St. Louis Post Dispatch 5-22-88

PHOTO by Ted Dargan/Post Dispatch: A Line of ADAPT people roll down a city street. The first person in line (Mike Auberger) has two long braids and sunglasses. His arms hang on either side of his motorized wheelchair and his ADAPT shirt is somewhat covered by the chest strap on his chair. Next to Mike is a man in a manual wheelchair with curly hair and a beard (Bob Kafka) who has is legs crossed and is wearing the same ADAPT shirt as Mike. Behind them a man (Jerry Eubanks) with no legs in a manual wheelchair is being pushed by a blind man (Frank Lozano) who is smiling. Behind them is another man in a maual wheelchair. Behind him is someone in a motorized wheelchair who is looking off to the side. Behind them is another person in a wheelchair. The photo is grainy so it's hard to make out many details.
Caption reads: Disabled people demonstrating downtown last week for more accessible bus service.

Title: Bus Stop
By Joan Bray Of the Post-Dispatch Staff

ACTIV1STS FROM local advocacy groups were absent from the scores of protesters who took to St. Louis streets last week asserting the rights of the disabled to accessible bus service.

Leaders of the local groups say tactics, not goals, caused them and their members to opt out of the demonstrations.

About 150 people blocked entrances at Union Station and surrounded buses at the Greyhound terminal. A majority of them were in wheelchairs, on crutches or otherwise disabled. And they were out-of-towners. They belong to a loosely woven group, American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit, called ADAPT for short.

The group was protesting the policies of the American Public Transit Association, which was holding a regional meeting at the Omni International Hotel at Union Station.

As a result of ADAPT's civil disobedience, 78 arrests were made, two group court appearances were held and a lawsuit was filed by the group over treatment at the City Workhouse.

We support ADAPT's policies on access 1,000 percent," said Max J. Starkloff. He is executive director here of Paraquad Inc., which advocates rights for the handicapped. "But we have not participated in the demonstrations."

"Our methods are negotiation, public testimony and organized public rallies," Starkloff said. "Our goals ore the same" as ADAPT's.

Both the local activists and ADAPT want the transit association to push for installing a wheelchair lift on every bus in the country. They see 100 percent accessibility as a civil right.

Rut the transit association notes in a written statement that no such accessibility is required by the Constitution, the Congress or the courts.

It says the number of lifts on buses has increased to 30 percent now from 11 percent in 1981. In that same period, the administration of President Ronald Reagan has slashed the federal transit program's budget by 47 percent, the association says.

The association says each local transportation agency should be allowed to determine how it will provide access for the disabled. Special services — like the Call-A-Ride service operated by the Bi-State Development Agency — may work better than lift-equipped buses in some areas, the association says.

Local groups' methods for effecting change include working within the system. Starkloff serves on Bi-State's committee on transit for the elderly and disabled. The chairman of that committee, Fred Cowell, is executive director of the Gateway chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Bi-State has made a commitment to install wheelchair lifts on all its buses, Cowell said. But the committee wants the agency's board of directors to adopt a policy stating it will do so.

"We know that the buses are here to stay," Cowell said. "If or when budget cuts come, special services such as Call-A-Ride would be the first to go."

Cowell and Starkloff said they feared that between the bureaucracy and the protests, the primary point — the need for equal transportation — was being missed.

"A disabled person is not unlike any other person," Cowell said. Disabled people need to get to their jobs, to medical care and to social engagements, be said. "There is absolutely no difference in their need to get around," he said.

Starkloff noted that the cost of a van equipped for a wheelchair — a minimum of about $20,000 — was prohibitive for most people. But the disabled should not have to wait at a bus stop on the chance that the next bus may be equipped with a lift, be said. Nor should they have to plan their trips 24 hours in advance, as Call-A-Ride requires, he said.

Cowell said, "The main thing the (BI-State) committee has been trying to do is develop a deepening concern for services for the disabled and elderly."

The fact that the committee has been successful in persuading Bi-State to buy only buses with lifts prevented the agency from bearing the brunt of ADAPT's effort here, one of the protest leaders said.

The Rev. Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister from Denver, is a co-director of ADAPT. He has a daughter who is disabled.

Two months ago, representatives of ADAPT met with State officials in preparation for their trip here and learned of the agency's commitment to lifts, Blank said.

As a result, ADAPT aimed its protests at the transit association's meeting and Greyhound Bus Lines. Greyhound is bidding on local routes in some metropolitan areas — Dallas, for one, Blank said. But it does not equip its buses with lifts, he said.

A spokesman for Greyhound said last week that, instead, it provided a free ticket for a companion for a disabled traveler.

Regarding the transit meeting, Blank said: "Our whole intent is to go after people who are so much wrapped up in the system that they insulate themselves from the issue. They have to live and breathe (ADAPT's protests) when they go to these conventions."
Demonstrators here represented some of ADAPTs 33 chapters across the country, Blank said. He said his headquarters was with a group in Denver called the Atlantis Community, which moves disabled people out of nursing homes into independent living arrangements. Funding comes primarily from church donations and foundation grants, he said.

From 1978 to 1981, ADAPT protested — and "caused a major disruption" — in Denver every month, Blank said. In 1982, the buses there became 100 percent equipped with lifts, he noted.

ADAPT has since protested in all the cities where the transit association has met and where it has been invited by other activists, for a total of about 15 cities, Blank said. [unreadable] ...only buses with lifts, he said. Blank said the failure of local groups to join ADAPT's protests did not weaken the cause.

Another success that ADAPT points to is a ruling by a federal Judge in Philadelphia in January striking down a regulation of the US. Department of Transportation that allows transit authorities to spend only 3 percent of their budgets on the disabled.

The Judge postponed the effect of the ruling while the Justice Department appeals it.

Three percent of Bi-State's budget for the current fiscal year Is $2.6 million, said Rosemary Covington, an agency official who works with the advisory committee. But Bi-State will spend only $1 million because of delays in getting bids on new buses and in expanding the Call-A-Ride service.

"We are having budget problems, but that wasn't the reason" the money wasn't spent, Covington said.

The remaining $1.6 million does not roll over to the fiscal year that begins July 1, she said.

She said that by early next year, Bi-State expected that 221 of its fleet of about 700 buses will be equipped with lifts, 12 of the more than 120 routes will be operated entirely with lift-equipped buses, the Call-A-Ride service will include all of St. Louis County and the city and a voucher system will be available for back-up cab service.

Equipping all the agency's buses with lifts will take six to seven years, Covington said. Meanwhile the committee will help evaluate the services for the disabled, she said.

"If ridership doesn't materialize" on the buses with lifts or "if it costs thousands or millions (of dollars) to maintain them, that will enter into the decision making," Covington said.

Bi-State is training drivers how to use the lifts and plans to promote and advertise the service heavily, she said.