The Denver Post Friday, Dec. 18, 1981

[Headline] Handicapped Will Protest RTD Wheelchair-Lift Ban
By George Lane
Denver Urban Affairs Writer

The board of directors of the Regional Transportation District Thursday made it official – there will be no wheelchair lifts on 89 high-capacity buses expected to be delivered in 1983.

The board actually decided a month ago there would be no lifts on the new buses, but they have been hedging on finalizing that action because of objections voiced by the area’s disabled community.

Following the vote on the lifts, Wade Blank, co-administrator for the Atlantis Community for the disabled and organizer of the protest against the RTD action, told the transit directors that members of the handicapped community view the action as a violation of their human rights and they will respond to that violation Jan. 4.

Blank later said members of the disabled community will be in “training for civil disobedience” between now and Jan. 4. He said beginning Jan. 4, 10 disabled persons in wheelchairs will stage a sit-in in the office of L.A. “Kim” Kimball, RTD’s executive director and general manager.

“Everyday during the month of January, 10 disabled people will be occupying Kimball’s office,” Blank said. They won’t have any able-bodied people with them – and if they’re arrested they will be replaced by 10 more.

At the conclusion of the board meeting, Kimball told the directors that the RTD staff will take steps to try to prevent this action, but he doesn’t think it proper to discuss those steps at this time.

The RTD board during its Nov. 19 meeting voted to save more than a million dollars by not ordering the lifts on the new buses.

The RTD staff recommended this action because they said the lifts are expensive (more than $12,000 per bus) and difficult to maintain. The staff proposal was to use the articulated buses on high ridership bus routes, freeing regular buses with wheelchair lifts to provide better service for the handicapped.

A delegation from the handicapped community objected to this proposal, with arguments that RTD officials had promised several years ago that 50 percent of the district’s bus fleet would be made accessible to wheelchair-bound riders and all new buses would be ordered with lifts.

About 25 disabled persons from Atlantis staged a wheelchair-bound sit-in following the November meeting until Kimball and three board members promised to attempt to get the entire board to reconsider the action.

Thursday’s vote was the outcome of that promise.

Created on

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Tags

Atlantis Community, Board Meeting, civil disobedience, cost, Denver, LA Kimball, lifts on NEW buses, RTD, sit-in, vote, Wade Blank, wheelchair bound, wheelchair lifts

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