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主頁 / 相簿 / 標籤 lifts on all NEW buses 20
- ADAPT (411)
St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 17, 1998 [Headline] No Arrests As Protest Continues By Victor VoIland and William C. Lhotka Of the Post-Dispatch Staff PHOTO by Jerry Naunheim Jr./Post Dispatch: Three people in wheelchairs sit in a line facing away from the camera and toward a line of men standing and facing those in wheelchairs. Behind the men standing is an ornate stone building. On the back of one of the wheelchairs is a poster that reads "Lifts = Buses For All." caption: Members of American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit facing a line of plainclothes police officers Monday in front of the Omni International Hotel at Union Station. About 50 protesters, half of them in wheelchairs, continued a peaceful demonstration at Union Station on Monday against a public transportation association meeting inside. No one was arrested. Meanwhile, 11 of 41 demonstrators arrested on Sunday filed a $2.5 million suit late Monday against the city and three police officers. The suit accuses officials at the City Workhouse of taking blood from those arrested against their objections. It also charges police with violating the protesters' right of free speech by refusing to allow them to talk to the press while they were in jail. The demonstrators, who belong to a group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT), are protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association, which is holding a regional conference at the Omni Hotel at Union Station. The conference opened Saturday and continues through Wednesday. The ADAPT group wants the association of bus and train operators to adopt a national policy in support of equipping all public buses with wheelchair lifts. It has demonstrated against the association at its meetings for the last several years. Charges against 38 of the 41 arrested were dismissed Monday by Associate Circuit Judge Henry E. Autrey because authorities had failed to get warrants within the 20-hour period following arrest, as required by law. Three protesters were released on their own recognizance and ordered to appear Wednesday in the court of Judge Thomas C. Grady. They are charged in warrants with trespassing and disturbing the peace, both misdemeanors. George Kinsey, commissioner of adult correctional services, said it was standard procedure to take blood and perform tests on all prisoners entering the City Jail or Workhouse to screen for venereal diseases, tuberculosis and other communicable diseases. On Monday morning, remnants of the 150-member ADAPT group wheeled down Market Street from their rooms at the Holiday Inn Downtown to Union Station and the Omni and were met with a phalanx of uniformed and plainclothes police outside the main hotel entrance. Workers erected a makeshift barrier of concrete pylons and orange plastic fencing to separate the police line from the wheelchair protesters who drew up opposite. "I want Mr. Gilstrap to know he's got an angry parent out here and that I want the same human dignity afforded to my daughter that is given to an able-bodied person," one of the protesters, Cynthia Keelan of Phoenix, Ariz., barked through a battery-powered bullhorn. She was pushing her daughter, Jennifer, 7, who is crippled from congenital cerebral palsy. The girl is segregated and treated as a second-class citizen because she must use a wheelchair, her mother charged. Jack R. Gilstrap, executive vice president of the American Public Transit Association, declined to meet Monday with the protesters, who repeatedly chanted his name. Gilstrap told a reporter later that the association supported the idea of accessible public transportation for the elderly and handicapped. Implementing such access is difficult because President Ronald Reagan's administration has slashed the federal transit program by 47 percent since 1981, he said. He added that paratransit vans and buses — so-called dial-a-ride vehicles — are used much more frequently and are more cost efficient than buses equipped with wheelchair lifts. Gilstrap said that the Bi-State bus system in St. Louis offered both the dial-a-ride vans and lift-equipped buses. Tom Sturgess, a Bi-State spokesman, told the protesters that the system would have two-thirds of its buses equipped with lifts by next year. Lonnie Smith of Denver, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said he was one of the first people to be subjected to a blood test at the city Workhouse after his arrest on Sunday. Showing a reporter the puncture on the inside of his left arm where the needle had been inserted, Smith said he had been told that he had no choice — that he would be held down unless he submitted to the blood test. end of article - ADAPT (415)
St. Louis Post Dispatch, 5/13/88 Activists Derail Transit Group’s Welcoming Plans By Mark Schlinkmann, Regional Political Correspondent Officials have moved the site of a convention's welcoming ceremony Sunday night away from the Gateway Arch visitors' center because of fears of a protest by disabled-rights activists. Organizers of a transit officials' convention have moved the reception site to the Omni Hotel, the site of the convention. Better security can be provided at the hotel, a spokesman for the Bi-State Development Agency, Thomas Sturgess, said Thursday. Because most other activities connected with the five-day convention will be at the hotel, Sturgess said, "The participants already will be there." More than 600 people from across the country are expected to attend the convention, a regional conference of the American Public Transit Association. As many as 150 others affiliated with Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation — known as ADAPT — are expected to be here to protest the organization's stand on wheelchair lifts for buses. Police say the protest group, including many in wheelchairs themselves, has a reputation for seeking arrest to dramatize their cause. Tactics in other cities have included blocking roadways and chaining themselves to buses, Bi-State officials have said. ADAPT wants the Transit Association to endorse 100 percent accessibility to buses and other public transportation for the disabled through the installation of wheelchair lifts by all its member systems. Disabled people should have the right to as much access to taxpayer-financed transportation as able-bodied people enjoy, ADAPT officials argue. "Our demand is that the association change its policy," said the Rev. Wade Blank of Denver, an ADAPT founder. The association "will not have their parties anywhere in the United States without people in wheelchairs making them inaccessible." Transit association officials respond by saying that although they support access for the disabled, wheelchair lifts are not the only way to provide it. Jack R. Gilstrap, executive vice-president of the Transit Association, said Thursday that about a third of the nation's transit systems use lifts on buses; a third have begun using vans to provide door-to-door service for disabled persons; and a third use a combination. The vans have a higher rate of use than wheelchair lifts on standard buses and so are less costly, he said. "We believe the local community ought to be deciding how this will be provided," Gilstrap said. "There really are some serious business and tax-payer considerations." ADAPT complains that "paratransit vans, which usually must be reserved in advance, segregate the disabled from the general public. "It's very similar to apartheid," Blank said. In St Louis, the Bi-State transit system is using a combination — developed in conjunction with a local committee of disabled persons. Almost 120 new standard buses equipped with wheelchair lifts are being purchased between now and early 1989. In addition, the system's "Call-A-Ride" van service for disabled people — now limited to parts of St. Louis County — will be expanded to cover all of St. Louis and St. Louis County in November. At that time, Bi-State also will begin issuing scrip that can be used by disabled persons to take taxis in certain circumstances. ADAPT officials have said the organization is satisfied with Bi-State's plans. But they have complained that Bi-State is allowing two of its buses to be used as paddy-wagons on call in the case of any arrests at the demonstrations. - ADAPT (435)
Title: Disabled.. protesters at the Queen E. ‘We Shall Overcome’ by Ron Charles Montreal Daily News Inserted in the top center of the page is an image of yesterday's Daily News front page [ADAPT 386 & 385] with the headline A wheelchair army goes to way! and photos of that protest. Captioned: “Yesterday’s Daily News.” Title: The Siege Day 2 TEN disabled protesters were arrested last night for chaining their wheelchairs to doors at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, while 10 others were being arraigned in municipal court. Singing "Access is a civil right," and "We shall overcome," the protesters demanded to see American Public Transit Association (APTA) vice-president Jack Gilstrap. Gilstrap refused to face them. APTA is holding its annual conference at the Queen Elizabeth. The protesters, members of American Disabled for Access to Public Transit, want APTA to endorse wheelchair lifts on all new buses across North America. Police officials said nine of 10 would be arraigned in municipal court sometime last night or early this morning. Cynthia Keelan and her seven-year-old daughter Jennifer were released soon after the wheelchair bus carrying the arrested demonstrators arrived at police headquarters. Police began processing the 10 protesters last night just as the arraignments of 10 others arrested earlier in the day were being completed. The 10 arraigned at 7:30 last night were arrested for blocking the Camillien-Houde parkway atop Mount Royal —to impede the return of APTA conference-goers from a luncheon at Chalet Mont Royal. All 10 pleaded guilty to charges of mischief and obstruction of justice. Municipal court Judge Louis-Jacques Leger sentenced five of the 10 — all of whom refused to pay $50 in fines — to three days in jail. The judge also slapped probation orders on the protesters, forbidding them from taking part in demonstrations on the Island of Montreal for six months. Léger also forbade them from being within 100 metres of an ADAPT demonstration and from being in areas where the arrests were made until the APTA conference ends to-morrow. [Subheading] Waived conditions The judge waived the last two conditions for Marie Barile, the sole Montrealer arrested atop the mountain. Barile protested conditions which said she should not be within the boundaries of Cote des Neiges Boulevard, Pine Avenue, Mount Royal Avenue and Parc Avenue. "But I work on Cote des Neiges near Victoria," she said, leaning forward in her wheel-chair so Léger could hear her. Rev. Wade Blank, one of the five who refused to pay his fine, told the judge that he would go to jail to protest the incarceration of the wheelchair-bound demonstrators. "I'm protesting the punishment of people, who are already punished enough by society," said Blank, who isn't disabled. MUC police moved in after the group of 50 blocked access to the chalet for an hour. "All the APTA people got up to their fancy luncheon, but they couldn't get down," said Molly Blank, Wade's wife. Meanwhile, 20 ADAPT members are expected to be released from prison this morning after serving half of their three-day sentences for invading and refusing to leave the Sheraton Centre, where some APTA members are staying. While 28 were arrested in the Sheraton protest, eight paid their $50 fines after pleading guilty to mischief and obstructing justice in a 2:30 a.m. municipal court session yesterday. The rest refused to pay fines or could not. The 20 — 16 men who were sent to Bordeaux jail and four women sent to Tanguay — went on hunger strikes to protest the probation orders Léger imposed. "Basically, the judge told them not to go into a demilitarized zone encompassing the major hotels where APTA members are staying," said Stewart Russell, the group's Montreal lawyer. [Subheading] Don't have right Russell called the restrictions on their movements unconstitutional because, he said, they didn't allow those convicted freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. Again at last night's session, he told Léger the orders were unconstitutional. "These people have not the right to demonstrate anywhere in the city of Montreal for six months, and they can't go see the mountain like other tourists visiting the city," Russell told the court at the arraignment of the mountain demonstrators. Léger said the probation order didn't hinder their rights enough to be considered unconstitutional, and he said, "I think they had an opportunity to see the mountain today." Sidebar: Access is a civil right, they say Singing “Access is a civil right,” and “We shall overcome,” disabled protesters at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel demanded to see American Public Transit Association (APTA) vice-president Jack Gilstrap yesterday. The protesters, members of American Disabled for Access to Public Transit, want APTA to endorse wheelchair lifts on all new buses across North America. Photo by Allan Leishman/Daily News: A group of ADAPTers are sitting in their wheelchairs together (left to right: Bobby Simpson, Terri Fowler, Katie Hoffman, Debbie _______ and in front Lillibeth Navarro. Behind them half a dozen police cars and the "Special" paddy wagon/school bus are parked. About a dozen police officers are standing around the cars; one appears to be chatting with Larry Ruiz and another ADAPT person. Caption reads: “Protest: Demonstrators demand to see the American Public Transit Association vice-president.” - 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. - ADAPT (97)
Rocky Mountain News, Tues., Oct. 19, 1992 Denver, Colo. RTD seeks to nullify handicap law By SUE LINDSAY News Staff Another skirmish in the ongoing battle waged by Denver’s handicapped to gain access to the city's bus system was staged Monday in Denver District Court, with the Regional Transportation District asking the court to declare the Colorado Handicapped Act unconstitutional. An organization of the handicapped has asked Judge Harold D. Reed to order RTD to purchase no buses that won't accommodate the handicapped and to retrofit older buses according to an agreement reached during a federal court case in 1979. The district court suit, filed in January, was triggered by RTD’s purchase of 89 buses to be delivered in 1983 without wheelchair lifts. RTD is trying to sidestep the provisions of that agreement, arguing that the federal regulations on which it was based no longer exist. RTD also wants the judge to declare the Colorado Handicapped Act unconstitutional because it is overbroad and too vague to be followed. THE JUDGE HEARD arguments by both sides Monday and said he will rule on the matter Nov. 9. Lawrence D. Stone, an attorney representing RTD, argued that the Colorado Handicapped Act is merely an expression of the Legislature's intention of how the handicapped should be treated. Stone argued that the statute prohibits discrimination but doe§n’t require any specific “affirmative actions” — such as buying only buses that contain wheelchair lifts. “The Legislature intended to enact the statute simply as an encouragement for the handicapped to be brought into the mainstream of society," Stone said. “They were encouraging rather than mandating better service for the handicapped. Any efforts are voluntary, and the voluntary efforts of RTD have been substantial.” Stone said that 50 percent of RTD buses are accessible to the handicapped during rush hour and all of them are during non-peak hours of operation. Stone also argued that the statute, which sets maximum criminal misdemeanor penalties of up to 60 days in jail and a $100 fine, is too vague and too broad to be enforced. Stone said the act doesn’t specifically define who is included and what must be done to comply with the statute. “We must guess at its meaning,” Stone said. "lt is clear that the act is a declaration of state policy. But is it a crime to fail to heed a policy of the state?” Stone argued that, apart from the Colorado statute, lawyers for the handicapped have misconstrued the meaning of a stipulation signed by RTD to resolve a federal suit over the handicapped buses issue. John Holland, an attorney representing the Atlantis Community, which filed the suit, said he and his clients understood that RTD was agreeing to purchase buses with wheelchair lifts and retrofit all buses purchased after February 1977 in compliance with federal regulations in effect at the time. Stone said RTD merely agreed that its “intention” was to achieve accessibility at the earliest practical date. He argued that RTD never promised that all of its buses would accommodate the handicapped. Calling the dispute “a legal and political war between the disabled and RTD," Holland said, "There was no doubt whatsoever that RTD knew for certain (that) what the plaintiffs wanted was total accessibility of buses. This has been our consistent demand everywhere. It's very simple what the agreement means. lt means that all buses must be made wheelchair accessible.” HOLLAND CHARGED THAT RTD was trying to weasel out of the agreement because the federal regulation in effect at the time it was reached has changed. At the time, federal regulations made it mandatory that new buses accommodate the handicapped. The mandatory regulation was dropped in July 1981, leaving the earlier regulation in force that encourages localities to do this and provides federal funding for the wheelchair lifts. “RTD made an agreement with us, and now RTD argues that it should not be bound by the settlement but to the law as it evolves and changes," Holland said. Reed called the stipulation “about as unclear a stipulation as I’ve ever read in my life. I don’t know what it means yet." The judge wondered aloud whether the parties had purposely used “tortured language” to solve the immediate problem, knowing they would wind up back in court.