Rocky Mountain News

Photo by Rocky Mountain News staff photographer David L. Cornwell: An officer pushes a man in a motorized wheelchair [George Roberts] across a wide brick sidewalk, as 2 buses and a car go by on the downtown street. Further up the sidewalk 2 other uniformed officers are standing and even further down, a motorcycle policeman.
Caption reads: Officer Gerald Fitzgibbons pushes George Roberts from scene of Friday's demonstration. Roberts and Renate Rabe were arrested in protest.

Pena staff to mediate RTD tiff with handicapped

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

As handicapped demonstrators blocked Regional Transportation District buses with their wheelchairs for the second straight day Friday, Mayor Federico Pena's staff stepped in to referee a growing dispute over broken wheelchair lifts.

“Perhaps part of the ultimate answer will be to allow the disabled community to be part of the decision-making process," Pena aide Dale Sadler said Friday. “What we're hoping for now is to get everyone to talk."

But Sadler could only watch as Denver police quickly arrested George Roberts and Renate Rabe as the pair rolled their wheelchairs in front of an RTD bus at 17th and California Streets at 12:25 p.m.

Roberts and Rabe were the second and third members of the militant disabled-rights group known as ADAPT to be booked into city jail in two days in connection with obstructing a government agency and blocking traffic.

Mike Auberger of Denver was arrested Thursday at the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Cherry Street when he rolled his wheelchair in front of a bus with a broken lift.

Auberger, who was jailed for about three hours, is scheduled to appear in Denver District Court March 12. He faces $250 in fines.

Roberts and Rabe were released Friday afternoon. Roberts is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 25. Rabe is scheduled to appear March 15.

ADAPT protesters have vowed to block buses at busy intersections throughout the six-county transit district for 80 days — or until the RTD board of directors agrees to spend $753,059 budgeted to fix the balky electrical systems on 303 lift-equipped buses.

RTD has one of the nation's most accessible public transit systems with lifts installed on about half of it's 750-bus fleet.

However, disabled passengers complain that they frequently suffer frostbite in the winter as four or five buses with broken lifts pass them.

They said they have a right as taxpayers to ride regular bus service, rather than plan their lives days in advance around the limited schedules of van services.

“A wheelchair lift on a bus means a disabled person can live wherever he wants and shop wherever he wants," Auberger said. “The (RTD) board doesn't have the right to tell me where to live and shop. They might as well put me back in a nursing home."

The demonstrators offered to cancel Friday's rally in exchange for a meeting with RTD General Manager Ed Colby.

RTD officials said Colby had taken the day off Friday, but agreed to meet with the protesters minutes before their scheduled protest.

That wasn't good enough, ADAPT leaders responded. “Colby had all last night and this morning to respond to us,” said Wade Blank, an able bodied demonstrator who organized the protests. “He was just a little late."

RTD board members will discuss the transit agency's handicapped access policy for the handicapped and its lift repair record Tuesday at a committee meeting.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Tags

access policy, accessible, arrests, blocking buses, broken lifts, court, Ed Colby, George Roberts, handicapped, Mayor Federico Pena, Mike Auberger, militant, nursing home, Renate Rabe Conrad, separate and unequal, Wade Blank

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