Rocky Mountain News

PHOTO, News Photo by Jose R. Lopez: A thin woman [Theresa Preda] with dark hair and a big smile stands facing a man [LA Kimball] sitting at a "classroom style" conference table. He has a sickly smile on his face as he looks up at her. Between the tables and beside the woman is a manual wheelchair and she is pointing to it. It appears a man in another wheelchair [Mark Johnson] is pushing the wheelchair toward Teresa. At the table next to Kimball another man, also a presenter, who does not appear to have a disability, stares at Kimball with a slightly startled look on his face.
Caption reads: Theresa Preda presents a wheelchair to RTD Executive Director LA. Kimball, right.

Disabled riders' flap marks parley
By JERRY BROWN
News Staff

Acting under a court order, Regional Transportation District officials and members of Denver's handicapped community met Wednesday to discuss their differences, but a longstanding argument among the handicapped over the type of bus service they want dominated the session.

The 90-minute meeting at the Cosmopolitan Hotel opened with two organizations that have fought for accessible service on RTD’s regular routes presenting a wheelchair to RTD Executive Director L.A, Kimball and urging him to use it to learn firsthand the difficulties handicapped people experience in riding buses.

Kimball pledged to use the wheelchair presented by Atlantis and Holistic Approaches to Independent Living, but told reporters: “l probably won't tell you in advance when I'm going to do it."

The meeting was the result of a negotiated court order between RTD and the two organizations stemming from a series of demonstrations the organizations staged at RTD buildings in January.

Atlantis and HAIL were protesting the transit agency's decision not to put wheelchair lifts on 89 buses scheduled for delivery next year. They have filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court in an attempt to force RTD to put lifts on the buses.

But more than half of the l00 or so handicapped people attending the meeting indicated they believed RTD should focus its efforts on the door-to-door service that RTD has provided the handicapped for more than five years — not the accessible service on regular routes advocated by Atlantis and HAIL.

Kimball drew cheers when he announced that the door-to-door service, known as Handi-Ride, would not be discontinued this summer as planned. "

Kimball said the door-to-door service would continue until sometime next year, and suggested that the handicapped groups present join in a regional effort to devise a system under which someone else would provide the door-to-door service when RTD ends it.

RTD began providing wheelchair-accessible service on some regular routes last summer and has promised to have half of its peak-hour service and virtually all of its off peak service wheelchair accessible by July 1.

Saying RTD cannot afford to provide both types of accessible service, RTD officials had said they would discontinue the HandiRide service after July 1.

The threatened loss of HandiRide service has created a split within the handicapped community, which dominated Wednesday's meeting.

Spokesmen for Atlantis and HAIL said they believe both types of service are necessary, and promised to fight any efforts by RTD to discontinue the HandiRide.

They accused RTD of using the HandiRide to create dissension among their ranks and “stacking” the audience by sending invitations to HandiRide patrons.

But Atlantis spokesman Wade Blank said: "In a way RTD did us a favor." Blank said the meeting would help open communications between the two handicapped factions.