[Image]
[Image caption] George Roberts peers into bus cargo hold as Trailways personnel, in background, help Bob Conrad back into wheelchair. The Denver Post Jim Preston

[Headline] Limits to access
[Subheading] Palsy victim on bus, removed when wheelchair won't fit
By Fred Genies
Denver Post Stan Writer

1/18/85

Robert Conrad, a 35-year-old cerebral palsy victim, couldn't ride a Trailways bus Thursday from Denver to Colorado Springs.

After buying a ticket at the Denver bus depot, he maneuvered his wheelchair to the bus door.

Then slowly, with great effort, he left his wheelchair, mounted the stairs into the bus and settled in a front seat.

But after many attempts, depot employees outside couldn't fit Conrad's wheelchair, upright, in a bus baggage compartment. The electrically powered chair couldn't be put on its side because it might leak battery acid.

That meant that Conrad had to leave the bus or travel without his wheelchair, "his legs."

He left the bus.

His effort and another unsuccessful try later Thursday by cerebral palsy victim Ernie Butts to ride a Greyhound bus from Denver to Colorado Springs — were designed to show that the disabled don't have the access they need to interstate buses, said Wade Blank, co-director of the Atlantis Community for the handicapped in Denver.

At the bus depot, Frank Meggitt, city manager for Trailways, said his company's policy is to "take the wheelchair, set it on the bus for you, and provide a free ticket" for an attendant for a disabled rider.

"We handle a tremendous lot of the handicapped," Meggitt said. "The handicapped person has to take care of himself or herself on the bus."

But Meggitt had to concede Thursday that Trailways buses, as they now are de-signed, can't carry battery-powered wheelchairs used by many disabled.

The disabled "live in their wheelchair . . . and they should not be required to give up their legs to travel," Blank said.

Requiring the disabled to travel with an attendant all the time "is contrary to the entire independent-living movement for the disabled," he said.

Conrad, Butts, and other disabled people, Blank said, "will pack the hearing room" today when the Colorado Public Utilities Commission continues its hearings on fare increases proposed by Trailways.

On routes within Colorado, the pro-posed new fares would be an average of 140 percent higher than current rates. And, in some instances, the rates could be increased as much as 321 percent.

The commission is charged with ensuring the public gets served fairly by companies it regulates, but the disabled don't always get the same breaks, Blank stressed.

Conrad said he will tell the commission that Trailways "sold me a ticket, but they wouldn't let me use it."

Trailways and Greyhound, Blank said, "are selective in the disabled they take. They haven't even tried to make their buses accessible."

Created on

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 9 October 2019

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