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Home / Albums / Tag arrests 66
- ADAPT (217)
Mainstream magazine, no date listed, p.9. Attachment IV [Story continues in ADAPT 211 and then ADAPT 210 but is included here in its entirety for easier reading. Story seems to be cut off at the end.] Photo bottom half of page: Image of people marching down the center of the street, some carrying signs, one with the ADAPT logo and another saying, “APTA OPPRESSES." Line snakes back out of sight alongside traffic in the back. Wheelchairs are lined up smartly presenting an impressive image. [Headline] ADAPT PUBLIC TRANSIT OR ELSE by Mike Ervin One of the largest civil rights marches in history by people with disabilities was held Sunday, October 7, 1985 in downtown Los Angeles to protest the American Public Transit Association (APTA)'s policy of local option transit for disabled. In response to an “invitation” by American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) to join in picketing the annual APTA convention, national leaders of the Disability Rights Movement converged at MacArthur Park to roll the 1.7 miles to the convention site at the Bonaventure Hotel. Bill Bolte of the California Association of the Physically Handicapped (CAPH) took a head count of the line of people in wheelchairs rolling single file down the middle of Wilshire Boulevard and announced that there was 215 present. The L.A. Police Department had refused to issue a parade permit to the group and had said it would not allow the long planned parade to be held on the street, but when 200 plus wheelchair users took to the pavement (no curb cuts) all the police could do was route traffic around the procession. It was an impressive sight; more than twice the number of people ADAPT had turned out for previous demonstrations at the annual conventions of APTA. As the line of people stretched more than a block in front of the posh Bonaventure Hotel where APTA was staying, the L.A. Police waited; there wasn’t much they could do except establish their presence. The protesters marched into the hotel lobby taking up most of the available space. Chants of “We will ride!" Filled the atrium below as bewildered hotel guests wondered what all this could possibly be about. The Hotel Security immediately blocked the one wheelchair accessible elevator to the main lobby. This escalated (so to speak) the confrontation, as demonstrators got out of their wheelchairs to block the escalators, saying “if you block our access, then we will block the escalators. No one will be able to use them." Meanwhile the police discussed the strategy of arresting certain people first whom they had identified as leaders. Photo: A man, Bob Kafka, sitting awkwardly, almost falling out of his manual wheelchair, apparently handcuffed behind his back. His legs are falling under the chair, and he is surrounded by four or more police officers. Article continues: Eight people, one woman and seven men, were arrested and booked without charges. The police told the media that the charge was “refusing to leave the scene of a riot.” The woman arrestee was released Sunday night, five of the men were released the following afternoon, and the last two men were released Tuesday morning after 53 disabled individuals held an all night vigil outside the county jail. On Tuesday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), represented by Lou Nau, the chairman of the Disability Rights Committee of the ACLU, outlined the treatment that the arrestees faced. Four of the men were handcuffed behind their backs and left to sit in the police vehicles for up to five hours. Mike Auburger, a quadriplegic, was not allowed to use the bathroom for eight hours, causing hyperreflexia. Individuals on sustaining medication repeatedly asked for their medication, but never received it. Nau said to permit no bail for misdemeanor offenses is clearly against the law. Although APTA tried to discredit the protestors as a “small militant group of outsiders," they represented a wide spectrum of the Disability Rights Movement including Robert Funk, Executive Director of the Disability Rights and Education Defense Fund; Michael Winter, Director of the Center for Independent Living, Berkeley, CA; Judy Heumann, of the World Institute on Disability; Joe Zenzola, President, California Association of the Physically Handicapped; Peg Nosek, of Independent Living Research Utilization Project, Houston, TX; Catherine Johns, President of The Association on Handicapped Student Service Programs in Post-Secondary Education; John Chapples, Department of Rehabilitation, Boston, MA; Mark Johnson, Department of Rehabilitation, Denver, CO; Marco Bristo, Director, Access Living, Chicago, IL; Harlan Hahn, Professor, University of Southern California; and Don Galloway, D.C. Center for Independent Living. The following days saw many more protests in the Los Angeles area. On Wednesday, about 50 individuals arrived at the office of Larry Jackson, Director of the Long Beach Transit Authority, who is the incoming President of APTA. After being denied a meeting with him, they went out into the streets. The police gave them l0 minutes to disburse or be arrested. When no one moved, the police proceeded to arrest the protestors and take them to jail in 6 dial-a-ride vans. These individuals were booked and then released, as it was not possible for the Long Beach Police Department to accommodate so many disabled people. The passers-by had many different reactions to what they were experiencing; some were mad at being detained, some joined in. One man gave protestors a banner which read “help” and proceeded to distribute little American.... [rest of the article is not available.] Three photos. Photo 1: At the bottom of an escalator a mass of people in wheelchairs gathered together, Julie Farrar in the center, holding a picket sign: “APTA DESTROYED 504”. Photo 2: A man, Chris Hronis, lying on his side on the floor, handcuffed behind his back, surrounded by four or more police standing over him. Photo 3: Through the window of a van you see two man, Chris Hronis in back and Bob Kafka in front of him, sitting in wheelchairs. Both are handcuffed behind their backs. - ADAPT (215)
This article is a continuation of the story in ADAPT 224 and is contained in its entirety there for easier reading. 3 photos filling the top three-quarters of the page. Photo 1: A man (George Florum) in a manual wheelchair wearing a black no-steps ADAPT T-shirt is loaded onto a lift of some type of vehicle by three beefy police officers Caption: GEORGE FLOROM OF of Colorado Springs is arrested for blocking buses in Long Beach. Photo 2: A dark shot of a man in a white T-shirt (Chris Hronis) being pulled upward by several sets of hands. Caption: CHRIS HONIS [sic], a California ADAPT member, is arrested at the Bonaventure Hotel. Photo 3: a couple of small groups of protesters in wheelchairs and standing, are in front of one bus and beside another, while police stand nearby. Caption: ACTIVISTS hold a bus captive in Long Beach. To the left of photo 3 is an ADAPT "we will ride" logo with the wheelchair access guy and an equal sign in the big wheel. - ADAPT (213)
[Headline] 6 held in protest by disabled [Subheading] Stage sit-in in Anderson’s L.B. Office By Bob Houser, staff writer Long Beach Press Telegram, 10/8/85, p. B/1 [This story continues on ADAPT 212 but the text is included here for easier reading.] Photo on top of the article by Leo Hetzel/Press-Telegram: Seen from above, George Cooper lies on the floor legs stretched out, back against some furniture. His empty manual wheelchair sits across the small crowded space. A police officer rests one hand on the wheelchair and looks down at George on the floor. In the foreground is someone's arm and hand on his/her crutch. Caption: Disabled protester, who was helped from his wheelchair by fellow demonstrators, lies on the floor of Rep. Glenn Anderson's office Monday as a Long Beach police officer urges him to leave. Six of 26 sit-ins seeking public transit access for disabled people were arrested for trespassing Monday in the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Long Beach. The protesters, many disabled and in wheelchairs, were removed from Anderson's sixth-floor office office in the Post Office building at Third Street and Long Beach Boulevard when they told Long Beach police officers they were going to stay until they could talk to Anderson. Boyd Kifer, Anderson’s district representative, explained that Anderson was on the House floor in Washington, D.C., and unable to talk to them. They said they would wait. Responding to a citizen's arrest request by the post office’s station manager, Lyle Van Dorne, police issued misdemeanor citations to six persons on the sidewalk in front of the post office. Ten of the group avoided citations by leaving the office. Names of the other 10 were recorded in field interviews that involved no arrests. Police Sgt. Dave Buchanan said the demonstrators were out-of-state people representing a national organization, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT). Buchanan told the sit-ins that they would be given the citations rather than being booked at the station if they confined their demonstration to the public sidewalk. He also pointed out that a couple of the sit-ins, who had early evening flight reservations, would miss them if they insisted on going through the longer booking process. Jim Parker, of El Paso, Tex., spokesman for ADAPT, said his group comes to national conventions of the American Public Transit Association, now in session in Los Angeles, every year "to continue to press our demand for a policy of full, 100 percent accessibility to public transit for disabled people.” Parker said Anderson was targeted for the demonstration because he is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Parker agreed with a statement from Anderson’s office that the congressman has voted in line with their wishes. He deplored Congress’ failure to overturn a Reagan administration order that killed a federal mandate for nationwide transit accessibility for the handicapped. About a dozen Long Beach police officers assisted in removing the protesters. The police group included a woman officer, K.M. Daeley, who communicated with some of the disabled in sign language. In a statement Monday evening, Anderson noted also that "it was this administration, not Congress, which overturned a requirement that the handicapped be given full accessibility to public transit.” That move, by administrative order, nullified the full access provision of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Parker said, leaving that issue to the option of each state. Ironically, California opted, by state law, for full accessibility in new purchases of public transit vehicles, a fact that Parker saluted. In fact, Parker said Los Angeles is one of the better cities in the nation for lift-equipped buses. Nevertheless, the ADAPT group registered its protest in Long Beach and in a second day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles. Eight were arrested in Los Angeles Sunday for failure to disperse and interfering with police during a demonstration by about 130 activists. Anderson appealed to ADAPT to help block the Reagan administration’s intended cuts in public transit operating funds. "I would be pleased,” he said, "to try and make sure that administration officials sit down and discuss this important issue with the elderly and handicapped community.” Sgt. Buchanan said the Long Beach demonstrators, left the post office at about 1:30 p.m. Monday, but returned several hours later. "Three of them blocked traffic on Long Beach Boulevard with their wheelchairs,” he said, "but we just rolled them back to the sidewalk and they dispersed again.” - ADAPT (229)
San Diego Unlon, A-3 Tuesday, October 8 PHOTO by Associated Press: A man in wheelchair (George Roberts) leans forward slightly, his mouth open as if yelling, as two police officers and another man load him onto the wheelchair lift of a van. George is wearing an ADAPT T-shirt with the no steps logo and carries a picket sign on his back. Caption reads: A wheelchair-bound activist is arrested outside a downtown Los Angeles hotel where police said he and seven others blocked entrances and stairways Sunday. [Headline] Protests continue on public transport access by disabled Associated Press LONG BEACH — Activists yesterday staged a sit-in at the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson and held a second day of demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles protesting a lack of access to public transportation. About a dozen protesters, many of them in wheelchairs, crowded into the suburban Long Beach office of Anderson while others remained in the hall outside, said Anderson's executive assistant, Ann Ramirez. Anderson, a Long Beach Democrat, is chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Ramirez said the congressman had been scheduled to be at his office and at a speaking engagement in Los Angeles yesterday but had to cancel those plans and stay in Washington because of a heavy workload. ln Los Angeles, about 35 wheelchair-bound demonstrators protested peacefully while the American Public Transit Association held its annual conference. On Sunday, eight persons were arrested for investigation of failure to disperse and interfering with police as about 130 activists staged a demonstration. The arrests occurred after a procession of wheelchairs carried people with disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy to postpolio paralysis from MacArthur Park to the Bonaventure. "This is beautiful I am proud to be a disabled person. l am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, of Austin, Texas, as he wheeled along. Kafka, a spokesman for the American Disabled tor Accessible Public Transit — and who has a broken spinal cord - was among those arrested later. The protesters had no permit to stage the parade, but Los Angeles police refrained from arresting paraders as they said they would. “Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said. Along the parade route, motorists slowed to watch, The protesters targeted the convention because the transit association opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses, preferring to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled locally. The protesters shouted, "Access now! Access now!" as police blocked them near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area. The Southern California Rapid Transit District has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 of its 2,445 buses, a spokesman said, and is retrofitting an additional 200. The eight arrested were not all immediately identified, but police said two were Edith Harris ol Hartford, Conn, and George Florom of Colorado Springs, Colo. - ADAPT (228)
Los Angeles Times 10/7/85 [This article continues on ADAPT 227 but the entire text of the story is included here for easier reading,] 3 photos by Rick Meyer/Los Angles Times: photo 1 is of a section of the march with men and women of various ethnic backgrounds and disabilities walking, rolling and pushing others' chairs. There is a sense of energy in the group and many wear buttons and carry signs reading "Access Now", "Restore 504", and "Our Time has Come -- CAPH." Caption reads: Disabled move eastward down Wilshire Boulevard toward downtown in protest parade. Photo 2 is another picture of the march, taken from above. The crowd is loosely organized, many in the front are looking up and smiling. There are children with disabilities, people in neckties, people with headbands. In the crowd you can see Bill Bolte, Bob Kafka, Gil Casarez among many others. Some carry signs on sticks reading "APTA oppresses", as well as "Transit for All" and one about ADAPT. Caption reads: Signs are carried along Figueroa Street by disabled protesters. Photo 3 (much smaller) is of a police officer pushing a man in a manual wheelchair (Jim Parker) to the side of the street while another officer seems to be stopping a car. Caption reads: Police officer wheels disabled protester out of traffic lanes. [Headline] Disabled Stage Protest Parade; 8 Arrested Oppose Transit Group Policy Against Mandating Bus Chair Lifts By GEORGE STEIN Times Staff Writer The halt and the blind converged on a public transit conference in downtown Los Angeles Sunday, parading through streets without a city permit and blocking entrances and stairways at the conference hotel in an effort to make the point that the disabled are denied the access to transportation available to the general public. Eight activists for the disabled were arrested on charges of failing to disperse an unlawful gathering and intefering with a police officer. The arrests —“a distasteful necessity," police said -- took place in and around the Bonaventure. They came after Los Angeles police had relented to an earlier stand to make arrests if any tried to parade along Wilshire Boulevard from MacArthur Park to the conference. “Listen, how could we arrest all these people?" Capt. Bill Wedgeworth said. During the procession, 131 wheelchairs, stretching more than a block, carried people with disabilities ranging from spina bifidia, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy to snapped spinal cords, congenital defects and postpolio paralysis. Many had the withered limbs and lack of body control that the more fortunate usually try not to stare at. But not Sunday. Motorists slowed to watch the sight. Some honked in support. “This is beautiful. I am proud to be a disabled person. I am tired of being closed away," said Bob Kafka, as he wheeled along. Kafka, from Austin, Tex., a spokesman for the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, has a broken spinal cord. He was among those arrested later. Once inside the hotel, the group headed for the reception area in an attempt to reach delegates to the annual conference of the American Public Transit Assn. However, police kept the demonstrators bottled up near the entrance, one floor above the main reception area. "Access now! Access now!" the demonstrators shouted. The crowd, which came from a spectrum of disabled activist groups in and out of California, targeted the transit convention because the organization opposes a national policy mandating wheelchair lifts on buses. The American Public Transit Assn.'s position is to let each transit agency deal with access for the disabled as a local decision. In Los Angeles, the Southern California Rapid Transit District, with 2,445 buses, has wheelchair lifts on 1,691 and is retrofitting another 200. The RTD hopes to have lifts on all buses in five years, which, according to a spokesman, would probably make it the first major urban bus system to be so equipped. After the demonstrators blocked hotel escalator wells for almost an hour, Wedgeworth told them their gathering was illegal. The actual arrests were an odd orchestration of defiance and cooperation. Escalator Well George Florom, a member of the disabled group from Colorado Springs, Colo., began thrashing as police tried to remove him from an escalator well. It took three officers to subdue him. “He began kicking and trying to bite me, so he had to go," Lt Ken Colby explained. One of the demonstrators grabbed an officer's gun, police said. Florom, lay quietly once handcuffed, and police gently placed him in his wheelchair and wheeled him to a lift-equipped van that had been arranged for the occasion. Trained medical personnel also were on hand. Edith Harris of Hartford, Conn., had earlier failed in an attempt to get arrested, tearing up American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit literature and throwing it on Figueroa Street. "Arrest me,“ she screamed to ‘no avail from her motorized wheelchair. The police only moved her to the sidewalk, and an officer went back to [unreadable] trash. Her wish was granted later, after she tried to herself down one of the blocked escalators. Then she calmed down, gratefully accepting a drink of water from a police officer, while waiting for a stretcher to arrive. Unhandcuffed, sitting upright, she was placed in the van. Her wheelchair was carefully handed in after her. Taken to Station The arrestees were taken to the Central Division station for processing. The seven men were later booked at County Jail, where bail was set at $500. Harris was booked at Sybil Brand Institute. Some police worried that the department's image would suffer from Sunday's action. “We look bad, no matter what we do," Sgt. Bill Tiffany said. After the arrests, a spokesman said, “It must be stressed that the Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly tried to meet with demonstration leaders in the attempt to provide legal alternatives to accomplish their objectives and avoid the distasteful necessity of arresting handicapped citizens.” The police were not alone in their concern. Five months before the convention, according to Mark Johnson, 34, of Westminster, Colo., an organizer for the disabled group, RTD board member Jack Day flew to Denver to try to talk the organization out of civil disobedience. Negotiations foundered on an demand by the disabled group that the RTD introduce and support a proposal that the American Public Transit Assn. reverse its stand and back mandatory wheelchair lifts on buses, Johnson said. He said the disabled activists will be in town through Wednesday. The American Public Transit Assn. is a lobbying and policy organization. The five-day convention began Sunday. - ADAPT (148)
Name of newspaper illegible Los Angeles Times? November 19,1984 Handicapped Stage Protests to Publicize Transportation Needs by Miles Harvey, Times Staff Writer PHOTO: Mary Frampton / Los Angeles Times A tidy looking woman in pants and a vest, with a slight smile on her face, sits in a manual wheelchair on a bus. She is sitting in the accessible doorway, the access symbol visible on the side of the doorway. Below and beneath her is a metal panel, like the barrier on some lifts that keeps the person from rolling off the front of the lift. Caption reads: Barbara Trigg rides a hydraulic lift onto a Los Angeles bus. Article reads: Washington -- It was a scene reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights demonstrations as angry protesters chanted slogans, picketed the White House and stopped traffic before they were finally dragged away by police. And the series of confrontations that ended with 27 arrests last month seemed to come down to a similar central issue— the right to sit on a bus, to have full access to public transportation. There was one striking difference, however. Unlike Rosa Parks and the black civil rights activist who battered down the Jim Crow barriers in the South, these protesters were in wheelchairs, and their goal was equal access for the physically handicapped. “It's a civil right to be able to ride public transportation," said Julia Haraksin, a wheelchair-bound Los Angeles resident who participated in the demonstrations. “In the ‘60s, the blacks had to ride in the back—and we can't even get on the buses." New, Radical Tactics Organizations representing handicapped persons long have urged Washington to require that new buses and rail systems built with funds from the Department of Transportation's Urban Mass Transportation Administration be equipped to accommodate handicapped riders. But Haraksin and other handicapped individuals like her now are beginning to press the old arguments with new, more radical tactics. Frustrated by years of negotiating, lobbying in Washington, going through the courts and staging non-confrontational protests, some members of the handicapped community now are resorting more actively to confrontations and civil disobedience. Thus, early in October, 100 members of a newly formed coalition called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit confronted a national meeting of city transportation heads here, using the kind of civil disobedience tactics used 30 years earlier by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Protesters were arrested when they blocked entrances and buses of those attending the American Public Transit Assn. convention. The strategy was to physically be a barrier because handicapped people have to face barriers all their lives," Wade Blank, a founder of Denver-based ADAPT said. Calling the protests here " Selma," leaders of ADAPT claimed victory and promised that their struggle has only begun. They already are focusing their efforts on what they hope will be a larger demonstration at the next meeting of the American Public Transportation Assn. a year from now in Los Angeles. But they and their cause may be in for a tough battle. Their opposition comes from the Reagan Administration, from many city governments and even from within the handicapped community. And as public attention focuses on the underlying budget choices involved, the opposition may swell with the addition of taxpayers concerned about the possible costs of a national full-access program. ADAPT argues that a legal right to full access for the handicapped already exists. Federal law states that Urban Mass Transportation Administration funds — which account for about 80% of the costs of new and replacement equipment in most municipal transportation systems—cannot be spent on programs that discriminate against, or exclude, the handicapped. The law does not make clear, however, whether handicapped persons must be provided with access to regular bus lines or whether they can instead be provided with alternative transportation systems. Nor does it indicate who should make that decision. Cities Make Decisions Current Transportation Department policy, which is strongly supported by the American Public Transportation Assn., allows each city to make its own decision on what type of transportation it will provide for the handicapped. This is in sharp contrast with Carter Administration policy, which in 1979 interpreted federal regulation to mean full access. Members of ADAPT, opposing the separate-but-equal philosophy of paratransit argue that it does not meet the needs of the handicapped and that it is inherently discriminatory. "It segregates the disabled people from the able-bodied community," Mike Auberger, an organizer for ADAPT, said. Because paratrasit requires advanced scheduling [unreadable] a ride is needed, he said, “you have to schedule your life according to the system. No one else has to do that. That shows the inequality right there." He and other members of ADAPT contend that because of long waiting lists for paratransit, some cities refuse to offer the service to new users - thus cutting off thousands of handicapped persons from any public transportation. Transit authorities, on the other hand, argue that full access can be too expensive, given the low percentage of handicapped riders in many cities. Lift-fitted buses cost an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 more than regular buses. Furthermore, lift systems are often unreliable and time-consuming to operate and maintain, transit administrators say. In Denver, for example, the transportation district has spent $63 million to purchase or retrofit buses with lifts. 80% of which was paid for by the federal government, according to spokesman Gene Towne. Since it started mainline access in 1982, the district has spent close to $1 million in maintenance of the lifts and expects to spend an additional $900,000 this year. Yet of the district's total annual ridership of 38 million, only 12,000 use the lifts, according to Towne. ADAPT counters that the issue is not cost but civil liberties. “In America we have a way of hiding, our prejudices with pragmatism," said Blank, a Presbyterian minister and veteran of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s who now supports handicapped activists. Variety of Approaches Across the country, cities are using a variety of approaches to the problems of providing mass transit for the handicapped. In Los Angeles, mainline access is required by state law. Although 1,850 of the Southern California Rapid Transit District‘s 2,400 buses are fitted with wheelchair lifts some local advocates charge that the RTD gives only "lip service" to access, complaining of broken lifts, drivers who do not know how to use the equipment or refuse to do so and an overall lack of commitment to providing access. The system provides only about 1,400 rides a month according to the RTD. Handicapped activists charge that the low ridership is attributable to the system's poor management. There were and are people in the operation department (of the RTD) back there who were and are opposed to the idea of access from day one," Dennis Cannon, a Washington-based expert who helped to plan the RTD's access program in the 1970s said. But in the last six months, the RTD has made "a major effort" to overcome the problem, according to RTD General Manager John A. Dyer. The system boosted its fiscal year 1985 budget for handicapped service by $3 million, to $4.9 million, to provide for a program to educate drivers and upgrade the quality of equipment and service. In Oakland, half the city's 800 buses are lift-equipped and all of the Alameda — Contra Costa Transit District's new buses will be lift-equipped. Seattle’s Services In Seattle, 570 of 1,100 buses are accessible to the handicapped, providing about 5,900 rides a month. The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle also contracts with private groups to supply paratransit bus and half-fare cab service, providing a total of 8,400 rides a month in Denver. 432 of the city's 744 buses are lift- or ramp-equipped, providing more than 1,000 rides per month. The city also uses 13 vans and small buses in a paratransit system that provides 3,200 rides a month. In New York City, where an estimated 35% of all the transit passengers in the country use Metropolitan Transportation Authority vehicles each day. half of the city's 4,333 buses are fitted with lifts. The city has no figures on how many handicapped riders use the system, but one official calls the number minuscule. A new state law calls for $40 million over the next eight years to retrofit “in the neighborhood of 30" subway stops for handicapped use, according to a transit authority official. In addition the law will increase the percentage of lift-equipped buses to 65% of the fleet, as well as provide a paratransit system in the city by 1988. Minneapolis-St. Paul uses 45 paratransit buses and contracts with private cab companies to carry handicapped persons in all, the city provides 40.000 trips a month. None of Chicago's 2.400 regular buses are fitted with lifts. Instead the city provides 42 paratransit buses, which offer 12,000 rides a month. Additionally, 14 of the city's subway stops have been retrofitted for handicapped access and 300 of Chicago's 1,100 subway cars are accessible. If there is a diversity of approaches to the problem, there is also a diversity of views on the militant new tactics used by ADAPT and its supporters. The views of the handicapped people are all over the lot on what type of transport they'd like," Bob Batchelder, counsel for the APTA, said. But transit specialist Cannon, himself a wheelchair user, counters: “I'm talking to disabled people who wouldn't do what ADAPT does ... but who support what they are doing and think it needs being done." Whether ADAPT's controversial style will work remains an open question. While no negotiations are scheduled, ADAPT leaders vow to continue to harass association meetings. But in Los Angeles, the RTD's Dyer indicated that he hopes demonstrations will be replaced at next year's convention with “serious dialogue and discussion of the issues." "It’s a new thing for the disabled to see themselves with power," ADAPT's Auberger said, "but it's also a new experience for the powers that be."