7/24
ADAPT (160).JPG ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)ADAPT (176)ThumbnailsADAPT (169)

Denver Post

PHOTO by Fred Nelson, The Denver Post: Disabled people form a line as they picket. 3 face away, one of whom has an ADAPT NOW! sign on the back of his wheelchair. Facing forward, a man with a very short haircut wearing a baseball type jacket and necktie, has a sign that reads "Let us USE tokens, not BE tokens. Accessibility Now!"
caption reads: Kent Jones of Chicago travelled to Denver to participate in this week's demonstration urging accessibility to public transit for the handicapped.

[Headline] Handicapped Seek Change in Public Transit
By George Lane, Denver Post Staff Writer

Several dozen wheelchairs jammed the sidewalk of the Denver Hilton Hotel on Sunday afternoon as disabled activists from throughout the country urged public transportation be made more accessible to the handicapped.

The rolling demonstration took place in front of the Hilton because the hotel is the headquarters for about 3,000 U.S and Canadian transportation officials attending the national meeting of the American Public Transit Association.

Representatives of the group, the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, are scheduled to speak to the transit officials Wednesday, but a spokesman said they were on the sidewalks Sunday “to let them know they were serious.”

Bob Conrad, an executive of Denver Atlantis Community Inc. and one of the wheelchair-bound demonstrators, said the purpose of attending the transit convention was to call the need for accessible public transportation to the attention of transit officials and bus manufacturers.

“California has had a law for about 12 years saying all buses purchased must be accessible to all person, including riders in wheelchairs,” said Lew Nau of Los Angeles.

“Michigan is the only other state I know of with a similar law.”
Nau and his wife, Yvonne, both in wheelchairs, said they have devoted all their efforts since retirement to the issue.

The couple said that during the Carter administration all public transit agencies were subject to a regulation that said 50 percent of all buses purchased had to be accessible to handicapped people.

“The (regulation) was our civil rights act,” Mrs. Nau said. “Now Reagan has in effect rolled it back.”

0 comments