28 buses designed to carry handicapped persons in operation by September but their use has been delayed by mechanical problems. POLICE COMMANDERS repeatedly tried to mediate an immediate solution to the the traffic jam created by the protesters, but demonstrators said they would not leave unless Simpson gave them a written promise that all RTD buses would be made accessible to the handicapped. Simpson, declining this offer, said he would meet "with anyone, any time" on the issue. "We have been sensitive," Simpson said. "But some of these problems Congress will have to address." Demonstrators also expressed concern that the waiting list to get on the special buses is 1,000 persons long and the only alternative for persons without friends or relatives to drive them around is a private cab service that charges about $16 per round trip. Many city and state officials were on the scene, watching and talking to police and demonstrators. Mary Krane, a supervisor in the city's social services department, said she quit RTD advisory committee on the handicapped and elderly last year in frustration. "I resigned because it was so hard to get anything done, " she said. "We messed around with a few things but nothing really happened. No one has been willing to make the capital investment necessary to make buses accessible to the handicapped." JEROME SPRIGS, A member of the Governor's Council on the Handicapped, said disabled persons "know they're getting the run-around from the RTD because many of these special buses are being used in rural areas." Lisa Wheeler, 20, an Atlantis counselor, and Bill Roem, who runs a Lakewood home for the physically handicapped, were arrested about 11 am after they ignored a police order to leave the street. "Police are doing their jobs, " Roem said from inside a squad car. "But there has to be some awareness of the problem." Ms. Wheeler and Roem were book at police headquarters and released on $100 bond. Police blocked traffic on Colfax Avenue from Delaware on the west to Lincoln on the east. Traffic during the evening rush hour didn't seem to move any slower than usual, as protesters said they probably would continue their vigil throughout the night.