Cleveland Plain Dealer p.8

Title: Cincy frees wheelchair access bus activists


CINCINNATI (AP) -- A judge granted early release yesterday to three wheelchair-bound activists who were arrested last week for participating in protests to demand access for handicapped people to public transportation.

Hamilton county Municipal Judge J. Howard Sundermann, Jr. granted a defense lawyers request for early release of Michael Auberger of Denver, George Cooper of Dallas and Bob Kafka of Austin, Texas, who had served six days for criminal trespassing.

Sundermann had sentenced the three to jail terms of 10 days each for their part in last week’s demonstration at the headquarters of Queen City Metro, Cincinnati's public transit agency. Their lawyer, Joni Wiikens, had argued against a jail term, saying the men could have suffered health problems if they were jailed for an extended period.

Before he granted the early release, Sundermann asked the men if they planned to go to another city and repeat the demonstration.

Auberger and Kafka said they planned to return home. Cooper did not reply.

“I think we made our point. The issue won’t go away,” Kafka told reporters after the hearing.

Auberger, Cooper and Kafka are members of Americans’ Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT), a national organization that sponsored last week’s protests outside a downtown Cincinnati hotel where the American Public Transit Association was conducting a regional meeting of bus system executives.

The activists were protesting Queen City Metro’s policy of requiring the handicapped ride on separate vans for the disabled rather than on regular buses. ADAPT members urged the system to fit the buses with wheelchair lifts, but Metro officials said they did not have money to do so because of the Reagan administration’s cuts in federal transit funding.

The vans must be reserved 24 hours in advance. Handicapped people complain that the vans often are booked days in advance, leaving them isolated and unable to get to work or other destinations.

Created on

Thursday 11 July 2013

Posted on

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Tags

24 hour advanced reservation, ADAPT - American Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation, APTA, Bob Kafka, disabled activists, funding, George Cooper, Joni Wilkens, Judge Sundermann, Mike Auberger, President Reagan, protests, public transit, separate and unequal, wheelchair bound, wheelchair lifts

Albums

• Cincinnati, Spring 1986

Visits

2914

Rating score

no rate

Rate this photo