[Headline] Disabled urge no rate hike for Trailways

By Kevin Flynn
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

1/19/85

Handicapped-rights activists Friday told the Colorado Public Utilities Commission that Trailways Bus Systems should be denied a rate hike until it agrees to make its buses accessible.

"It's not that we don't have the technology," said the Rev. Wade Blank, representing a handicapped-rights group known as Atlantis. "But we are dealing with an old mind set and an old prejudice. The technology is here now to make those buses accessible."

Blank, who is able-bodied, and four people confined to wheelchairs testified before the commission in a hearing over Trailways' proposed rate change.

The bus company wants to restructure its system so that charges are based on mileage instead of destination. In some cases that could raise the cost of a ticket to certain points in Colorado by 300 percent.

Ernie Butts of Denver, one of the witnesses, testified he tried to take a bus to Colorado Springs over Christmas to visit his family. He ended up renting a U-Haul trailer because the bus couldn't accommodate both him and his wheelchair.

"They should have buses I can get on," Butts testified. "The point is, I wanted to go down there on my own because I live on my own and I want to be independent."

Blank said the group is asking bus companies to rig their existing coaches [text cuts off for image]

[image]
[image caption] Handicapped people leave Public Utilities Commission hearing on Trailways request for rate increases. Rocky Mountain News Staff Photo by Dick Davis.

[text resumes] with wheelchair lifts. But both Trailways and Greyhound have bus-building subsidiaries, and Blank and his group want the PUC to deny any more rate hike requests until those subsidiaries, Eagle Coach and MCI, begin to build buses with lifts.

"If in fact the bus system is going to serve the public, it ought to serve all the public," said Bob Conrad, another witness who is confided to his wheelchair. "I'm part of the public and I'm not being served."

Trailways' attorney, Ed Lyons, asked no questions of the handicapped-rights advocates. He later said he couldn't respond to the issues raised by the witnesses.

Robert Temmer, PUC hearing officer, said he would issue a decision on the rate restructuring "in the near future," but wouldn't specify when that would be.

Created on

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 9 October 2019

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