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The Detroit News, Section B Metro/ Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1986
pp. 1b and 6b
News Focus: HANDICAPPED ACCESS

PHOTO News Photo by Howard Kaplan: Three dark uniformed officers encircle the back of an older, thin man in a an old style manual wheelchair (Frank McComb). The officer on the left looks frustrated but determined, the one in the middle looks somewhat worried and the one on right is bending forward as if trying to speak to Frank. Frank looks freaked out. He is wearing a button down shirt and jacket with an ADAPT button.
Caption reads: Handicapped protester arrested at Federal Building in downtown Detroit.

There are two articles side by side. [These articles both are continued on ADAPT 275, but the entire text of both has been included here for easier reading.]

Title of first article: 2nd day of protest brings 37 arrests
By Louis Mieczko and David Grant, News Staff Writers

A group of jailed wheelchair-bound protesters found themselves confronted Tuesday night with the kind of access problems they've been protesting all week.

Thirteen protesters spent the night in a gym at Detroit Police Headquarters after the Wayne County sheriff's department refused to admit them to the county jail.

A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department said the protesters weren’t accepted at the jail because over-crowding forced the county on Friday to stop incarcerating people accused of misdemeanors.

MEANWHILE, UP to 60 people -- most in wheelchairs — descended on the area around Police Headquarters to protest the jailings. They wheeled slowly along the sidewalks around the building, chanting, “Let our people go" and vowed to spend the night.

About 20 police officers stood near the protesters but did not intervene.

The 13 protesters were among 37 people arrested Tuesday, after they blocked one of two entrances to the McNamara federal office building in downtown Detroit. Of the 37 people arrested, 31 were in wheelchairs.

Police said the 13 jailed protesters were being held in lieu of $1,000 cash bail each. The rest of the protesters were released on $100 [personal bond].

BAIL WAS set at $1,000 for the 13, a police spokesman said, because
their arrests Tuesday violated the conditions of their release Monday on $100 personal bond after a similar protest. They had been ordered to avoid further arrest until a court appearance set for Oct. 24, police said.

Their incarceration posed special problems for police. The protesters were being held in a gym at Police Headquarters, which has barred windows and doors and is occasionally used to hold prisoners temporarily when processing of prisoners is backed up at the jail, police said.

The bathrooms in the gym are not equipped for the handicapped and guards were carrying the protesters in the toilets, police said.

The protesters were arrested early in the afternoon. By the time they had been processed and carried into the gym by police, the cafeteria at the Wayne County Jail had closed, police said.

Officers at Police Headquarters, who declined to be named and who wouldn't provide details, said they secured from the county jail meals of roast beef and pot roast with lettuce, salads, ice cream, milk and juice. The protesters ate about 8:30 p.m.


Title of second article: Costly bus lifts are key to dispute
By Louis Mieczko, News Staff Writer

It costs an estimated $20,000 to install wheelchair lifts on a typical city bus, and sometimes they don't work.

That's the crux of a dispute between transit agencies across the country handicapped groups protesting the lack of access to public buses and rail cars.

Americans [sic] Disabled for Accessible Public Transportation (ADAPT) wants every bus and rail car in the county available to wheelchair-bound people, a move which transit officials say would bankrupt most agencies.

HANDICAPPED ADAPT demonstrators clashed this week with the American Public Transit Association (APTA), which is holding its annual convention in Detroit. It was the fourth such confrontation in as many years tied to the APTA conventions.

Dozens of protesters have been arrested since Sunday for interfering with bus traffic and blocking entry to the McNamara Building as they sought to meet with staff members of U.S. Senators Carl Levin and Donald Riegle Jr.

ADAPT has strongly criticized Detroit's Department of Transportation (D-DOT), which serves the city, and praised the suburban Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA).

“We fought for five years in Denver to get wheelchair lifts on all city buses there, and when we won in Denver, we went national," said Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister whose 15-year-old daughter is confined to a wheelchair.

THE PROTEST group, which Blank helped start, is upset with APTA for opposing its goal of wheelchair lifts on all buses. Five years ago, APTA won a lawsuit knocking down a requirement that the devices be installed on buses purchased with federal funds.

Jack R. Gilstrap, APTA executive vice-president, called that too costly.

“In Washington, D.C., $60 million was spent to provide elevators for the ‘subway stations, but only 36 handicapped people use those elevators on a given day," said Gilstrap. “We would much rather let each transit authority develop dial-a-ride and other more cost-effective services.”

Gilstrap said it costs an average of $20,000 a bus to add wheelchair lifts, which often are unreliable.

"THEY’VE NEVER given the wheelchair lift system a chance to work," said Frank A. Clark, chairman of the Detroit-based Coalition for the Human Rights of the Handicapped. “How much does it cost to keep these people at home or in a nursing facility."

A 10 year old Michigan law, one of the most stringent in the United States, requires that all new buses bought with state funds have wheelchair lifts. California is the only other state with such a requirement.

According to the Michigan Department of Transportation, 1,186 of the 2,127 publicly owned buses in the state have wheelchair lifts.

Detroit recently bought 100 buses, but equipped only 20 with wheelchair lifts. The city did not have to follow the state law because it used city funds.

ONLY 196 of the city's 606 buses — about 32 percent —— have the wheelchair equipment. By comparison, 140 of SEMTA’s 202 buses — more than 69 percent — are equipped with the lifts. And 440 of Denver's 760 buses — 58 percent — have the lifts.

Denver's policy is to equip all new buses with the lifts: and the handicapped groups say they consider Denver's system a model that should be adopted by others.

Clark complained that the Detroit lifts often don't work.

“They don't maintain them at all," Clark said. “We'll be going into federal court soon to complain about the situation."

CLARK’S GROUP has a five-year-old lawsuit pending before Federal District Judge Richard Suhrheinrich, charging Detroit with violating U.S. handicap access laws for mass transit, public buildings and walkways. The law requires that public property be accessible to the handicapped.

Clark said members of his group monitor Detroit buses for operating lifts by attempting to board them while in wheelchairs. He said the group annually checks five routes Gratiot, Woodward, Grand River, Crosstown and East Warren — designated by D-DOT for handicapped access.

"But even on those routes," Clark said, "we can't find any that work." By contrast," he said, "SEMTA maintains its lift equipment.

D-DOT officials could not be reached for comment. Mayor Coleman A. Young’s press secretary, Robert Berg, referred questions on Detroit's recent bus purchase in state officials.

NEIL LINCOLN, a spokesman for the Denver system, said it has come a long way quickly. “The lifts still break down," he added, “but not nearly as often."

However, some cities like Chicago and Cleveland have not bought any wheelchair lifts because of the cost and maintenance problems. Spokesmen for those cities said they prefer to develop dial-a-ride and van service for the handicapped. Detroit has no dial-a-ride or van service.

NEWS GRAPHIC:
Handicapped accessible buses

Here's a look at the number of buses that are handicap accessible and average number of daily riders on 6 transit systems:

Wheelchair Lifts:
Baltimore has 100. Chicago has 0, Cleveland has 0. Denver has 440, Detroit has 196, SEMTA has 140.

Total Buses:
Baltimore has 900, Chicago has 2,275, Cleveland has 656, Denver has 760, Detroit has 603, SEMTA has 203.

Daily Riders:
Baltimore has 240,000, Chicago has 1.6 million, Cleveland has 263,400, Denver has 160,000, Detroit has 180,000, SEMTA has 203,000.

(59 small vans for handicapped, all wheelchair accessible.)
end of news graphic.

PHOTO: News Photo by W. Lynn Owens: A man in a jean jacket and hoodie, with bushy dark hair and a beard stands, back to the camera, by the door of a Denver Transit bus. On the steps at the doorway a thin young person is sitting, hands raised to grab on, as this person tries to lift themselves backward up and onto the bus. On the curb in front of these two people sits an empty manual wheelchair. Inside the bus you can see the silhouette of the bus driver sitting in the drivers seat.

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