RTD Executive Promises To Try Wheelchair Bus Travel Firsthand


ATLANTIS From 1-B

The Handi Ride, 12 buses which provide curb-to-curb service for 150 handicapped persons each day on a flexible schedule, was to have been eliminated in July. It will be retained for the rest of the year, Kimball said.

Starting in July, 334 buses equipped with wheelchair lifts — plus the Handi Ride - will circulate on more than two dozen routes, the RTD official said. Specially equipped buses now operate on only 11 routes.

He also promised that the Handi Ride program would continue until another program has been developed.

The official also told the group that “RTD alone can’t solve all (their) transportation problems" and urged them to think in terms of a “regional consensus” of agencies dealing with the disabled. He also suggested that they seek state funding.

Spokesmen for the Atlantis Community for the disabled, one of the parties to the lawsuit, on Wednesday declared the Handi Ride shouldn't be phased out, and many attending the session agreed.

They included Don Burton, executive director of United Cerebral Palsy, who said he feared many disabled persons would lack access to community services; Barb Sokol, a social worker with Western Dialysis Center, who said other transit alternatives weren't “as reliable or flexible,” and a number of handicapped persons, who asked for continuation or expansion of the service.

Teresa Breda, executive director of Holistic Approaches to Independent Living (HAIL), said, “In no way do I want Handi Ride to stop.

“But that’s just one segment of transportation services tor the disabled,' she noted, adding that it was “one part of a lot of needs.”

Created on

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Tags

Atlantis Community, HAIL - Holistic Approaches to Independent Living, LA Kimball, paratransit, RTD, Theresa Preda

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