[Headline] Protest by disabled clogs downtown L.B.

PRESS-TELEGRAM (AM/PM)/THURSDAY, Oct. 10, 1985, p. A10

FROM/A1

batch of arrests in the 200 block of Pine.

At that point, protest leader Rev. Wade Blank, of Denver, told police there would be no further disruptions. Blank thanked the police for the way the department had handled the demonstration and said the remaining protesters were tired and hungry.

During the afternoon, police Lt. Norm Benson conferred at length with protest leaders, pointing out that, despite whatever police sympathies there might be for the cause, the event took patrolmen off their rounds and posed an impediment to emergency vehicles.

Benson even made a call to the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where the American Public Transit Association is holding a convention, in an attempt to reach Laurence Jackson, general manager and president of Long Beach Transit and new president of the APTA, to urge him to speak by phone with an ADAPT spokesperson.

Guy Heston, the bus company’s director of marketing, interviewed at the scene of the bus tie-ups, said the request to talk with Jackson was untenable because "they came unannounced, and, as you know, he has commitments at the convention."

An ADAPT spokesman, Jim Parker of El Paso, told a reporter as he was being steered toward a Dial-a-Lift van for the trip to the Long Beach jail, "This is probably going to be the largest mass arrest of disabled people in the history of this country."

He stressed that the targets of Wednesday's demonstration and one Monday in the office of Rep. Glenn Anderson, D-Long Beach, were the APTA, which closes its four-day convention today in Los Angeles, and Anderson, as chairman of the House subcommittee on surface transportation.

"One very important thing for the people of Long Beach, Los Angeles County and California to understand," Parker said, "is that this is not aimed at them, because California and cities like Long Beach and Los Angeles are really models for the country to look at.

"Most of the buses have lifts on them, and all new buses purchased will have lifts.

"I guess, for the first time, disabled people have come to the city where the president of APTA resides . . . to help pull the federal government back into the issue again, along with APTA."

ADAPT asserts that it was a legal action by APTA, followed by an administrative order in early months of the first Reagan administration, that killed a law mandating phased in accessibility for the disabled to public transit across the country.

The order left the decision up to local option.

Jackson could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Long Beach Transit Assistant General Manager Patrick Butters said that nine of 18 fixed routes in Long Beach are wheelchair accessible, while 85 percent of all the company's public buses in the city are equipped with wheelchair lifts.

"On an ongoing basis we’ve been increasing that" percentage, said Butters. A committee on the handicapped advises Long Beach Transit on which bus routes to offer lift service on, said Butters.

"We’ve tried to hit the routes that are most heavily traveled," he said.

An average of 12 to 14 persons a day who are confined to wheelchairs ride on fixed Long Beach Transit routes, said Butters. In addition to regular bus service, Dial-a-Lift service is available in Long Beach, Lakewood and Signal Hill, he added.

At the height of the protest, Frank Lozano and Martin Walton took a stand in front of an RTD bus that had eight Long Beach Transit buses backed up behind it at Pine and Broadway.

The passengers of those idled buses, workers and schoolchildren heading for home, were not happy with the delay.

"Hey, I just want to go home; take a shower, eat some supper and watch the ball game," said one man.

But Lozano, who is blind, and Walton, confined to a wheelchair, held their ground.

"No, it doesn't surprise me,” Lozano said of the anger from the riders. "I realize that there are many people who are unaware of the issues."

California is one of two states – Michigan is the other — that mandate that all new public transit buses be equipped with wheelchair lifts. The demonstrators said they were aware of this but believe that Jackson and APTA can pressure the other 48 states into enacting similar legislation.

Press-Telegram staff writer Don Currie contributed to this article.

Photo located on top middle of the page. Woman in an electric wheelchair wearing ADAPT stickers raises her hand in a power fist and yells. Meanwhile two informed officers load her onto a lift equipped paratransit van. The driver of the van stands in the doorway waiting. A person in a wheelchair watches from the side. Photo credit: Michael Rondou/Press-Telegram
Caption: Protester is lifted onto a Dial-a-Lift van, which has the access she wants on buses, after her arrest on Long Beach Boulevard.

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APTA - American Public Transit Association, APTA convention, APTA suit, blocking a bus, buses with lifts, California, Dem. Rep. Glenn Anderson, dial-a-ride, Frank Lozano, jail, Jim Parker, Long Beach CA, Los Angeles, Marty Walton, Wade Blank

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