The Washington Times 10-2-84

PHOTO 1 (Photos by Richard Kozas, The Washington Times): A mass of ADAPT protesters block the entire sidewalk. Some are in wheelchairs, some are on the ground. In front of them are five or six police officers. Behind the protesters is a mass of people standing. (Among the protesters on the line: Mike Auberger, George Cooper?, Mickey Rodriguez.)
Caption reads: Police use a barricade to try to keep protesting wheelchair activists from charging the front entrance of the Washington Convention Center yesterday.

PHOTO 2: A protester (Tom Pugh), his face filled with passion, is up against a barricade. Someone appears to be lying across his lap. Behind him you can see other protesters (including George Cooper?)
Caption reads: Wheelchair protesters, members of the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, finally crash the barricades. They blocked the convention center entrance to dramatize their plea tor access.

[Headline] Disabled protest at Convention Center

The Washington Times

About 100 wheelchair-bound activists seeking greater access to public transportation yesterday broke through police barricades and blocked the main entrance to the Washington Convention Center, where the American Mass Transit Association Expo is being staged.

Chanting, “Access. Access. We want access," members of the Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit said they were protesting the "historic resistance" mass transit systems around the country have exhibited toward the disabled, said ADAPT spokeswoman Jane Stewart of Poughkeepsie. N.Y.

She was one of the demonstrators who parked her wheelchair outside the center.

As the protesters shouted outside the hall, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole, addressing transit officials inside. said she is confident “we can meet our responsibility toward our disabled citizens."

The Department of Transportation last year modified its rule on how transit authorities should deal with the disabled after transit officials protested the high cost of equipping all buses and trains with handicapped lifts.

Subsequently, DOT provided an option whereby transit officials can meet the requirements of the handicapped by establishing van service exclusively for the handicapped.

But protesters yesterday compared the “segregation“ of mass transit today to that of schools in the era of separate-but-equal.

"I am personally committed to the principle of providing excellent transit service for all the people of this region, and that includes our handicapped community," Carmen Turner, Metro transit‘s general manager, responded in a prepared statement.

“For most of the handicapped, the bus and rail system provides a lifeline of mobility second to none. The Metrorail system is completely accessible to the handicapped," she said.

She added that Metro has already spent $50 million on aids for the handicapped on Metrorail, and said the lifts on buses for the handicapped are “expensive to purchase and maintain. . . Our last two purchases of new buses have included lifts, and we intend to continue to increase the number of lifts in our fleet as we make new purchases.

“We do feel it is better to operate the lift service we have efficiently than to expand it at great expense at some risk to reliability."

— Amy Stromberg

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 25 November 2015

Tags

Carmen Turner, Jane Stewart, METRO, police barricades, Secretary Elizabeth Dole, separate but equal, Washington Convention Center, wheelchair bound

Albums

• ADAPT the beginning with APTA, 1983 -1984

Visits

1810

Rating score

no rate

Rate this photo