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Inside Legislative Update — p. 7
Volume 11, Number 3
A Bad Law — Page 6
SOURCES
March 10, 2000
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“You can’t test courage cautiously.” — Anne Dillard
RESOURCES
March 10, 2000
COMPLAINTS FILED Metro Mobility Charged With Discrimination by Jeff Nygaard
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Michael Doudy and Advocacy Manager Lolly Lijewski Explain their Human Rights Complaints Against Metro Mobility at a Press Conference, March 21.
Ending Phone Fear: Speech to Speech Assists Community
harging discrimination in access to public transportation, 12 individual users have filed state human rights complaints against Metro Mobility. At a press conference held in St. Paul on February 22, users of the local paratransit service stated that the problems posed by denied trip requests, late rides, and poorly-organized and lengthy trips, are seriously affecting the quality of life for people with disabilities in the Twin Cities. Lolly Lijewski, advocacy manager at the Metropolitan Center for Independent Living, stated that the problems have become so severe as to make equal access to public transportation in the Twin Cities “at best, a struggle; at worst, just a dream.”
by Christine Tomlinson
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ommunication technology has exploded in the last 10 years. We have a world at our fingertips. And yet, one of the most common devises of modern communication, the telephone, is a source of fear for many people with speech difficulties. Not only can it be difficult for them to get their message across, it’s hard to even be given that chance. Often the person on the other side of the line will just hang up. A new service from Minnesota Relay is available in Minnesota, and increasingly nationwide, opening up a world of communication and the potential for independence that just hasn’t existed before for many people with speech difficulties. Speech to Speech (STS) builds on the proven concept used by Minnesota Relay in that it provides inter-
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pretive services between the people on either side of the line. But whereas TTY is geared to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, STS targets people with a range of speech difficulties, from a mild stutter to a problem serious enough to warrant a speech synthesizer. Rosemary Schaefer is an enthusiastic supporter of STS. You can hear it in her voice. Before STS, very few people would have had a chance to hear that inflection over the phone. “Sometimes I tried [calling] by myself,” said Schaefer, “and they would hang up on me.” She said she calls businesses as well as friends now, with the service. STS makes it easier for someone who normally didn’t use the phone to handle every day transactions, like arranging doctor’s appointment, doing business,
“It’s great. I have more independence,” says Schaefer “Independence means everything to me because people don’t want to do anything you can’t do for yourself. Because I want to do everything for myself.”
Those filing the complaints with the Minnesota State Department of Human Rights (DHR) state that the problems with Metro Mobility have gotten worse over the past one to two years. The list of problems cited by the complainants echo the long list of complaints reported in the December 1999 edition of Access Press (“Metro Mobility: Users Unhappy, Possible Violation of Federal Law”). Reported problems include persistent difficulties getting to and from work (sometimes severe enough to result in loss of job), difficulty in keeping volunteer and social commitments, and a general inability to plan and carry out normal life activities that involve transportation, such as shopping or attending church.
Sara Meyer, STS coordinator, does outreach for the program. Speech - cont. on p. 4
“We all have our individual issues with how Metro Mobility is doing things,” said
or even making an emergency phone call. But that is just the beginning of the benefit. The call is a three-way conference call, with a trained communication assistant helping to interpret the words of the person with a speech disability, asking for whatever clarification is needed, repeating, or spelling words. With three people involved in the call and interpreting, it is communication firsthand.
rider David Swanson, one of those filing a complaint. “But we all have one common goal: Grabbing the attention of Metro Mobility and saying ‘There’s a problem.’ And the problem is not the drivers, and it’s not the passengers. It’s the system.” The complainants say that two positive outcomes can be expected as a result of their filings. First of all, they hope that the DHR investigation that is carried out as a result of their charges will validate and provide official documentation of their charges. The larger hope is to “draw attention to this issue and to make the point that this is a significant problem which is making people’s lives difficult,” said Lijewski, adding that “We need the decisionmakers to understand how significant the problem is, and we need for them to take action.” The action that advocates are seeking is increased funding for Metro Mobility, up to the level needed to meet the current, and growing, demand. Official statistics from the Metropolitan Council, the agency in charge of Metro Mobility, state that, at present, about 95 percent of requests for rides are granted. This means that about 125 requests are denied each day in the Twin Cities, a rate that Metro Mobility general manager Dave Jacobsen says has been increasing. Activists say that anecdotal evidence suggests the real denial rate is significantly higher than this, and point out that the aging of the Baby Boomers will push demand much higher in coming years. Planning documents recently released by the Metropolitan Council back up this
claim, predicting a 50 percent increase in demand for Metro Mobility service by the year 2020. In 1999 Metro Mobility provided 992,000 rides, which is 38 percent fewer than the 1.6 million rides provided. in 1990. Thus it appears that the number of rides offered is decreasing at the same time that the number of trip denials is increasing. Speakers at the press conference repeatedly stated that the problems basically stem from a lack of funds, which results in shortages of vehicles and drivers. Such shortages are known in the transit business as “capacity constraints.” Lijewski stated that these capacity constraints put Metro Mobility “out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),” pointing out that the law requires a public paratransit system to provide service that is “comparable” to that provided by the regular-route public transit system. Her statement appears to be in accord with a recent ruling by the chief counsel for the Federal Transit Administration, which stated that such capacity constraints are “incompatible with a comparable paratransit system, and the rule will be to prohibit [such constraints].” In other words, the law says that a lack of funding is no excuse for a paratransit system’s service being inferior to a city’s fixedroute service. In at least three other cities around the country, lawsuits have been filed against paratransit services that have trip denial rates similar to that of the Twin Cities. A suit Metro - cont. on p. 9
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