Los Angeles Herald 10/7/85

Two photos on right side of page. Top PHOTO: Looking down from above at a busy street corner, with a curb cut. A bus stopped at the curb is completely surrounded by dozens of protesters in wheelchairs and some standing. Several have signs and they go from the front, along the outside of the bus and out behind off the edge of the picture. The second lane is empty of cars, and the third lane is stacked with cars. On the sidewalk beside a big building is another large group of the protesters, most with signs. A couple of people are moving between the two groups.

Lower PHOTO: A man (Bill Bolte) in a motorized wheelchair wearing a tall cowboy hat and a sign around his neck, glasses and a salt and pepper beard, is flanked by a police officer on each side. They lean forward, one is driving the chair, the other resting his hand on the armrest. Behind them a mass of people is just visible.
Photo caption: Wheelchair-riding demonstrators demanding special lifts on public buses fill the streets around the Bonaventure Hotel, above, while one of them. Bill Bolte, below, is arrested.

[Headline] Wheelchair-bound demonstrators tie up mass transit meeting

By Philipp Gollner
Herald staff writer
10/7/85

Eight wheelchair-bound protesters were arrested yesterday while close to 200 others jammed the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel downtown to demand greater access for the disabled to public transportation.

The demonstrators, members of about 15 disabled-rights advocacy groups from around the country, are demanding a federal law that would order all public transit operators to install automatic wheelchair lifts in buses. Such a law existed as part of the Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, but was successfully challenged in court six years ago by the American Public Transit Association, a trade group representing more than 400 transit districts nationwide.

The association began its four-day annual convention yesterday at the Bonaventure, and protesters picked the occasion to voice their demands.

“We're going to show the American (Public) Transit Association that we don't take crap and we're going to let them know that we are not passive crips," protester Bill Bolte, who has been on crutches or confined to a wheelchair for 52 of his 54 years, told demonstrators at the start of yesterday's protest.

The demonstrators rode their wheelchairs down Wilshire Boulevard from MacArthur Park to the Bonaventure, where they hoped to talk to association executive vice president Jack R. Gilstrap and visit convention exhibits.

But police blocked elevators and escalators leading to the convention floor, and after about 40 minutes, officers began handcuffing protesters who refused to disperse from fire exits of the second-story lobby where they had assembled.

As police carried a wheelchair-bound demonstrator from the lobby, a sympathizer shouted: “Why don't you handcuff his legs? He might run away.”

Six wheelchair-bound protesters blocked the path of a departing Airport Express bus that they said was not equipped with a lift. The bus was able to leave after police lifted the protesters and their wheelchairs onto the sidewalk.

Inside the hotel, startled guests looked on as protesters chanted “we will ride" and “Gilstrap, Gilstap, where are you?"

Seven of the eight protesters who were arrested were driven by specially-equipped vans to the county‘s Central Jail, where they were booked for failure to disperse and interfering with police. One female protester was taken to Sybil Brand institute for Women. All eight were being held last night on $500 bail each.

“We certainly aren't unsympathetic to the people involved, but we are responsible for enforcing the law,” Deputy Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite, commander of operations at Central Bureau, told reporters following the arrests.

in addition to demanding wheelchair lifts in all public buses, demonstrators at yesterday's protest demanded that the association fire its president, Gilstrap, and pass a resolution pledging commitment to restoring wheelchair access legislation.

Albert Engelken. the association's deputy executive director, told reporters yesterday that "Mr. Gilstrap has no intention of resigning" and that there are no plans to vote on any resolutions proposed by the protest groups.

Engelken said the group opposes federal wheelchair access laws mainly for what he called "geographical and climatic reasons." The lifts are cumbersome in snow and on curved roads. he said.

In addition, it would cost transit districts nearly $270 per disabled passenger boarding if such legislation were implemented, he said. Usha Viswanathan, spokeswoman for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, said the district spends between $15,000 and $20,000 for each automatic lift that it buys.

Viswanathan said 1,891 of 2,445 active RTD buses are equipped with lifts.

Engelken said the association prefers decisions over access legislation to be made at the local level.

But demonstrators at yesterday's protest believe that federal legislation is needed to guarantee the civil rights of the disabled. They argue that current policies violate their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws.

"The small things in life that non-disabled people take for granted we have to work harder for," Christina Keeffer. who suffers from cerebral palsy, said. "l'm 42 now and I don’t want to wait until I'm 75 to get the changes."

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Friday 8 January 2016

Tags

Albert Engelken, APTA - American Public Transit Association, arrested, Bill Bolte, Bonaventure Hotel, demonstration, federal law or policy, handcuffed, Jack Gilstrap, police, Rehabilitation Act of 1973 - section 504, surrounding a bus, wheelchair bound, wheelchair lifts

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